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About Me
Chad Vossen
- Worked in the Investments IT space for 14 years
(Securian, Travelers, Thrivent)
- 2 years on a Scrum Team
- Married, 3 girls (Charlotte 8, Harper 5, Everleigh 2)
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My Team – JDI
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• Flash Build
Focus on Product and
just enough
documentation
39% Success Rate*
• Waterfall Project
Focus comprehensive
documentation and
process
11% Success Rate*
Agile Value #2
Working Software Over Comprehensive Documentation
Financial Times 8/13/2015, Standish Group
On-time, On-budget, all features
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• End of Life (EOL) for Visual Studio 6.0 C++
• 28 C++ programs
• A web interface to run adhoc jobs
• 2.5 years
• Project Manager, IT Lead, Testing Center of Excellence
(TCOE), BAs, and developers (me)
The Old Way
The Waterfall Project
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• 5 Project Managers
• 4 IT leads
• 6 People Managers
• Using TCOE
• 20,000 hours
• 28 requirement
documents
• 28 Test case
documents
• 58 change requests
The Old Way
The Waterfall Project
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• 1 – 2 days to build something awesome, Scrum in a Bottle
• Use when project is stalled, needs a jump start,
technologists SMEs are spread thin
• Benefits
Jump start a project
Build something cool and useful in 2 days
• Roots are in the flash mob concept (Nordstrom’s
Sunglasses app video)
The New Way
The Flash Build (Scrum Day 2014)
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The New Way
The Flash Build:
First Attempt
• First attempt in October of 2014 building a semi-replacement of an existing
product
Focused on Minimum Viable Product (MVP), used a Story map to set focus
Followed a recommended 2 sprints/day for 2 days (2 planning/demo/retros)
Tried to get dedicated time from all the right people
Had to get stations setup and moved around to 2 different rooms
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The New Way
The 1st Flash Build Results
• Scheduled around 65 points to be completed and finished around 25 points
Average velocity around that time was ~40 points
• 2 sprints a day was too time consuming, not enough time to work
• Teams focused on what they were doing and didn’t collaborate with other
teams
• Needed more dedicated time from the right people
• Coordinated moving of equipment from room to room
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The New Way
The Flash Build: Second Attempt
• Creating 20 new house/reference code tables & corresponding UI screens
• Also, load, test and validate our work.
• Dedicated team for 2 days, including the key stakeholders
• Using a newly formed room built
• 2 sprints (1/day vs. 2/day in first attempt)
• Scheduled 47 points, not 65 points like in first attempt
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Collaboration Room The New Way
• From the learnings
of the first flash build
• New space, new
rooms
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Task Board The New Way
• Used the same task
for building, testing,
validating
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Retros The New Way
• Both days on the
same board, made
changes day 2
based on first day
ideas
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End of Day Goals The New Way
• Met day 2 goal, not
so much on day 1
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The New Way
The Flash Build: Second Attempt Result
• Created 20 new house/reference code tables & corresponding UI screens
• Loaded, tested and validated our work.
• Additional SOP documentation was created during the process
• Key stakeholders helped with building, loading, testing, and validation
• Instant feedback! The shortest feedback loop!
• 2 teams that collaborated throughout build
• 44 points in 2 days!
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The Result
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Compare
Comparison Waterfall vs. Flash Build
• Not Apples to Apples
Existing functionality vs. new functionality
New technology for most of team vs. somewhat proven technology.
• Key: Working software OVER comprehensive documentation
• Documents crafted: Requirements, Test plans, Change requests vs. Design
decision, pattern, stories
• Time: 20,000 hours vs. 136 hours
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Compare
Waterfall or Flash build?
Activity EOL Hrs EOL % Total EOL % FB FB Hrs FB % FB as EOL EOL w/ FB%
PM/Planning 4600 23% 27% 16 12% 37 753
Requirements 2300 11% 13% 6 4% 18 282
Analysis/Design 3300 17% 19% 8 6% 26 376
Development 4600 23% 27% 98 72% 37 4600
Testing 2200 11% 13% 8 6% 18 376
TOTALS 17000 136 6400
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Questions?
And thanks for attending!