Scaled agile meets the ground

Editor's Notes

• #8: Business Objective is to replace a varied and outdated multiple Off Shelf software around the globe with single custom written software. This will help the customer bring/share in all the varied business flows across the globe in to a single platform by removing license cost of $1M /year with potential increase the brand image and market presence. The solution needs to be delivered by a fixed date, otherwise it will cost $1M additional for the next year licenses. Key Challenges: Fixed Date of Delivery and go live (Cost of failure is $1M from licenses and multi-million opportunity loss) Product Owners across the Globe with varied knowledge and expectation Resistance to help from existing Off shelf Product vendors Known Unknowns in key areas, Re-Engineering needs
• #13: Remove Project Name Remove the word CI
• #14: The outcome of this phase is what I’ll mention next – and these are all further reasons why this is a really valuable exercise. During the Jumpstart you should be able to gain… Understand the user roles of <the product> Actual users Stakeholders Supporting & Maintenance users Any external system users Elaborate & Alignment on the Product Vision Define the User Story/Epics backlog for <the product> and prioritize based on business need, various dependencies like other systems, resources, timeline, interdependencies of the requirements Identify technical approach: logical architecture, systems integrations & blueprints, recommended tools, products & platforms, testing strategy & approach Create initial relative sizing estimates for the user stories and epics – these should generally be at a ‘t-shirt size’ Identify major risks, technical or functional areas, that require additional investigation and mitigation
• #15: Define an Implementation approach for <the product> including tools, team, and estimated timeline Define prioritization and trade off approach Identify resources needed to implement <the product> Define the Pilot target and subsequent releases Create targeted Pilot release backlog and follow-on release themes Define the Project Governance Identification of the team and approach for project governance All these activities should constitute about 2-3 weeks for a Jumpstart. This of course would vary by product size and your goals for release planning. It’s also important to note that the level of detail goal is basically ‘enough for the team to get started’ – and so if every element of every user story isn’t fully elaborated – that’s okay – the idea creation shouldn’t end with the jumpstart – and the business stakeholders need to recognize that they will be involved throughout the agile development lifecycle.
• #18: Induce the required agility as needed, Started with Proxy Product Team and Scrum Teams. As we move along, KANBAN teams has been formed as required which run in parallel with SCRUM Teams Once the considerable of product is built, there can be a need of Integration team. Form the Integration team with smart people across other teams. The focuses of this team to resolve the any integration issues/develop the integration layers and make the application stable. This team can be executed on task based approach (Kanban)
• #19: Due the Scrum Team Structure, there are many chances of losing the common focus needed across all the team i.e. Testing Focus, UI Focus, Architecture Focus – We have scheduled separate meetings once in a week for collaboration and ensuring the consistent practices followed across all teams.