The document provides an introduction to common challenges that can cause enterprise agile implementations to fail, along with potential solutions. It discusses issues such as poor product backlog quality, a product owner unable to make decisions, and an incomplete understanding of the full release cycle. The authors suggest practices like rigorous backlog grooming, empowering the product owner's role, and collaboratively mapping out integration dependencies to help address these challenges.

1. CRASH & BURNdown
how to fail in Enterprise Agile
George Anghelache
Cristian Cazan
March 2013

2. IN YOUR ZONE
Endava is a leading IT services organization, with offices in London
and New York and delivery centers in Romania and Moldova that
support the full project lifecycle. Utilizing our distributed agile
delivery model - TEAM, we are able to deliver significant
improvements to quality and productivity resulting in our clients
being able to deliver substantially more for the same budget.
Introductions

3. IN YOUR ZONE
• 15+ years experience in IT
• Agile Expert, consulting blue-chip clients in the
effective implementation of large scale
distributed Agile from nearshore
• Over 100 projects in
consultancy, shaping, coaching, agile
transformation, agile and iterative delivery
using 1 to 20 scrum teams
• Former Projects Delivery Manager and Head
of agilePM, overseen good delivery of all
projects from a RO base of a large
international IT Services company
• 15+ years experience in IT
• Agile Expert with wide consultancy
experience in shaping enterprise agile
engagements
• Extensive agile coaching experience, has
helped over 30 teams and scrum masters
in adopting agile and growing their skills
• Former Head of Development
Romania, spotting, attracting and
managing over 160 IT professionals in 2
delivery locations
George Anghelache
Delivery Manager
Cristian Cazan
Delivery Manager

4. IN YOUR ZONE
CRASH & BURNdown
how not to fail in Enterprise Agile
We’ve all dealt with the pain of helping Enterprise
size clients to implement and work with Agile.
Sometimes that failed abruptly.
Have you worked with a poor product backlog? Was
the Product Owner unable to take a decision on
story priorities? Have you worked with a client
partly committed to agile? Was the product
deemed done by the PO and team only to be failed
later in the path to production?
Let’s fictively explore together some of these pains
and ponder on solutions for them.

5. IN YOUR ZONE 5
Global Banking Provider
Massive 3 years change program, new B2C portal, new back office system
Integrates and streamlines over a dozen of their mission critical systems
Mix of technologies, Java, .NET, Legacy
Poor unit and integration testing coverage
Agile Transformation and Delivery with 7 teams

6. IN YOUR ZONE 6
Near the Agile Board
the SM Jack talks with the PO Oliver about the backlog quality

7. IN YOUR ZONE 7
Role Play Transcript
- SM updating the board
- PO admires board and progress
- SM adding tasks after interim demo
and new scenario from PO
- PO actually likes that, does not get the
impact of the changes
- SM explains Sprint Goal
slip, Burndown bump and impact
- PO freaks out, demo with his key
stakeholders in danger
- SM explains Design Agency (DA)
dependency
- PO praises DA, brings up their
complaints on too many meetings
- SM explains why communication is
important, sets a Grooming meting next
week to detail
- PO does not get Grooming, teases SM

8. IN YOUR ZONE
Product Backlog Quality Practices
The Crash
Sprint Goal changes
User Stories unclear to the team and PO
User Stories are too big
Product Owner oblivious to lots of Agile practices
(estimation, sprint goal, burndown, grooming)
Product Backlog and Release Planning ignoring
Design Agency work and dependencies

9. IN YOUR ZONE
Product Backlog Quality Practices
The Rescue
Introduce Definition of Ready
Introduce proper Backlog Grooming
Agile Coaching and Training sessions for PO
Add Design Agency specific US to the PB
Introduce Design Agency in SoS
Common Release Planning in SoS

10. IN YOUR ZONE 10
CTO’s Office
the CTO Ethan talks with the SM Jack about the PO role

11. IN YOUR ZONE 11
Role Play Transcript
- CTO invites SM to sit in his office
- CTO brings up issue with release plan
visibility, affects Stake Holders & Business
Users
- CTO What Are You Going To Do About It
- SM explains generic Agile Release Planning
- SM blame PO for not having a Product
Roadmap and changing priorities
- CTO defensive, likes PO, sais PO doing the
right thing, involving the right leads+BUMgr
- SM quotes from Scrum Guide on PO role
- CTO WAYGTDAI
- SM example on PO, 1 week delayed
decision, voting via Senior Users Group
- CTO WAYGTDAI
- SM PO is stalling, this is waste

12. IN YOUR ZONE
Product Owner unable to take decisions
The Crash
No clear visibility of the releases
Senior Business Users committee acts as PO
PO unable to take decisions
Team develops on assumptions, frequent rework
PO delayed decisions causes waste
SM rigid in applying Agile
Ignores his remit of Agile Transformation

13. IN YOUR ZONE
Product Owner unable to take decisions
The Rescue
Introduce Product Envisioning and Roadmap
Release Planning mapped on themes, epics
Organizational changes to empower the PO
Change the PO with a more senior role
Introduce Backlog Grooming and Forward Planning
SM support the PO in product planning
SM proactive in helping the client to implement
agile on business side

14. IN YOUR ZONE 14
Over the Phone
the SM Jack calls Sam the Release Manager about the integration incident

15. IN YOUR ZONE 15
Role Play Transcript
- SM I called ref the integration
issue
- RM unhappy, rolled back
project branch, pre-prod
environment locked 4h, waste
- SM issue does not reproduce
- RM tries to interrupt
- SM US accepted, AC fully
covered with tests and passed
- RM tries to interrupt
- SM fully unit tested, our auto
regression passed, strong DoD
- RM how did you test
integration with settlements
engine?
- SM talked with AS/400
team, got specs, built a simulator
- RM App Supp fixed bugs
there, changed settlement
WF, your sim out of date, system
crashed
- SM aaahhhh

16. IN YOUR ZONE
Done is Done
The Crash
Not a good understanding of the Release Cycle
Siloed Release Planning ignoring other teams work
Siloed view of Done ignoring other systems
Automated integration testing missing
No other approach defined to compensate

17. IN YOUR ZONE
Done is Done
The Rescue
Fully explore the Path to Production with
RM and all other teams
Enterpise SoS to catch dependencies between
all teams working on the system
Enhance Definition of Done for a Release
Introduce special integration sprints
Gradually introduce Continuous Delivery practices

18. IN YOUR ZONE
Lost in Translation…

19. IN YOUR ZONE
Thank you!
Cristian Cazan
Delivery Manager
Cristian.Cazan@endava.com
in: cristiancazan
George Anghelache
Delivery Manager
George.Anghelache@endava.com
in: georgea

20. IN YOUR ZONE
This material draws inspiration from a massive community of Agile enthusiasts, our own experience and that of many clients and
companies we've engaged with through the years.
• People that have inspired us through many trainings, workshops , articles and webinars: Mike Cohn, Jeff Sutherland, Henrik
Kniberg, Ken Schwaber, Roman Pichler, Anna Forss, Serge Beaumont, Mike Beedle and many others we’ve not intentionally forgot
• Sites and whitepapers with excellent knowledge: www.agilealliance.org; www.mountaingoatsoftware.com;
www.scrumalliance.org; www.controlchaos.com; www.implementingscrum.com; www.jeffsutherland.org; www.agileforall.com;
www.infoq.com; www.rapidscrum.com; www.slideshare.net; www.agile42.com; scrum.jeffsutherland.com;
www.agilemanifesto.org; www.scrum.org; www.wikipedia.org; www.projectmanagement.com; www.romanpichler.com;
www.agilesherpa.org; www.cathycarleton.com; www.implementingscrum.com; www.gantthead.com;
• Books that have added invaluable knowledge: Ken Schwaber - Agile Project Management with Scrum; Mike Cohn - Agile
Estimating and Planning; Mike Cohn – Introduction to user stories; Roman Pichler - Agile product management with Scrum;
Anna Forss - Confessions of a serial product owner; Ken Schwaber - The Enterprise and Scrum; Mike Cohn - User Stories Applied;
Carl Larson and Frank LaFasto - Teamwork; Serge Beaumont - Practical Tools for the Product Owner: Focus, Value, Flow; Jim
Highsmith - Agile Project Management; Jeff Patton - Story Maps; Mike Cohn - Succeeding with Agile; 37 Signals: Getting Real; Jeff
Sutherland - The Power of Scrum ; Tobias Mayer - Scrum Roles; Donald Reinertsen - The Principles of Product Development
Flow; C. Jakobsen and J. Sutherland - Scrum and CMMI – Going from Good to Great; Donald Reinertsen - Managing The Design
Factory; Scrum Sense – What every product owner should know; Ken Schwaber, Beedle Mike - Agile Software Development with
Scrum;
• Anglo EU Translation guide courtesy of http://www.scribd.com/doc/55551980/Anglo-EU-Translation-Guide
Attributions