A Sith Lord wants to build a Death Star to destroy planets but faces several challenges in implementing an Agile development approach within a large, traditional organization. Key issues include gaining funding approval, creating cross-functional teams, determining requirements and design upfront, managing distributed development, conducting testing at scale, and achieving frequent releases in controlled environments. The presentation outlines how addressing these issues through Agile practices like Scrum could enable building a functional Death Star.

1. How to Build a
Death Star Lessons learned from
Agile development in
the Enterprise

2. Bună dimineaţa!
• I am Richard Stinear, Group Head of Development at Endava
• I’m a developer and an architect, IASA CITA-P certified
• I’m from New Zealand

3. Why Eastern Europe?
Talent pool
Culture
Time Zone
Technical excellence
Strong universities Headcount
Language skills
Ease of travel 152
Presence within the EU
142
204
201
Iasi Moldova
Cluj Romania
Bucharest
7

4. Does size matter?
Source: www.wikipedia.org

5. Does size matter?
Customer vs Supplier Headcount
300000
225000
150000
75000
Endava
Bupa
Barclays
JP Morgan
Citigroup
HSBC 0
Wipro
InfosysTCS
Accenture
Source: www.wikipedia.org

6. Does size matter?
Customer vs Supplier Headcount
300000
225000
150000
75000
Endava
Bupa
Barclays
JP Morgan
Citigroup
HSBC 0
Wipro
InfosysTCS
Accenture
Source: www.wikipedia.org

7. Does size matter?
Customer vs Supplier Headcount
300000
225000
150000
75000
Endava
Bupa
Barclays
JP Morgan
Citigroup
HSBC 0
Wipro
InfosysTCS
Accenture
Source: www.wikipedia.org

8. A short history of outsourcing…
• Huge deals in the late 90s –
both in £s and man days
• Backlash in the 00s
• “Right-Shoring”

9. A short history of outsourcing…
• Huge deals in the late 90s –
both in £s and man days
• Backlash in the 00s
• “Right-Shoring”
• Heavy-weight methodologies
• Emphasising contracts over
working code
• Agile was born and grew up
quickly…

10. Agile in the Enterprise == dealing with all this
history
As a Sith Lord I want to build a death star so I can destroy planets whenever I feel like it

11. Funding
How can you guarantee scope for
a specific cost?

12. Organisational Difficulties
How do you create a cross-
functional team in an extremely
divided organisation?

13. Requirements
How much analysis should we
do up front?

14. Design
With very little up-
front design – how do
we make the right
choices?

15. Development
With great power comes great
stress (sometimes)

16. Testing
How do you satisfy the business you’ve mitigated the
risks?
How do you get the dev/test mix right?

17. Path to Production
How do you perform frequent
releases in highly controlled
environments?
Sprints Hardenin Transitio
Sprint 0
1…6 g Sprint n Sprint
Sprint 7 Sprint 8 Sprint 9 Sprint 10

18. Communications
How do you make it work with distributed teams?

19. Being in Competition
How do your prove that your scrums are better than everyone else's?

20. Putting it all together
Re
qu
ir e
m T
en UA
ts
ce
rman
Design Perfo g
n
principle
s Testi
Your Scrum of Awesome Sec/Pen Testing
Funding
process Know
s led
pr o c es Op ge Ma
nagem
m ent Ha er a
Pro cure o gy nd tio
ol egy
n t
ov nal
er Su
ch tra pp
te s or
ss t
i ne
B us

21. It Works!
• Big gains in business value
• Lots of business agility
• Lower costs of procurement
• Much happier developers!

22. References and attribution
• Death Star picture: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/DS-1_Orbital_Battle_Station
• Idea for critique of Star Wars Trash Compactor: “On the implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash
Compactor” by Joshua Tyree - http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/on-the-implausibility-of-
the-death-stars-trash-compactor
• Trash Compactor scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U3Oti2L8S4 – Star Wars Episode IV –
A New Hope (1977) – Trash Compactor
• Cubicle Hell - http://www.flickr.com/photos/genmachaita/4933295404/sizes/o/in/
photostream/
• Starry background - http://www.flickr.com/photos/scotbot/6703408763/
• Ewok-powered - http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/4179698218/
• We should never have accepted their invitation - http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/
4269790436/
• Look! The Cut the Pizza Budget. Again. - http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellysblogger/
3223034827/
• Sabotage #6: Loading metal into the microwave - http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/
4417714120/
• Credit Cut in Imperial Telecommunication - http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/4012030328/
• Renewable Power of Destruction - http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/4166307741/