Yahoo aims to keep users connected through personalized experiences across devices. This creates value for advertisers by connecting them with engaged audiences. Yahoo began embracing agile in 2004 through grassroots efforts and has experimented with various approaches over 8 years. The Agile and Scrum Adoption Program focuses on facilitating agile adoption across Yahoo in a framework-agnostic, results-oriented way. Key to scaling agile at Yahoo has been establishing credibility by solving problems rather than making promises, creating "beachheads" of success, and showing real results. Metrics are used strategically to measure effectiveness, efficiency, adoption, and readiness over time. The ultimate goal is for agile practices to become self-sustaining based on results

1. Tathagat Varma, Sr. Director, Yahoo! India

2. Yahoo! is focused on making the world's daily
habits more inspiring and entertaining. By
creating highly personalized experiences for our
users, we keep people connected to what matters
most to them, across devices and around the
world. In turn, we create value for advertisers by
connecting them with the audiences that build
their businesses.

3. Our Context
• Consumer Internet
• Critical success factors
– Innovation
– Speed
– UX
• Agility is more about
results than beliefs,
labels or rituals

4. Yahoo!’s Agile Journey…
• Jeff Sutherland presented a talk @ Yahoo! and to
the leadership team in an offsite in Nov 2004.
• Started embracing Agile in 2004 with grassroot
effort (bottoms up)
• Over these 8 years multiple effort along with
various approaches are experimented within
Yahoo!
• Few teams developed and excelled in agile
methodologies and now helping out other teams
scale agile in the organization.

5. Agile and Scrum Adoption Program
(“ASAP”)
Facilitate Focus Framework
• center- • “be • label-
wide agile” agnostic,
agile rather but result-
adoption than “do oriented
agile”

6. What is the most important part in
these two machines?
“The Brakes!!!”
They let you go faster…

7. The “ASAP” journey
Self-
Sustaining
Scaling
Up • 2012-2014
Establish
Credibility • 2011-2013
• 2010-2012

8. Establish credibility
• Don’t ‘sell’ agile. Solve specific problem(s).
• Don’t boil the ocean. Create beachheads.
• Don’t make wild promises. Show real results.
• ROI ≠ $$$ Saved. ROI = $$$ Earned.

9. Scaling Up
Community
Internal community of Org Structure
practitioners and
enthusiasts Roles and Training
Expert talk series – responsibilities
bridge the gap between Goal-setting Intact team training Process
theory and practice
Performance Role-specific training
External community management Product Development
connect Specialized Coaching
Process
Compensation and Executive Briefings
Unconferencing rewards Common Metrics
Lean Coffee Strategy
Professional
Development Tools

10. Metrics Strategy
“Effectiveness”
“Efficiency”
“Adoption”
“Readiness”

11. Decoding the ‘Stages’
Effectiveness: team has a highly effective closed-loop process with
ability to make quick course-corrections and must now align its
performance more clearly to it goals by constantly reviewing its current
performance against the planned performance of the product against customer's
external definition of performance. This stage is the basic foundation for
continuous improvement!
Efficiency: team starts measuring quantitative data to plan its goals, track
its progress, improve its process efficiency and eventually to plan its future
performance
Adoption: team (includes PO and SM) starts the basic closed-loop
management, i.e. a PDCA cycle in which the entire team participates and there
are as many frequent checkpoints in the team and the development process
as required to identify problems and take corrective actions as early as
possible
Readiness: team is interested to adopt some form of agile development and
shows its commitment by taking the first few steps towards it, which means the
basic building blocks are in place

12. From ‘efficiency’ to ‘effectiveness’

13. ASAP Dashboard

14. Self-Sustaining
• Starting-up is easy, sustaining is tough,
continuous improvement is toughest!
• Strength of process and transformation
is only tested operating in ‘real world’
• Practices that bring results are likely to
sustain over any ‘prescription’
• Achieving ‘effective’ state is key to
become self-sustaining

15. What are we learning?
• Credibility is extremely important
• Scaling up ≠ 100% Adoption
• Results talk louder than intent!

16. It’s not about the method!
A photographer went to a
socialite party in New York.
As he entered the front door,
the host said ‘I love your
pictures – they’re wonderful;
you must have a fantastic
camera.’
He said nothing until dinner
was finished, then: ‘That was
a wonderful dinner; you must
have a terrific stove.’
– Sam Haskins
h"p://www.haskins.com/ImageShop/Image_Shop_60s/60s_Books_A.Image_01.html

17. References
• The ASAP Journey – Tathagat Varma,
Scrum Bangalore Meetup, 2012
• Managing Large-Scale Agile
Transformation – Tathagat Varma, APMG
Showcase, 2012

18. Thanks!
Tathagat@yahoo-inc.com