This document outlines a process used to implement significant changes to improve software development practices at a company. It describes how the company grew rapidly from 20 to 160 engineers in under 5 years, resulting in long lead times and blocked release pipelines. A guiding coalition was formed to develop a vision and technical solution to reduce merge and release times. They established urgency, communicated the vision, empowered broad-based action, and generated short-term wins to gain support and gradually implement new tools and processes. Sustaining the changes required incorporating them into the culture through training and process.

1. TA K E T H E R E D P I L L
D R . A D R I A N P E R R E A U D E P I N N I N C K

2. T R E M E N D O U S G R O W T H .
C R I T E O : G O G O G O ! ! !
• From 20 to 160 engineers in less than 5 years
• 160 code repositories
• 7 million lines of code
• Took months to release

3. W E M U S T S E E R E A L I T Y
T O P U T T H E M A C H I N E S U N D E R C O N T R O L

4. W H AT WA S R E A L I T Y ?
• Average lead time for new features = 60 days
• Average time to merge commits = 20 days
• The release pipeline was blocked for months
• It was getting worse each year

5. S O M E T H I N G H A D T O C H A N G E
I T WA S G O I N G T O TA K E T O P M A N A G E M E N T T O A G R E E O N S O M E T H I N G L I K E T H I S

6. H O W W O U L D Y O U S E L L
T H I S I N I T I AT I V E ?
PA I R D I S C U S S I O N :

7. O B J E C T I V E S
• Reduce commit merge time to hours instead of days
• Reduce time from commit to Prod to < 4 days
• Reduce number of cancelled release candidates

8. T E C H N I C A L S O L U T I O N
• Tailor-made Build System
• Mandatory Code Reviews
• Continuous Integration Pipeline
• Sandbox to execute tests

9. P R O C E S S F O L L O W E D

10. E S TA B L I S H S E N S E O F U R G E N C Y
• Code freeze in 2012 crippled the team during months
• The release pipeline had been blocked for months
• Things weren’t getting better for 2013’s code freeze

11. E N E R G Y W I L L D I S S I PAT E
W I T H O U T A S T R O N G G U I D I N G C O A L I T I O N

12. S T R O N G G U I D I N G C O A L I T I O N
• Executive Vice President of Engineering
• Vice President of QA
• 10 Software Engineers, high level of seniority
• 2 Senior Engineering Program Managers

13. D E V E L O P I N G A C H A N G E V I S I O N
• Brainstormed for the key elements
• Prepared a document explaining the vision
• Shared the document with Key players
• Modified the document to take into account feedback
• Shared the document with Dev Leads
• Modified the document to take into account feedback
• Gave presentation explaining the project
• Sent document to all

14. C H A N G E V I S I O N
• 26 page document
• Took over a month to get
alignment in version 0.1
• Sent to 20 senior
engineers for feedback
• Last version took into
account all feedback

15. C O M M U N I C AT E
T H E V I S I O N
• Monthly updates at all
hands meetings
• Weekly emails with
progress reports
• Events with food

16. E M P O W E R B R O A D - B A S E D A C T I O N

17. E M P O W E R
A C T I O N
• The improvement backlog
was shared with everyone
• Some items prioritised by
voting
• Voluntary-based work
encouraged
• Test-a-thons and other
wide range initiatives

18. S H O R T- T E R M
W I N S
• Used Scrum to guide the
change process
• Developed usable tools from
the beginning
• Developed one tool at a time
• Pushed adoption slowly until
tipping point
• Forced rest to adopt once
tipping point passed

19. I N T E G R AT I O N T I M E S

20. 0.00%$
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2/11/13$2/18/13$2/25/13$1/1/14$1/8/14$1/15/14$1/22/14$1/29/14$2/5/14$2/12/14$2/19/14$2/26/14$3/5/14$3/12/14$3/19/14$
T E S T P L A N

21. P R O J E C T B U R N D O W N

22. 0"
10"
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5/13/13" 6/13/13" 7/13/13" 8/13/13" 9/13/13" 10/13/13" 11/13/13" 12/13/13" 1/13/14" 2/13/14" 3/13/14" 4/13/14" 5/13/14"
Commit&to&Prod&Lag&
C O M M I T A G E
F R O M 3 5 D A Y S T O 1 5 D A Y S

23. D O N ’ T L E T G O
I T ’ S A LWA Y S H A R D E R T H A N Y O U T H O U G H T

24. L A R G E S T I M P E D I M E N T S
• Technical
• Eat your own dog food
• Replicating the Sandbox
• Human
• People added to the team not sharing vision
• Getting teams to use the tools
• Managing expectations and communication

25. D O N ’ T L E T G O
• Fully dedicated team for a whole year.
• After the project ended the team remained as a new
unit.
• Even through the hardest times management gave full
support.

26. I N C O R P O R AT E C H A N G E
I N T O T H E C U LT U R E

27. I N C O R P O R AT E C H A N G E
I N T O T H E C U LT U R E
• Training program for new recruits
• Engineering partners are expected to conform to new
way of working
• Training program for engineering partners
• Tools in place become the cultural gates

28. T H E R E I S M O R E T O
C H A N G E T H A N K O T T E R
O T H E R T E C H N I Q U E S W E U S E D

29. B R I D G E B U I L D E R
W E A S K E D T H O S E A L R E A D Y O N B O A R D T O H E L P O T H E R S D O T H E S A M E

30. C H A M P I O N
S K E P T I C
Find someone senior in the
organisation:
• That wants the goal to be
reached
• That doesn’t fully support
your technical solution
• Talk with him regularly

31. D E D I C AT E D
C H A M P I O N
Y O U W O N ’ T G O FA R
W I T H O U T O N E

32. D O F O O D
M A K E S U R E T O B R I N G S N A C K S T O G E T T O G E T H E R S

33. E A R LY A D O P T E R S
W I L L I N G T O T RY T H I N G S B E F O R E T H E Y A R E R E A D Y

34. E X T E R N A L
VA L I D AT I O N
L I N K E D I N W E N T T H R O U G H T H E S A M E P R O C E S S

35. G R O U P I D E N T I T Y
M A K E P E O P L E P R O U D O F B E I N G PA R T O F T H E C H A N G E

36. I N Y O U R S PA C E
W E U S E D L A R G E S C R E E N S T O S H O W P R O G R E S S

37. I N V O LV E E V E RY O N E
I F Y O U WA N T L A S T I N G C H A N G E …

38. U S I N G S C R U M
A N D W E D I D I T A L L

39. - A G E N T S M I T H
“Never send a human to do a machine’s job”

40. R E F E R E N C E S
• Leading Change - John P. Kotter
• Fearless Change - Linda Rising, PhD
• Continous Delivery - Jez Humble, David Farley