Downloaded 10 times
Uploaded byBrad Bennett
Last How a large business sprints like an agile start up v16
1. Australian Unity is a large organization that provides home care, retirement communities, health insurance and other services to over 1 million customers. They were experiencing slow delivery of business value through traditional waterfall methods. 2. They decided to try adopting agile practices and formed empowered cross-functional teams to rapidly develop and release solutions using AWS. This resulted in a 70% improvement in delivery speed and higher quality solutions. 3. As agile adoption grew within Australian Unity, new challenges emerged around scaling infrastructure to support the increased release velocity and coordinating with non-agile teams. They addressed this by implementing an agile framework, governance, and coaching to guide enterprise-wide transformation while maintaining control and oversight.
More Related Content
Similar to Last How a large business sprints like an agile start up v16
Last How a large business sprints like an agile start up v16
- 2. IntroductionWho are thesefellows Brad Bennett Enterprise Agile Coach @EPiCAgileBrad Greg Collins Development Manager @gregcollins Kevin Hall Technical Lead
- 3.
- 4.
- 5. Our JourneyBuild thedelivery rhythm at Australian Unity
- 6. 53,000 home careclients 19 retirement communities 2,110 independent living units 609 operational aged care beds 7 major retirement projects in development including $1.1bn Herston Quarter in Brisbane Who is Australian Unity? 176 Financial advisers $9.5bn in funds under management, administration and advice Over 200,000 health insurance policy holders 6 dental centres with over 61,000 patient visits in FY16 Health Retail Corporate Dental Allied Health 1,000,000 customers More than 7,000 employees Wealth InvestmentsBanking Retirement HomecareLiving "Our ambition is to enable millions to enjoy well being "
- 7. “This is astory about how Australian Unity has seen a 70% speed improvement in delivering business value when following business agility practices and leveraging AWS.”
- 8. What we Achieved It’sthe outcomes that really count More Ideas Higher Quality Cost Avoidance Faster Scalable Solutions 70% 65% 30% 68%
- 9. How Startups thinkSurvivalMode How do we survive! How can we get customers? VISION & STRATGY Leaders and team are connected. GOVERNANCE & PLANNING Happens culturally over coffee, foosball & beer DELIVERY & CHANGE Small, iterative & fast
- 10. How Enterprise Think VISION& STRATGY Vision is aligned at executive level, departments may have different goals and targets GOVERNANCE & PLANNING Formal rules and processes which must be followed DELIVERY & CHANGE Large and Complex How can we protect our brand? How can we protect what we have? Protection Mode
- 11. The Problem: Wetried to implement agile, but the program reverted to waterfall. The CIO wanted to try again …. Question: What should we do?
- 12. Find a sponsor…whowas willing to support a different way of working. Find a team…who had a desire to go faster and was being constrained by the existing processes.
- 13. The Problem: Wedid not have detailed requirements to comply with the existing processes Question: What should we do?
- 14. 1 Found awilling Business partner, chose a pilot project Built good, empowered, cross functional teams Started developing our Agile development standards Started coaching our Agile framework – teams, ceremonies, walls 2 3 4 5 Released regularly 6 We developed a capability that delivers value faster Leveraged AWS and established automated testing Build Agile Team
- 15. The Problem: Theteam was performing well and wanted to stay together, they needed to secure funding quickly to avoid standing down the team. Question: What should we do?
- 16. Agile Business Case Thenew faster way of working One Page Agile Business Case - Roadmap Planning - Estimation - Prioritisation - Return On Investment - Change Impact Started an Agile Delivery Framework - Roles & Responsibility - Governance - Team Health 1 2
- 17. The constraint moved:With value being delivered faster, releases became our constraint. Question: What should we do?
- 18. New Challenges Scale becamea hurdle • High priority business ideas are coming through faster • Environments no longer scale with speed of delivery • Everything that was slow became painfully apparent Delivery Speed Infrastructure Speed Constraints
- 19. 1. Build anabstract pattern 2. Tagging Governance • Project Manager (accountable for cost) • Cost Centre • Shut down times 3. Infrastructure as code • Use cloud as cloud Foundations Set it up right
- 20. 1. Security first •There are no minor breaches 2. Stay consistent • With your on premise technology 3. Build Testing environments • As you would Production Security Lock it down
- 21. 1. Manage changeand access 2. Spending 3. Architectural principles Governance Track everything
- 22. OLD way NEW way Faster OurTechnical Results AWS in the real world 68%
- 23. The constraint moved:Now we were delivering faster, we had influx of projects from the business. Question: What should we do?
- 24. What’s the Problem? Theoryof constraints “Busy is not success. Busy is an anti pattern to agility” Ideas DeliveryFeasibility Slow Over Loaded Very Very Busy
- 25. QUARTER 1 QUARTER2 QUARTER 3 QUARTER 4 Agile Strategic Planning We made our business objectives visible • Product Pitching • Concept Canvas • Product Pitching • Concept Canvas • Product Pitching • Concept Canvas • Product Pitching • Concept Canvas 1 Find a willing business partner Prioritisation Repeat quarterly 2 3 Initiative Pitching 4 5 Visible Strategic Planning Wall
- 26. What’s the Solution? Measureso you can optimise your system There is now flexibility to add new ideas into the queue Concept to Cash Velocity Cycle Time Know thy Constraint
- 27. The Problem: Thebusiness began widely adopting Agile Ways of Working. The organisation needed assurance. Question: Should companies control agile bottom up adoption?
- 28. Build an AgileFramework The new faster way of working Rolled Out Agile Delivery Framework - Roles & Responsibility - Governance - Team Health 1 2 3 Enterprise Agile Coaching Stakeholder & Executive Reporting
- 29. Cultural Glue Keeping leadersconnected and delivery visible 1 Portfolio Kanban Scrum Of Scrums Big Room Planning Product Owner Guilds, Community of Practices Project Showcases 2 3 4 5
- 30. The constraint hasmoved again. Agile teams are bumping up against non-agile teams which is slowing the delivery of value. Question: What should we do now?
- 31. How a Large BusinessSprints like an Agile Start Up…
- 32. How a Large BusinessSprints like an Agile Start Up… …without losing the governance of the enterprise
- 33. How a LargeBusiness enables communication, flexibility & choice… …without losing the governance of the enterprise
Editor's Notes
- #3 C2C – Brad High level explanation It takes 2 years for enterprises to ideate, fund, and deliver ….. This is pretty depressing …. But is the sad reality GC If you are sitting there thinking you have delivered a major initiative in say 6 months, you probably have, however your only considering the deliver time. The amount of time I have heard an exec say it took us 5 years to deliver that idea, unfortunately we only had it in delivery for
- #7 We have been helping people for 175 years Non-profit Lot’s of interesting domains Helping people to Thrive for more than a 175 years in Health, Wealth and Living We are a much bigger company than people realise In the last 12 months we have grown by more than 4,000 people We where part of the group that created Australia Day Manchester Building history – Built to support AU members stay employed
- #8 Either
- #10 Your lean cause your poor Agile to survive
- #11 Not Lean, not poor Not agile, not surviving Risk & process is so we don’t lose what we already have Governance = Risk & Process Driven
- #13 CHANGE THE WORDING SO YOU DON’T GET A DOUBLE MEANING AROUND THE WORD ‘DEMAND’ We ran a pilot agile team: 6 months We changed our strategy planning cycle 6 months Glued it together - 6 months
- #15 GC 1-6 It’s worthwhile calling out that we did this 2014 and it did not stick. The team performed but it was unsupported by rigidity in the surrounding teams BB Team level agile, everyone doing this This is NOT a game changer
- #17 BB 1. Business Case 1-2 weeks to prepare … cheaper GC 4 - Coaching - Cultural alignment Agile is about lots of Data We couldn’t show these reports if we didn’t have Agile disciplined agile at a Team level Agile is about change and you can’t make decisions if you don’t have any factual data to make it off
- #20 Infrastructure as code
- #21 Infrastructure as code
- #22 Infrastructure as code
- #25 MAJOR SLIDE You come to work and there is some much on you don’t get anything done!! Your going from meeting to meeting or conversation to conversation, solutions haven’t been locked down Scope is growing Budget is shrinking LETS WILL TELL YOU HOW THIS HAPPENS Ideas Horizon Feasibility Planning Delivery Work IN PRACTICE THIS SHOULD WORK. THE PROBLEM IS IT DOES NOT ALL FIT. Companies know this, so what do they do …. they PUSH. IF WE PUSH HARDER WE CAN MAKE IT WORK …. The hero mentality Theory of Constraints There are constraints in all systems, it’s the The slowest part of the system Ideas, feasibility, design, BA, Developer, test or deploy The system becomes overloaded If you plan BIG you attempt to execute BIG, however the system has constraints and gets jammed. Think of a freeway ….. - At 60% capacity is hit and a traffic jams begin - Freeways can’t handle 100% capacity …. This is obvious - Its actually worse than this, cause your funnel is never empty - you think you can do many things at once, you cant - Context switching has a 20% COST GC - EXAMPLE We had a team releasing to market. The team velocity was not what we needed to deliver, so we did what everyone does ….. We allocated more dev’s But our velocity did not improve When we looked into the constraint we realised that he user stories had not been approved by the PO. The CONSTRAINT we had was actually BA’s When we allocated more BA’s the stories became tighter and the team velocity increased THIS IS WHAT THIS ENTIRE PRESENTATION IS ABOUT Enterprises, Projects and People all think they can do LOADS AND LOADS of things…. We are overly optimistic But we do not allocate the time to think deeply, to make better solution, to do a better job We don’t allocate any time in context switching. Context switching The issue is that everyone is trying to do too much Busy is not success !
- #26 MAJOR SLIDE - Of the back of Pilot Project the value derived was clearly seen. - We acknowledged there where too many ideas. - We applied Agile Strat Planning THIS IS THE MECHANISM WE PUT IN PLACE TO ALLOW OUR STRATEGY FLEXIBIITILUTY We built Dragons Den: Leaders must PITCH ideas The are rated & prioritised on agreed criteria We got clear on your priorities EXAMPLE. This is a process where leaders self selected into rating groups Customer Experience Enablement Return On Investment CEO Ace Card THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO GET FUNDING Strategic Planning is the oxygen which feeds team level agile.
- #27 If you want to get faster, get, focused If you work on less, you WILL get a lot faster. Systems also have the flexibility to introduce change ie. NEW BLACK OPS We want to remove the behavior of black ops. Everyone has constraints ….. know your constraints, know your capacity. EXAMPLES Agile Pilot Team delivery was reduced from 12 months down to 3 months releases We did not deliver the end product any faster But we delivered parts of it faster And then we changed our minds on what features where important
- #29 BB 1. Business Case 1-2 weeks to prepare … cheaper GC 4 - Coaching - Cultural alignment Agile is about lots of Data We couldn’t show these reports if we didn’t have Agile disciplined agile at a Team level Agile is about change and you can’t make decisions if you don’t have any factual data to make it off
- #30 BB Weekly to Fortnight ceremonies Cross over of all
- #32 People often make statements but mean sometthing else, like your wife.s
- #34 connected and in communication… Agile is the ability to communicate and change direction
- #37 C2C – Brad High level explanation It takes 2 years for enterprises to ideate, fund, and deliver ….. This is pretty depressing …. But is the sad reality GC If you are sitting there thinking you have delivered a major initiative in say 6 months, you probably have, however your only considering the deliver time. The amount of time I have heard an exec say it took us 5 years to deliver that idea, unfortunately we only had it in delivery for
- #38 This is every enterprise …that I have evert worked in
- #39 This is every enterprise …that I have evert worked in
- #40 GC Estimates are a guess…Delivery speed is the truth. You aren’t blowing out… You’re aligning with the truth Estimates are guess, they are not the reality To find out the reality you need to do the project Enterprises don’t want to hear this, they want certainty. They want to blame the people, the teams, the technology, Management think “Why don’t we just get better people”
- #41 Team level agile is NOT agility, everyone is doing team agility Business Agility only happens when leaders adopt agile practices themselves. You can’t rely on faster Teams to deliver faster outcomes if you are not feeding the pipe adequately or stuffing it with things that are too BIG. “Busy is not success, Busy is an Anti-Pattern” Agile gives us choice Strategic Planning: Establish Dragons Den every quarter Use physical walls to define priorities Stop work that is NOT a priority There must NOT be any other way to get funding Governance: Implement 1 page business case It is the leaders responsibility to build a fast and flexible system Delivery: Try and use technical tools people are already familiar with Be aware of your audience/department and their skills