The presentation shows an innovative Agile approach to enabling software development collaborations in international, distributed teams. Optimal for collaboration in EU projects and other international teams

1. The Agile Shape-up method for
collaborative developments in
international contexts:
a lean approach for EPOS
Daniele Bailo, EPOS-ERIC IT Officer

4. 2002-2008
National and EC Projects (FP5, FP6)

5. RIDE DATABASE
DEMONSTRATOR
Metadata
Architecture

6. Step Change
1. Real Team 3. Organization
and planning
• ingestion
• metadata editor.
Metadata
pipeline
• Waveforms
visualization
• Bug Fixing
GUI
• converters
• AAI
ICS-C system
• Upgrade of existing
services
• …
TCS
Real Results
Stable system
architecture
ICS-C PROTOTYPE
- GFZ – BGS – UiB
- INGV –KNMI – CYFR.
2. Dev Tools
and Infrastr.
BGS / BRGM

8. Current approach
By stream of activities. We are able to focus what needs to be done
• ingestion
• metadata editor.
Metadata pipeline
• Waveforms visualization
• Bug Fixing
GUI
• converters
• AAI
ICS-C system
• Upgrade of existing services
• …
TCS
Requirements
Hosting
Infrastructure

9. Finding an IT mgmt tool ….. Some Trials

10. Underlying idea
Analysis & mgmt
overhead
WARNING
What
• Requirements
collection &
analysis
How • Design and
planning (tasks)
Who • Allocation of
resources
When • Deadlines

11. Analysis
Design
Deliverable
How long?

12. Issues with Current approach
1. We defined the requirements
2. We defined the activities
BUT
1. Troubles in delivering actual “deliverable” (e.g. software)…
2. Difficult to define deadlines in sync with EPOS timeline
3. Some activities are ”neverending”
BECAUSE
1. Resource commitment
2. We focus on many topics at the same time
3. We go deep into requirements analysis before developing
4. We feel like missing a deadline is not a real problem

13. Is there light at the end of the

15. What
How
Who
Time

16. What
How
Who
Time
= Deliver

17. Shape – up / remarkable features
1. Making teams responsible & unleash creativity
1. Define own tasks, work to build vertical slices of software.
2. We have highly skilled team, we can trust them
2. Well defined delivery time (suggested six weeks)
1. Stop the feeling of neverending tasks
2. Getting things done in an incremental way
3. Shaping the work (How much is the idea worth?)
1. Narrowing down the problem and designing an outline of a solution that
fits within the constraints of our appetite
4. Targeting risk (of getting stuck)

18. SHAPE UP / 3 steps for delivering

19. SHAPE UP and EPOS Dev Activities
5-
IT
Development
Activity
TCS-ICS Interactions
Team
UiB Coordination
Resources to be allocated
Links with
Other Projects
(i.e., ENVRIFAIR)
Development Team
ICS TCS
Team leader from ECO
Resources to be allocated
(execution)
Roadmap & Prioritization
Coordinated by a board*
chaired by the IT Officer
SHAPING
BETTING
BUILDING

20. •Raw idea needs to be investigated
• Before discussing ways we can solve it, we should first set
some broad terms on the discussion to make it productive.
•Fixed time, variable scope
Shaping (1): Set boundaries
• Set the appetite: how much time and attention the subject
deserves?
• small batch 1-2 weeks,big batch 6 weeks
• Narrow down the problem
• What people need, not what they want

21. • Concrete enough to make progress on a specific solution
without getting dragged down into fine details.
• Questions we’re trying to answer:
• Where in the current system does the new thing fit?
• What are the key components or interactions?
• Tools: Fat Marker Sketches / Breadboarding / Mockups etc.
Shaping (2): Rough out the elements

22. Shaping (3): Risks and rabbit holes
• Questions to focus on the risks:
• does it requires new technical work we never did?
• are we assuming technical solutions that we can't come up with ourselves?
• Any hard decision we should settle?
• Decide what to declare out of bounds, and CUT.
• Ask to technical experts.
Well shaped work
Badly shaped work

23. Shaping (4) – Write the pitch
1.Problem: present problem, baseline and solution
2.Appetite: small batch or big batch?
3.Design a potential solution, not too much detail, using:
a.Embedded sketches, annotated fat marker sketches
4.Risks and Rabbt holes: explicit rabbit holes and how to turn
around them
5.No Gos: what we are NOT doing in this work?
Knowledge of the existing system
And technical expertises required

24. Pitches
- Stored in GitLab
- Example: https://epos-ci.brgm.fr/epos/pitches/-
/wikis/PITCH-::-Intelligent-Metadata-Editor
- Example is structured, but any format is fine as long as all
ingredients are there
- Template

26. Session E (PLENARY, attendees: ALL)
14:00-16:00 Consolidation of development plans
16:00 Closing remarks
Coming Soon

27. ICS-TCS
interaction
Board* DEVELOPMENT
User support,
SCC interactions,
Product dpt
(innovation)
Developers
bug fix / new
tech
X X
6 weeks – big batch
2 weeks – small batch
Pitches
production
Pitches selection
DEV COOL DOWN
6 weeks 2 weeks

28. Five ingredients to include in a pitch:
1.Problem — The raw idea, a use case, or something we’ve
seen that motivates us to work on this
2.Appetite — How much time we want to spend and how that
constrains the solution
3.Solution — The core elements we came up with, presented
in a form that’s easy for people to immediately understand
4.Rabbit holes — Details about the solution worth calling out to
avoid problems
5.No-gos — Anything specifically excluded from the concept:
functionality or use cases we intentionally aren’t covering to fit
the appetite or make the problem tractable