Scaling Scrum to Large Distributed Teams and Its Challenges

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© 2014 Persistent Systems Ltd

Scaling Scrum To Large Distributed Teams and its ChallengesPooja Wandile

© 2014 Persistent Systems Ltd 2

Scrum

As designed for use2 – 4 weeks sprintsSmall and self organized team,

7 members +/- 2 Co-locatedFace to face communicationCross functional3 roles, 3 artefacts, 4 scrum

meetingsPotentially shippable product at the end of each sprint


Scrum XXL?

Complex Products

Large Teams

Agile Manifesto & Principles

Scrum Practices


Scrum: S to XXL

Different versions Multi locations3> Scrum teams < 20-25100+ peopleTeam size > SNon IT teamsGlobal teamsEnterprise adoption


Enterprises Adopting Agile Rapidly

57%Enterprises having 5+ agile

teams. Doubled in last 2 years!

43%Enterprises having 10+

agile projects

76%Enterprises have distributed teams, doubled in an year

SCRUM continues to be most popular agile practice, Scrumban is gaining momentum.

Agile projects’ failure could be attributed to inappropriate Change Management.Cultural Change is cited as most challenging aspect.80%

Source: 8th Annual State of Agile Survey by Version One: http://www.versionone.com/pdf/2013-state-of-agile-survey.pdf


Agile methodologies intended for smaller teams were not designed for large scale deployment

Agile practices alone can’t serve the purpose of enterprises IT

Scaled deployment is possible by blending with Portfolio & Program practices

Can Agile Scale?

Program Management

Agile Methodologies

Portfolio Management


Key Considerations

Business Value

Productivity

Time to market

Changing Priorities

Large scale deployment is rising

Business wants prioritized delivery of value at a speed to rival the competition at the reduced cost


Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Agile Manifesto

Manifesto is unclear about key Enterprise Asks

PredictabilityBusiness IT-Alignment

StrategyRisk Management

ProcessesIT Budgets

Security Architecture

InnovationPortfolio Management


Scrum XXL: What Changes?Roles and Responsibilities

Any thing Else?



Scrum XXL: Challenges


Scrum XXL Challenges

Scrum FrameworkRolesEventsArtifacts

Team structureTeam Communication &

CollaborationKnowledge & ReuseInfrastructure & Operations


Scrum Roles Challenges

Product OwnerInsufficient bandwidthOverloadedAddressing teams queries

Scrum MasterToo many meetingsManaging dependencies and

issues across teamsTeam

More processes & Documentation

Someone else is calling the shots


Product Backlog groomingProduct Scope vs. Budget,

what gets in – what gets out, ongoing exerciseLong grooming meetings for all teams

Sprint planningMapping of Sprint goal vis-à-vis big pictureInter team dependencies

Daily Scrum MeetingHard to accommodate distributed team membersDifficulty in understanding active participation (body language/facial expression)

Scrum Events Challenges


Sprint ReviewFragmented view of features developedNot exactly complete increment, value stream missing

Sprint RetrospectionComplete lack of active participation in the retrospection conference “It is not my problem” attitude

Scrum of ScrumsManaging Impediments across teamsAggregated view of progressCo-ordination challenges, too many people involved

Contd…


Team Structure Challenges

Pyramid team structureDelay in communication

Dealing with additional rolesPigs & Chickens roles merging

Component and feature teamsAdditional non feature based

teamsAddition of PMO


Communication & Collaboration Challenges

Overdose of email communicationEvery email is urgent

Internal & External communicationConflicts, misunderstandings,

uncertainty in communicationMore documentation, can’t help

Keeping documents up to dateDependency on multiple

collaboration toolsMore teams, more confusion, more

delay in decision making


Knowledge & Reuse Challenges

Reinventing the wheelFor the same set of common

issues Duplication of effortsLack of consistency in

processes across teams


Infra & Ops Challenges

Lots of different environmentsDev, INT test, staging, UAT, production

Environment configuration & Management issues

Budget constraintInfra not scaling in proportion with

team scalingVPN, Access request, Licenses

issuesAutomation

Test, build, integration, regression, deploy



Scrum XXL: Approach


Restructure teamsProduct, Engineering, Feature, Ops, QA, PMO

Adapt to Scrum framework Tailoring of scrum events

Consolidate Communication & Collaboration channelsCommunication modes, collaboration tools and processes

Establishe Chapters & Guilds for capability buildingSpotify model

Optimize cost and usage by investing in Cloud infrastructure and VMs

Steps


Project Management Office

Team Metrics

Program Metrics

Overall Status: Costing, Budgeting & ReturnsProgram Sponsor

Offshore Program Manager

Project Manager

1

Scrum Master 1

Scrum Master 2

Project Manager

2

Scrum Master 3

Scrum Master 4

Client Program Manager

Onsite Program Manager

Onsite Team


Product Management Team Chief Product Manager

Product Manager, Feature Product Manager, UX/UI

Product Owners, FeatureUX/UI Designers

Business Analysts

Overall owner of the product roadmap, release plan, final authority in conflicting situations

• Manage program backlog• Provide Feature feedback

• Manage Feature backlog• Provide user story feedback

• Act as a liaison between team and PO

• Resolve day to day queries


Engineering TeamChief Architect• Own system architecture

and infrastructure

System Architect• Define technical Epics

Enterprise Architect• Define NFR epics• Define enterprise architecture governance

Solution Architect• Define technical stories

Team Captains : Technical• Own low level implementation• Manage tech debt

1 2 3

Team Captains : Enterprise• Own performance, load and

other NFR implementation


Scrum team, QA, Ops

Create build: Feature 1

Integration, Regression, UAT testing of features



Deploy and release to staging & production


Product backlog groomingCPO & PMs: Program backlog: Once in 2 weeks groomingPMs, POs, Architects, BAs: Feature backlog: Weekly grooming

Sprint planningBA, Scrum Team: Team Sprint backlog: One sprint ahead

SoSTeam Captains, Architects, POs: Impediment log: Once a week, Inter team dependencies, backlog status

Scrum Framework Adaptation


Sprint ReviewUser Story acceptance by POs at sprint levelMonthly demo of features to other stakeholders

Sprint retrospectionTeam retrospectionMonthly Common retrospection

Consolidated findings across teamsMetrics

Contd…


Communication & Collaboration

IM, VDO chatsConfluence, wiki

Home page for the programTeam space for each Scrum teamTeam space for Prod, PMO, Architects,

Enterprise teamsBlogs, Contact details, Vacation planAnything and Everything goes there


Knowledge & Reuse

Adopt Spotify modelSet up “Chapters” forums for

each communityDesign processes & Guidelines

Conduct training to create awareness

Chapter forums for effective learning and continuous improvement


Infra & Ops

Common code base, frequent auto builds, continuous integrationSVN, JenkinsSonarqube

Weekly automated regression testing

Automated deployment INT to Staging to Pre prod


Performance metricsRelease and sprint velocityVelocity varianceDelivered business valueEffort utilization

Product metricsCode coverage and automation coverageDefect leakagePerformance metricsBuild statistics/build efficiency

CSAT

Metrics


Scaling practices are not easy to implement Sense of ownership and responsibility becomes looseCommunication gets harder as more and more org layers get addedInter team dependencies only gets more & more complexSprint Zero is definitely needed

Start small as against big bang approachInvolve teams on process improvementsInvest in infrastructure and automationA combination of Kanban, Scrum and XP practices works well

Summary & Conclusion


Questions????



Thank [email protected]@gmail.com

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Scaling Scrum to Large Distributed Teams and Its Challenges

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