How does Agile work at scale? And what business benefits can Agile project management methodologies provide within large organisations? Matt Cheung, Director at Clarasys, a global consultancy firm, shares his Agile expertise and experience.

1. Scaling agile effectively in business
systems
Matt Cheung

2. Outcomes
RegionalCo
Global releases
every 3 months
Back to
Square one
GlobalCo
Global releases
every 7 weeks
Business objectives
& benefits achieved

3. RegionalCo locations
Company:
$1.4bn turnover
3,500 staff
Project:
1,200 business users
15 countries

4. GlobalCo locations
Company:
$14bn turnover
53,000 staff
Project:
4,000 business users
42 countries

5. RegionalCo – History and architecture
• Country specific
architecture developed
through acquisition
• Sunk cost of £12m
• Yearly budget of £8m
• 6 standard systems
• 10 slightly different
instances of a invoicing
system

6. GlobalCo – History and architecture
• Architecture developed
through acquisition
• Sunk cost of £100m
• Yearly budget of £40m
• 11 standard systems
• 42 slightly different
instances of a
mainframe system

7. So?

9. Team distribution and
vendor responsibilities
• 3 key locations/countries
• Time difference +2 hours
• c. 70 staff
• Three vendors, 20+ contractors
• Independent management
• No accountability with vendors for
individual phases/technologies

10. Team distribution and
vendor responsibilities
•7 key locations across 5
countries
•Time difference +/- 7hours
•c. 250 staff
•5 vendors, 20 contractors
•Independent management
•Each vendor accountable for
a technology or a phase

12. Bus routes = Business areas
Stops = Releases
Commuters = Business users

14. Sunshine path

15. Example

17. Conclusions
Three critical success factors
• Roadmap & incremental deployment
• Sunshine path and process map – story relationship
• Governance structure and team accountabilities
What could we have done better?
• A really early small release

18. Questions?

19. Matt Cheung
Director
+44 (0) 7720 274 347
matt.cheung@clarasys.com
www.clarasys.com