This talk will try and look into the complexity of project execution in an IT Services industry and questions the viability of certain agile methods such as Scrum and XP and also looks at Lean (Kanban) as a method that might help us achieving successful agile adoption leading to a more effective and efficient change.

1. Agile Adoption in IT Services
Evolution over Revolution
Ravi Kumar
ravikumar.rk@gmail.com
Sept 14th, 2013
Sunday, 15 September 13

2. Agenda
Culture, Change & Complexities
Project Execution Landscape
Revolutionary approach & Dysfunctional
agile teams
Is Evolutionary a better fit?
Case Study
Embracing LEAN-agile for change
Revolution or Evolution
Agile IT Services Manifesto
Sunday, 15 September 13

3. Organization Culture
http://collectiveedgecoaching.com/the-agile-enterprise/agile-culture/
Actuality
Possibility
Personal IMPersonal
William E. Schneider Model
IT Services
Sunday, 15 September 13

4. A thing about CHANGE
Sunday, 15 September 13

5. Software Development System
Methodologies
customers
management
HR
Sales
Sunday, 15 September 13

6. Agile Transformation
Challenges in IT Services
Balancing and right
sourcing between internal
and external dev teams.
Business Participation
and Collaboration.
Leadership and Culture
Change.
Multiple delivery models
and vendors.
Collaborative office
setup.
Scaling skills and team
agility.
Lack of Agile centered
contracts.
SLAs, Penalties and
Attrition.
Rigid Administrative and
HR Policies.
Sunday, 15 September 13

7. Revolutionary Approaches
http://www.luxoft.com/blog/agile/to-be-agile-or-to-fail-shift-your-software-delivery-methodology/
SCRUM
XP
Demanding !!
Sunday, 15 September 13

8. Agile Culture
http://agilitrix.com/2011/03/agile-culture-is-all-about-people/
disruptive for
change!!
Sunday, 15 September 13

9. Revolutionary Approaches
At a Team Level with one or few teams.
Where there is Leadership and Management Buy-in
All teams work for the same company.
Skills is not an issue etc.
Works WELL !!
Sunday, 15 September 13

10. IT Services & Team
Dysfunctions
Team Dysfunctions
Team Dysfunctions
Agile Context
Customer Manage Vendor
Teams
MSAs, SLAs and Contracts
Business Participation
Divided by Walls
Lack of outcome based
measures
Most Team Dysfunctions occur
because of Business factors
that are outside the team!!
Sunday, 15 September 13

11. Revolutionary Approach
Challenges
Manage both support and dev?
Economies of Scale.
Multiple stakeholders.
Collaboration across teams.
Centrally Driven Architecture
Scarcity of specialized skills.
Sharing of key people across teams.
Quite a Challenge ??
dribbble.com
Sunday, 15 September 13

12. Evolutionary Approach
www.tumblr.com
Accom
m
odative
for Change!!
Sunday, 15 September 13

13. Evolutionary Approach
Embrace a more holistic approach.
No Local optimizations
Long term success by gradual change and
sustenance.
Respect current ways of working and making
small yet definitive incremental changes.
Small results and success leading to big
changes.
Sunday, 15 September 13

14. KANBAN Culture
http://agilitrix.com/2011/04/kanban-aligns-with-control-culture/
Aligns well with IT
Services
Sunday, 15 September 13

15. motivations for Kanban
Controlling the rate of transition.
Allocating specialized skill sets
Enabling participation of management and leadership
Providing teams with guiding principles on Lean & ToC
Enabling teams to work on the right-sized chunks.
Sunday, 15 September 13

16. • Pre Mature Estimation.
• Contractual Obligation
and 8 Days/Month is
spent on Estimating
• whatever was estimated
(50%) was not taken up
for development
• Multiple Level Of
Estimation
• Too Many Blockers
• Delay in providing
the clarifications
• High level of
Dependency on IT
and Business Team
Late
Consumption,
resulting
rework efforts
Too Much of
Context
Switching
• Lack of adequate Reviews
• Less rigor of Knowledge transfer
• Little of Slack in the team
• Lack of Visibility on who is doing
what
• Sense of Ownership
One Person
owns the
Ticket till the
Deployment
LEAN-agile: Case Study
thanks to @balajiTw
Sunday, 15 September 13

17. LEAN-agile: Case Study
Delivery Cadence
• The rate of delivery of work to UAT or production
environment
• Teams define and agree on ‘Definition of Done’
which is used to move the work to the next stage.
• Progress tracked through WIP limits and daily
stand ups
• Metrics (Cycle time, Lead time, CFD) derived out of
the delivery cadence
Input Cadence
• Needed for a healthy pipeline of work
• To be prioritized sized rightly to get a predictable
delivery cadence
• Work items to be thinly sliced to reduce variability
• Each user story to have well define Acceptance
Criteria
• Value of the stories should be quantifiable
Blockers
• Work Items which needs
immediate attention
• Impeding the flow
• Sleeping Work Items
Delivery Cadence BlockersInput Cadence
thanks to @balajiTw
Sunday, 15 September 13

18. Blockers/Impediments
• Clarifications | Dependencies without addressing them the CRs
will not be progressed are tracked here
• Classification on Blockers : Biz, IT
• Ageing on Blockers
Benefits
• Brings out immediate visibility (possible delay| items to be
tracked closely etc )
• Leverage existing knowledge of the team (Environmental ,
Technical)
• Triggers Management to pitch in
Waste Identified
• CR’s getting Deferred
Ageing
Kaizen / Continuous Improvement
• Target on the improvement in Cycle
• Action Items to achieve the improvements
Benefits
• Target gives motivation for the team to work towards achieve it
Continuous Improvement
LEAN-agile: Case Study
thanks to @balajiTw
Sunday, 15 September 13

19. LEAN-agile: Case Study
CYCLE TIME - 8d
LEAD TIME - 13 Days
Projects Performance
• Cycle Time
• Lead Time
• Cumulative Flow Diagram
Improvements
thanks to @balajiTw
Sunday, 15 September 13

20. IT Services:
Implementing LEAN-agile
Start by answering WHY
and not HOW
Centralized Strategy
(LEAN) coupled with
Decentralized Execution
(agile)
Customer and
engagement as a whole and
not just projects/programs.
Establish a FLOW
mechanism by decoupled
Input and Delivery Cadence
Visualize the flow and
overcome constraints
Collaborative workspaces
and Information Radiators.
Sunday, 15 September 13

21. http://www.redbubble.com/people/skoolboiz/works/9004287-evolution-of-revolution
to sustain EVOLUTION we require well
thought out REVOLUTION !!
Sunday, 15 September 13

22. Thank you!!
Sunday, 15 September 13