Scrum from an Organization Perspective

1. Scrum from an Organization Perspective Damian P. Evans VP, Product Development, Qpass – Amdocs Digital Commerce Division 9 Aug 2007

2. Scrum provides no organizational guidance, but its impact on organizations can be far reaching.

3. INTRODUCTION SCRUM ADOPTION ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACTS

4. About Qpass • US leader in mobile commerce • Started in 1997 • Independent division (for now) of Amdocs acquired in May 2006 • Approximately 400 people worldwide (Amdocs = 17 000+) • Sell to Network Operators who need to efficiently manage their digital commerce • products (license + maint/support), • systems integration projects, • managed application services

5. Characteristics of Qpass Product Development (“PD”) • Great people • Humor, mostly snide/self-effacing • Mostly consensus-oriented • Not a yeller-screamer culture • Not very political • Somewhat risk averse • Some tendency to overanalyze • Process-belief (both good and bad) • Excellent relationship with Product Management

6. Current Status of Scrum at Qpass Qpass Product Development only • 12 teams • 3 continents • 100 people • 5 products, with release collaboration req’d …all doing Scrum Other parts of Amdocs and Qpass very interested, experimenting

7. INTRODUCTION SCRUM ADOPTION ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACTS

8. Program Managers Engineers Architects Perf Eng Testers Functional Organization: 2005 VP, PD PGM Director, Arch Director, Eng Director, QA Mgr, Perf & Platform Arch sched Test sched Eng Mgrs Test Mgrs Dev sched Test sched Test, Tune Schedule Alignment Specs Test Design, Code

9. Role of people PD mgmt Role of bulk of PD staff PD Management Involvement Pre-Scrum Executive Management Product Management Vision, Strategy $$ allocation (LOB level) KPI Objectives Resource acquisition / creation Business ownership / ROI $$ allocation (Product / Project level) Value identification and communication Value delivery Program / Project Management Technology Management Value creation Visibility Resource utilization Impediment removal Risk management Software process definition Technology standards Vendor management IP management

10. Daily Builds UML Automated Unit Tests Continuous Integration SCM RUP Attempt Scrum! Waterfall PMI Flair-up Component-oriented teams Feature-oriented teams Component-oriented teams Architects as demigods Architects as team members Testing Org Gone Testing Org Our Process Evolution

11. RUP Phases and Qpass: 2005 Inception Elaboration Construction Transition

12. Problem Identification: July 2005 • Too much time spent in planning • No code written in early phases • Tester-developer schedule alignment (but not teamwork) tough • Risk deferral / weak definition of done • Incessant debate about the “right way” to do iterative development  Find a coach

13. Scrum Roll-out Approach • Experimentation • Pilot • Roll-out

14. Experimentation • Found a coach (Danube) • Used SDET team as guinea pigs of process (and of coach ) • Shared results

15. Pilot • Retained coach • OpenMarket team (a new product) volunteered to pilot • Found all sorts of issues – management counter-incentives the biggest • PartnerCenter team (a feature on flagship product) observed OM, picked up baton • Found and corrected more issues – crappy SCM, poor PO prioritization, ridiculous focus on design perfection

16. Rollout • Retained coach • Took census of those doing Scrum – proceeded based on result • Organized engineering leadership team as “nearly-a-Scrum Team” • VP as Product Owner; Scrum zealot as Scrum Master • Backlog drawn from Scrum Adoption Playbook • Major areas: training/learning, (minimal) process docs on wiki, communication, cross-team collaboration, PM alignment • Large CSM training, 4 hr training for non-CSMs • Converted teams based on readiness vs. project cycle

17. Obstacle #1: Management Risk Aversion • All Scrum teams fail for the first few sprints, but management has a need for predictability to meet commitments to the market. • Listen to your coach. • Trust your people. • Remember that you get paid the big bucks to take risks/arrows for your people.

18. Obstacle #2: Architect morale • Architects felt threatened by changing definition of job. • Architects join teams – tremendous resource for overall design and requirements • Lead architect buy-in to help sell

19. Obstacle #3: Process alignment with customers • R&D, not bespoke, but PM communicated dates to customers at RUP lifecycle milestones • Create a conceptual mapping for RUP milestones to Scrum (not easy but possible, at least for this purpose)

20. Obstacle #4: Chain of Command • Scrum Master vs. Engineering Manager • Engineering Manager is first point of escalation, works with Product Managers to stay in front backlog-wise

21. Obstacle #5: Compatibility • Some people aren’t compatible, either from a skills perspective or a personality one • Give people time and training to adjust… but move them out if they cannot adapt

22. Obstacle #6: Maintenance • Team focus key to success with Scrum, but teams impeded by support burden • Create separate maintenance organization

23. Lucky Factor #1: Great people • Qpass has always hired great engineers, testers, architects who care • Would’ve been very tough to fight horrific project management and horrific engineering simultaneously

24. Lucky Factor #2: Executive Empowerment • President not an engineer, trusts VP to do what’s right • VPs can use their power for good, not just evil, when their boss focuses on the ends, not the means • Lack of VP support would’ve been a killer

25. Lucky Factor #3: Great Relationships with PM • Product Managers take an “us” perspective instead of a “them” perspective, understood the things we were trying to solve • Getting this relationship healthy should be first order of business in a Scrum rollout

26. Lucky Factor #4: Director of QA was staunch advocate • Jeff Heinen acted as thought leader, instead of obstacle – actually cares about quality of software, not a central quality control process

27. Lucky Factor #5: I have no ego • “Every time you point your finger, three point back at you!” – Sister Angelica, Holy Cross Elementary School, Dover, DE • Managers and executives: be prepared that you are the source of many root causes of problems

28. If I could do something different • More engineer, tester, architect training on Scrum • Keep Agile forum alive • Metrics would come in handy right now in talking to our new parent company

29. INTRODUCTION SCRUM ADOPTION ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACTS

30. Role of people nominally in PD exec mgmt Role of bulk of PD staff PD Management Involvement Post-Scrum Executive Management Product Management Vision, Strategy $$ allocation (LOB level) KPI Objectives Resource acquisition / creation Business ownership / ROI $$ allocation (Product / Project level) Value identification and communication Value delivery Program / Project Management Technology Management Value creation Visibility Resource utilization Impediment removal Risk management Software process definition Technology standards Vendor management IP management

31. Scrum Masters Engineers Architects Perf Eng Testers Writers Hybrid Organization VP, PD PGM Director, Arch Directors, Dev (3) Tech Pubs Mgr, Perf & Platform Budget / Admin Tech Standards Eng Ownership of Products Doc Standards Manage, Test, Tune Manage, Design, Code, Test, Write (centralize functionally for skill concentration/ refinement) (2 fewer eng mgr; 1 fewer director)

32. Role of PD Management • VP kind of like the Federal Reserve –“intervene under market failure” • Long-range planning and budgeting • Vision, Strategy • Director: partner to PM, advise on backlog, first point of escalation, uphold defn of done • Separated “HR hierarchy” from “Project hierarchy” except at most senior levels • Role of direct reporting hierarchy is “mentor”

33. Tech Writers • Works well when dedicated writer on team • Writers much more engaged – must be able to “dig in” to software and “write final copy” instead of “edit docs from dev” • Attempt to share amongst teams due to staffing shortfall – very hard

34. Global Development • To the extent possible, avoided “globally distributed teams” • Sometimes required for domain knowledge • All teams equally empowered • Must do time-shift for periodic coordination

35. Other Thoughts, Opinions • Is it ok if the Scrum Master is in the chain of command of the team? • Yes, but it depends a lot on the attributes of the individuals • Requires sensitivity to “command and control” issues • Could a functional org chart work under Scrum? • Yes, when barriers to cross-functional self-management are sufficiently broken down. • E.g., functional org must stay out of way of project delivery; first loyalty must be to team creating value instead of org chart. • Requires talented Scrum Masters.

36. Other Thoughts, Opinions • Does Scrum of Scrums actually work? • We’ve had better success with “Scrum swaps” and sometimes “Personnel swaps” – 99% of collaboration is 1 team:1 team • Scrum Masters themselves add value with coordination • Shared team for shared components? • Could work • Qpass wanted to err on the side of YAGNI for starters

37. Scrum provides no organizational guidance,* but its impact on organizations can be far reaching. • *and it shouldn’t… • Too much org variation • Let Scrum be for projects