Celebrating 20 years of NASSCOM

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Why is Industry not agile in adopting agile?
Kalpana Sureshchandra Wipro Technologies
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AGENDA

• POSSIBLE REASONS FOR NOT ADOPTING AGILE
• THREE COMMON MYTHS
• CHALLENGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
• DISCUSSION/ QUESTIONS

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POSSIBLE REASONS FOR NOT ADOPTING AGILE
Several like Awareness, Change in mindset, Fear
of cost implications, scaling up issues,
distributed teams, Not ready to explore something
different, etc.

• Three Myths
• Agile cannot be used for large teams
• Agile cannot be used for distributed teams (in a
  typical onsite-offshore model)
• Agile cannot be used for Fixed-price projects

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MYTH 1
Agile cannot be used for large teams
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USING AGILE FOR LARGE TEAMS
1 Teams based on Functionality not skills
Team A Backlog
Overall Vision
Master Backlog
Team B Backlog
Team C Backlog
Sub Backlogs Derived from Master Backlog

• Vertical Slicing
• Helps minimize dependencies across teams
• Applicable in distributed environment
• Testing of end-to-end functionality possible
• Helps in incremental development of a story

• Backlog Slicing
• Helps sustaining the overall vision through out
  the project

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USING AGILE FOR LARGE TEAMS
2 Using DSM for Work Sequencing
Backlog List of stories prioritized by Product
Owner
Dependencies fed into the DSM matrix
The levels in the DSM output indicates which
stories could be carried out in parallel (higher
levels will have dependencies on lower levels).
The loops or stories with cyclic dependencies
are also pointed out by DSM. DSM output is
analyzed and stories are assigned to onsite and
offshore is such a way that the dependencies
between the teams are reduced
Changed as per the discussion with GSK (based on
the Questions Raised)
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USING AGILE FOR LARGE TEAMS
3 Agile Planning and Tracking Tools
4 Frequent Scrum of Scrums

• Meetings should be
• Efficient to identify risks / dependencies
• Actions to mitigate the risk / resolve
  dependencies
• Appropriate frequency
• Participation from all stakeholders

• Tool that can provide
• Visibility at sub-team and project level
• Provision to track dependencies/ issues / risks
• Appropriate collaboration tools
• Choose from tools available in the market

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USING AGILE FOR LARGE TEAMS
5 Frequent Integrated Builds-Tests
Test Server Automated Tests Stable Release
Holding area
Generate and Deploy application for System and
Integration Testing.
Testing team test from the test servers
Configuration Server Configuration Management
Automate Builds
Test Server
Onsite Tester Machines
Generate and Deploy application for
Integration Testing of the individual modules
Configuration Machine
Development Server
Development Server Integration testing of
individual developers module
Onsite Developer Machines
Developers check in/check out code to the
configuration machine
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MYTH 2
Agile cannot be used for distributed teams
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USING AGILE FOR DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
1 Common Infrastructure for all teams
Test Server Database Stable Release Holding area
Build Server Configuration Management
(CVS) Automated Build Process (Maven) Build Drop
Location (Nightly Build) Temporary Holding area
for Build outputs (Build Area) Manual Build
Scheduler (Continuum) Regression Testing (JUnit)
Build Process update the Test server Daily and
executes Automated tests Daily Backup and
Sync scripts executes across servers
Offshore Tester Machines
Testing team test from the project servers
Test Server
Onsite Tester Machines
Generate and Deploy Website Daily backup of
project server in build machine
Build Machine
Project Server
Project Server Project Website (hold project
information including test results and
complexity metrics) Defect tracking Application
(Bugzilla)
Onsite Developer Machines
Offshore Developer Machines
Developers check in/check out code to the build
machine
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USING AGILE FOR DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
2 Cross Culture Training
3 Periodic rotation between members across
locations
Core Location
Location A
Location B
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USING AGILE FOR DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
4 Onsite Evangelist
Location-A
Core Location
Onsite Evangelist Acts as a Bridge between
teams Representatives from one team are located
at other team sites
Location-B
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USING AGILE FOR DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
5 Gradual transition to distributed team
50 - 50
20 - 80
80 - 20
Core Location Satellite Location Ratio
Adopting Agile in Distributed Development By
Kalpana Sureshchandra, Jagadish
Shrinivasavadhani ICGSE 2008 Conference
Changed as per the discussion with GSK (based on
the Questions Raised)
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USING AGILE FOR DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
6 Effective Collaboration tools
Wiki
VCON
TCON
Telepresence by Cisco
VOIP
Web Con
Instant Msgr
Common Burn-down charts
Common Visual Controls
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MYTH 3
Agile cannot be used for fixed price projects
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USING AGILE FOR FIXED PRICE PROJECTS
Efficient Change Management Process

• Agile provides controlled points of change
• The short cycle and fine grained approach of
  Agile should help in better change management and
  CR negotiation
• For any requirements being introduced an
  equivalent set will have to be moved out of the
  time box (fixed capacity). Eventually the planned
  set of iterations are completed at the same cost
  but a different (higher priority) set of
  requirements than originally planned for
• OR
• Additional iterations are planned to accommodate
  the requirements in which case CRs have to be
  raised in an FP scenario

Iteration-1
Additional Requirements Requirements Elaboration
Iteration-2
. . . . .
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SUMMARY
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DISCUSSIONS
Any Questions?
Thank You