This document summarizes the agile transition of a 14-member development team for an international e-commerce startup. The transition involved 4 main steps: 1) Establishing scrum roles and ceremonies like daily standups; 2) Implementing product roadmapping and tracking; 3) Splitting the large team into 4 smaller feature teams; 4) Integrating testing into the sprint process. The results of the transition included better visibility, tracking of progress, and collaboration within the team.

1. Agile Transition on
International Web ERP Startup
with 14 Team Members
Web Solutions d.o.o.
Biggest Drupal Agency in Croatia

2. 3.
Agile Transition
Results
2.
Transition to
Agile
1.
Product &
Project
Introduction
TOPICS:

3. PRODUCT & PROJECT INTRO
1

4. GoSend.com – Product Intro
GoSend.com is international e-commerce,
marketing and logistics company that
enables customers around the world to
buy from top US retailers and save up to
80% on international shipping costs
It is spin-off company of Transit Systems
from Philadelphia USA.

5. Project Facts
• Highly complex feature set -> 110 features 8 modules
• Big team -> 10-14 team members (plus 2 off-site members)
• 19 sprints of development
• 120 000+ lines of code with 15+ third party Internet services used
• 9 months of development time
• Web site was successfully lunched in Sep 2015 (Release 1.0)

6. TRANSFORMATION TO AGILE
2

7. Project Timeline And Transition To Agile
Project Issues:
o Changing requirements
o Low team collaboration
due to team size
o Possible delay in
deliverables
Project Start
(Jan 2015)
Agile Transformation
(May 2015)
R1.5 Done
(Oct 2015)
Step 1
Team Focus
with Scrum
Roles and
Ceremonies Step 2
Product
Roadmapping
and Tracking
Step 3
Splitting
Team Into
into 4 Feature
Teams
Step 4
Release
Testing & QA
SPRINT 11 SPRINT 12 SPRINT 18. . . . . . SPRINT 17

8. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 1 – TEAM FOCUS WITH SCRUM
Clear Roles and Sprint Meetings
Introduced 2 week sprints
with following ceremoniess:
Team Focus
Better
Collaboration
Continuous
Improvements
Outcome:

9. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 1 - TEAM FOCUS WITH SCRUM
Daily Standup Synch Meetings using Team (KANBAN) Table

10. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 1 - TEAM FOCUS WITH SCRUM
Daily Standup Synch Meetings using Team (KANBAN) Table

11. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 1 - TEAM FOCUS WITH SCRUM
Daily Sync Meetings using Team (KANBAN) Table
Name tags for each
Story
Sprint Timeline
(for daily review of
sprint goal)
Follow-Up Topics
(done after daily standup)
Split into 4 Feature
Teams
(done)
Story workflow
status is visually
reported.

12. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 2 – PRODUCT ROADMAPPING
Introduction of Product Progress / Roadmap Table
Product Completeness Chart
(used for monthly reporting)

13. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 2 – PRODUCT ROADMAPPING
Clear Project Tracking
Team velocity ratio = implementation hours / total sprint hours
Team Velocity = number of
story points team can
implement in the sprint
Team Velocity Ratio =
ratio between working and
total hours (working + process)

14. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 2 – PRODUCT ROADMAPPING
Clear Project Tracking

15. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 3 – TEAM SPLIT
Splitting Team To Improve Collaboration
Challenge:
• Team grew into 14 members what
resulted following items:
• Difficult to run planning, review and
daily standup meetings
• Product Owner doesn’t have time to
all team members
• Difficult to track and solve issues (low
responsibility)
Solution:
• Splitting team into 4 Focus Areas
(Feature Teams)
• Each Feature Team develops end-to-end
„vertical” customer-centric features

16. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 4 – RELEASE TESTING & QA
Quality Assurance (Testing) as Part of Sprint
Challenge:
• Hard to prioritize and track progress on bugs
which are result of intensive product features
development
• Big number of urgent improvements needed
Solution:
• Testing done in verification phase of sprint
(based on „Definition of Done”)
• Dedicated person which does only testing
• Tracking bug fixing status after each daily standup meeting

17. AGILE TRANSITION STEP 4 – RELEASE TESTING & QA
Release Finalization using High Level Testing
High level test plan
with 7 steps
4 user types
Implementation of
release testing
(everybody in the same room)

18. AGILE TRANSFORMATION
RESULTS
3

19. Agile Transition Results 1
Better Visibility of Results
• Working software was
deployed after each
„almost” sprint
• A far more predictable
release plan based on
feedback
• Ability to say „no” based
on Story Points
estimates
Release Planning Using Whiteboard
(estimates of release requirements and release team velocity)

20. Agile Transition Results 2
Better Tracking of Project Progress
• Frequently updated product
completeness status
• Sprint progress could be
followed by Team (Kanban)
table and burn-down charts
• Sprint success rate can be
tracked
Release completeness chart shows changes as
new requirements were added.

21. Agile Transition Results 3
Higher Team Collaboration and More Fun
• More transparency and trust between management and the development team
• In the retrospective we
continually try to further
improve our process to
become a better team
4 Steps of Sprint Retrospective –> Used by team members for continuous improvement

22. • Project Roadmapping (Feature, Stories Tracking) – > MS Excel
• Team Availibility and Velocity Table -> Google Docs
• Issue Tracking -> JIRA
• Source Repository –> Git on Bitbucket
• Knowledge Managment -> Google Sites
• Team Collaboration -> HipChat
Agile Transition Results 4
Software Tools for Project Collaboration

23. Questions?
Karlo Magdić
Agile Product Manager & Scrum Professional
karlo@agileway.com