Cerner implemented a "Big Bang" rollout of Agile development across the entire organization in 2010 after initial pilots were successful. The rollout included training and coaching for all development teams, establishing an Agile Center of Excellence, implementing new development tools and processes, and managing expectations both internally and with clients. The goal was to improve speed to market, quality, and return on investment by transitioning from a rigid waterfall process to Agile.

1. Big Bang Agile Roll-out
Cerner’s Journey from Pilot to Mass Adoption
Matt Anderson, PMP, PMI-ACP
Director, Program Management
February 21, 2012

2. Objectives
Provide strategies for doing a Big Bang Agile roll-out
Provide foundation for a successful plan
Help avoid potential pitfalls
Create a sustainable model
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 1

3. Cerner Corporation
Started in 1979, based in Kansas City, MO
Leading global supplier of healthcare solutions, healthcare
devices and related services
Focus on creating a safer and more efficient healthcare system
Key solutions include:
• Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE)
• Electronic Medical Records (EMR)
• Personal Health Records (PHR)
Clients in 25 countries serving more than 9000 unique facilities
Hospitals
Physician Practices
Retail Pharmacies
NASDAQ – CERN
$2.2B revenues in 2011
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 2

4. Cerner Development Profile
7 Global Development offices
England, Ireland, France, India, US (MO, VA, CA)
Majority of development in Kansas City, MO and Bangalore, India
70+ unique solutions
1600+ associates on development teams
Core technologies
Java, C++, C#, VB6, JavaScript, iOS, ObjectiveC, HTML5
Oracle
AIX, Linux, Windows Server
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 3

5. Migration to Agile
Cerner’s Journey

6. Cerner’s Challenges to Agile
FDA regulated healthcare environment
Had to prove we could be Agile and meet compliance
FDA, CE Mark, ISO guidelines perceived as very waterfall centric
Culture change
Command and control style – just get it done
Development Ecosystems
Some legacy code still on Visual Studio 6 so difficult to fully adopt
in legacy ecosystems
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 5

7. Why Agile?
Business
Speed to Market
• Major innovations took an average of 30 months from concept to client
adoption
• Retain market leadership
Return on Investment
• Too many projects adopted at only a small subset of client base –
“Shelfware”
Improve Quality
• Develop the Right Solution
• Develop the Solution Right
Support “Edge” teams
• Core solutions released together, but “edge” teams unnecessarily held
up by inflexible methodology
 Analogous to core web browser versus plug-in for browser
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 6

8. Grassroots Movement
September 2008
Several teams express frustration with rigid process
• Cerner culture is “kill a snake”, so alternatives sought
Recommendations to “look into agile” as a possibility from a couple
engineers
• General feeling was that due to FDA regulation, it could not happen
Q4 2008
Small group of teams begin discussions to start unofficial agile
pilots
January 2009
5 teams kick-off pilots with minimal support
Group meets together weekly to discuss progress and share ideas
April 2009
Development executives hear about pilots and are exposed to the
positive results
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 7

9. Top Down Support
July 2009
CEO Neal Patterson states intention to “Blow up the Waterfall” to entire
company
• Based on positive results of pilots
Q3-Q4 2009
Pilot program expanded to 8 teams and several key initiatives to determine if it
could scale
High executive visibility
Tooling pilots to plan for scale
Education provider pilots held
FDA and other regulatory impacts mitigated
Jan 2010
Key business leaders trained in Agile principles
March 2010
Plan and budget presented for a planned incremental training and coaching
roll-out
After reviewing options, decision from Senior VP of Engineering to go big bang
instead of incremental – “Go fast”
Back to the planning board…
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 8

10. Big Bang Plan Elements
Agile Center of Excellence
Education and Coaching
Development Process
Tooling
Ecosystem
Metrics
Partnerships
Manage Expectations
Engineering
Rest of Cerner
Clients
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 9

11. Agile Center of Excellence
Created a virtual center for “all things agile”
Web 2.0 technologies
One stop shop for Agile questions, coaching requests and general
information
Accountable for Agile success
Named “Agile Champions” from pilot teams
Respected engineering associates who could speak “Agile” and
“Cerner”
Training
Coaching
Community participation
Manage vendor relationships and budget
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 10

12. 2010 Agile Training/Coaching Plan
Real-time learning with team’s actual projects, goals, and members
Agile
Essentials Agile Agile Agile
Agile Boot Camp
Session / Coaching Coaching Coaching
Recording
(2.5 days)
(1-2 hrs) (1-2 hrs) (1-2 hrs)
(2 hrs)
Agile Center of Excellence available throughout
Train the Trainer model with 50% External / 50% Internal; KC and India
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 11

13. Cerner 2010 Agile Timeline
26-Apr-10
27-Jan-10 Agile Essentials Recorded
Core Leadership Training Agile Center of Excellence Launched
26-Apr-10 - 10-Sep-10
Agile Boot Camp
Feb-10 Mar-10 Apr-10 May-10 Jun-10 Jul-10 Aug-10 Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10
Jan-10 Jan-11
1600 development team associates trained in less than 5
months
All Global development offices included
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 12

14. Development Process Update Plan
Major overhaul to support Agile
Worked closely with FDA, ISO and other regulatory groups to
reinterpret regulations from an Agile mindset
Determined where “additional process” would be required from
Agile applications in other industries
Audits
Initial internal audits performed on pilot teams to find potential gaps
Early roll-out of planned changes (March 2010)
Follow-up internal audit of pilot teams prior to official launch
Official launch July 1, 2010
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15. Tooling
Ecosystem
Defined approved tools and guidelines for new tooling
Created education and “brown bag” discussions to promote
appropriate usage
Metrics
Set expectations that they would significantly change
Eliminated most existing metrics in favor of a few key metrics
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 14

16. Partnerships
Develop vendor relationships to build and supplement
internal expertise
Tooling
Training
Coaching
Learning from other’s experience is significantly less
expensive in the long-term
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17. Setting Expectations
Create training materials for each audience
Development and Business executives
C-level Executives
Clients
Tailor Agile message to support their goals
Follow-up with results to maintain trust
Use terms they understand
• “Capability” versus “Epic”
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 16

18. Slide for Executives –
Agile Executive
Establish, maintain and communicate vision
Enable and trust teams to deliver
Empower and inspire Agile Business Unit teams
Provide ongoing solution input and direction ahead of
iteration planning
Prioritize, Adapt and Embrace
Servant Leader
Remove Obstacles
Identified by the teams
Obstacles not seen by the teams
Protect the high performing teams
Measure what is needed
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 17

19. Slide for C-Level Executives –
Cerner Adoption Measurements
Training Records
Coaching Assessments
Quarterly Team Assessment
Baseline at Boot Camp
Measurement of Success Criteria
Speed to Market
Client Adoption
Team Performance
Delivery against commitments
Client Demos
Lead Time
Time from Investment to Adoption
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20. Slide for Clients –
Success Measures
Value & Experience
Client Interest
Client benefits quantification
User Experience & Usability
Client Adoption
Time to put major release into production
Time to activate capabilities into production
Solution Quality
Client Found Defects
Ratio Client Found vs Release Validation Defects
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 19

21. Slide for Clients –
Key Client Responsibilities
Engage with Cerner ABUs regularly to provide feedback
As a Development Partner…
Work with the ABU and Development teams to create prioritized list
of Capabilities
Attend client demos at the end of each development iteration
Provide regular feedback on progress and ensure proper priority
Test Capabilities and take them live as soon as they are available
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 20

22. Results – Review Cerner’s Drivers
Business
Speed to Market
• Major innovations took an average of 30 months from concept to client
adoption
• Retain market leadership
Return on Investment
• Too many projects adopted at only a small subset of client base –
“Shelfware”
Improve Quality
• Develop the Right Solution
• Develop the Solution Right
Support “Edge” teams
• Core solutions released together, but “edge” teams unnecessarily held
up by inflexible methodology
 Analogous to core web browser versus plug-in for browser
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 21

23. Results
Business
Average client adoption time reduced from 30 -> 10 months
Return on Investment – virtually eliminated “shelfware”
• Direct increased by 429%
• Indirect increased by 1000%
Improved productivity by 24%
Development costs reduced by 14%
Quality improved by 6%
Independent process and release for “edge” teams enabled by agile
principles
Culture
“Agile” and “Lean” used in everyday vernacular (most of the time
correctly)
Leaders challenge each other to be more servant leaders in executive
sessions
• Some “command and control” tendencies surface from time to time, but
other leaders are the check and balance
Associate attrition for satisfaction issues reduced by 80%
95%+ adoption by development teams (2000+ associates)
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 22

24. Keys to Cerner’s Success
Strong Grassroots and Top Down support
Engineering momentum
Vision and funding
Connected to key associates within organization early in
the process
Mavens* – Distinguished Engineers, PMO
Connectors* – key pilot teams, PMO
Associates with high trust within organization
Leveraged current culture to change future culture
Build on the past, don’t “throw it under the bus”
Excellent Training Partner
Business driven implementation
Agile to “win the game” not just to be Agile
* - “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 23

25. Drawbacks from Big Bang
Coaching post training
Large scale enabled only 3 visits per team and some teams fell into
less than optimal practices
• Some teams “adapted” before “adopting” so they are not consistently
getting the results
• Some key items to Agile have lower adoption
 Burndown charts
 Physical tasks board (favor electronic tooling instead)
• Team “depth” in Agile principles is shallower on teams that had only the
minimal recommended coaching
Hiding behind the tool
Early electronic adoption over physical led to some less effective
practices
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 24

26. 2012 and Beyond
Development course offerings expanded
Lean Software Development
Scrum to Lean Transition
Coaching, coaching, coaching
Lean Portfolio Management
Continue to drive down adoption timelines
Focus on value stream and find and eliminate bottlenecks
Moving Agile/Lean into non-development applications
Lean Process Improvement
• Entire organizations are having all their associates trained
Culture change continued
2012 Corporate Core Values – across all 10,000+ associates
• Flawless – personal commitment
• Empowered – freedom to do the right thing
• Value – satisfying a need, exceptionally
© 2011 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner. 25

27. Additional Topics
Questions and Answers