See our presentation slides used at the OOP conference in Munich in February 2014. Systematic presented how we successfully manage our large complex projects Sitaware, Columna and Public sector based on our unique combination of CMMI, Lean and Scrum.

1. Nearly 50 countries use Systematic’s solutions
Systematic’s offices
Manage complex projects to succes using CMMI, Lean and Scrum
http://www.systematic.com

2. Systematic Core Business Areas
VISION: A leading international company in delivering reliable and straightforward
solutions to people who make critical decisions every day
Public Sector
Intelligence &
National Security
Healthcare
MISSION: Simplifying critical decision making
Defence

3. Problem
Summary
Mature Agility

4. Problem
Problem

5. Why are large or complex projects so hard?
McKinsey analysis of 5400 projects: 66% cost overrun - 33% schedule overrun
Standish data 2003-2012:
3,555 projects with labor
costs larger than 10 million
dollars:
6.4% were successful.
52% were "challenged,"
41.4% were failures.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9243396/Healthcare.gov_website_didn_t_have_a_chance_in_hell_?pageNumber=1
Dr. Dobbs 2010:
projects >25 people
40%-55% successful
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/23/business/la-fi-blimp-fire-sale-20131023

6. Why do they fail?
McKinsey analysis of 5400 projects
“Missing Focus: Unclear
objectives ?
and lack of
business focus”
“Skill Issues: Unaligned
?
team and lack of skill(s)”
“Business Risk: The
?
right product? Managed
change for the receiver?”
“Content Issues:
?
Shifting requirements and
technical complexity”
“Execution Issues:
?
Unrealistic schedule and
reactive planning”
“Manufacturing Risk:
Discipline, able to adapt and
?
sustain sponsorship”
What do you think is important for succesful delivery of large projects?

7. What can we do?
What are the bodies of knowledge for large projects?
Lean
software
development
3
5
5
12
7
22
Lean
Six
Sigma
4
50+
CMMI
12
167
Governing
Principles
XP
Operational
Elements
SCRUM
Choice of method(s) should fit the specific needs and your context
CMMI, Lean and Scrum can be applied together!

8. I know Agile & Lean - what is CMMI?
CMMI is an organizational model to provide insigt into own capability
Optimizing
Continuous improvement
Managed
Reduced variation
Change management
Defined
Learning and adoption
Repeatable
Stabilization
Initial
Quantitative measurement
Common processes
Project management
Ensures the organisation meet certain goals & practices …
… and that these practices are institutionalized consistently in the organisation

9. Approach

10. Organize the way you work
How Mary Poppendieck analyzed a management challenge in 2005
Mary Poppendieck
Mary Poppendieck visited Systematic in 2005, and asked:
”How long will it take to test, assuming the code is defect free?”
…
”Aha … then you have a good test process, but …”
This led Systematic to
• A new development method with
early test ingrained, and
• Adoption of Scrum with short
iterations
It impacted culture & practices

11. CMMI and Scrum
CMMI enables prediction and focus on overall objectives
Scrum allows team to focus on product, technology and quality
Product Backlog and Sprint Deliveries glues CMMI & Scrum together
Traditional Project
Management milestones
Sprints
A
B

12. Systematic Process Foundation
Strong synergies between CMMI, Lean and Scrum
Inspect & adapt
Discover solution
Scrum
Sprint
retrospective
Agile Practices
and Values
Customer
perceived value
Lean
Kaizen
Principles &
Mindsets
Organizational
discipline
CMMI
Continuous
improvement
Process
Foundation
Agile needs discipline …
CMMI provides explicit guidance supporting these needs
… and the CMMI model allows for agile practices

13. Lean - CMMI - Agile combined
Strong synergies between CMMI, Lean and Scrum
• CMMI is the process landscape
• Discipline and organization
• Lean is the principles
• Customer value, people, culture
• Scrum is the practices
• State of the art practice
Large or complex projects need elements from all three

14. Experience

15. Large products and projects in Systematic
Examples on large and complex projects from Systematic
SITAWARE
Military Command and Control
Columna
Clinical Information System
Application Integration
Digitalization of the public sector
Involves multiple teams, complex technologies and domains

16. Standard Project Status Report
Managing normal projects is a prerequisite to manage large projects
CMMI and Lean provides a solid foundation for both
Status
Analysis of measures
Risk top 3
12 std KPI’s
Risk Measure
Actions

17. Measures inpired from Lean
Example: Flow of story implementation and fix-time after failed build
Flow of story implementation
Productivity is optimized:
Fix time for failed builds
•
•
•
Flow of work - maximized
Fix-time of failed builds - minimal
Sprint test and release - minimal
 Varianse
reduced

18. READY and competence match
When work allocated to sprint is READY, flow and stability is achieved
Projects measures how ”READY” a sprint plan is
Flow
Flow
100,00%
160,00
90,00%
Actual effort
Actual effort spent
140,00
80,00%
120,00
70,00%
100,00
60,00%
50,00%
Measures of key competencies needed in project
80,00
40,00%
60,00
30,00%
40,00
20,00%
20,00
10,00%
1
3
5
7
9
11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35
Ready
NOT Ready
1
3
5
7
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
29
31
33
35
0,00
0,00%
Ready
NOT Ready
Meeting READY criteria creates stability

19. Organize people & information flow
Example of meeting cascading for a program with six teams
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
09:00
Daily briefs in
team
Daily briefs in
team
Daily briefs in
team
Daily briefs in
team
Daily briefs in
team
09:20
Daily briefs in
team
Daily briefs in
team
Daily briefs in
team
Daily briefs in
team
Daily briefs in
team
09:40
Daily briefs in
PO team
Daily briefs in
PO team
Daily briefs in
PO team
Daily briefs in
PO team
Daily briefs in
PO team
10:00
Daily briefs in
management
team
Daily briefs in
management
team
Daily briefs in
management
team
Daily briefs in
management
team
Daily briefs in
management
team
11:00
12:00
13:00
14:00
15:00
1h weekly team
meeting
1h weekly team
meeting
2h PL - PM
Meeting
Weekly PL
Retrospective
1h Bi-weekly
PM-VP meeting
Weekly meetings to be conducted at 13.00 or 14.00 and morning meetings at 9.00 and 8.40/9.20
due to two teams being managed by one PL

20. Organize realtime status and decisions
CEO and VP daily standup meeting
• Weekly management meeting for CEO and VP is cancelled
• Instead a daily 15 minute standup with CEO and VP’s is introduced
When challenges occur in a project relevant level of management is involved immidiately

21. Organize product components
Large projects with multiple teams requires portefolio management

22. Ingrain quality in daily work
Involve customers – discipline in development of parts – verify deliveries
Involvement & discovery
Quality Built In
Story checklist
Feature checklists
Tools & Test

23. Distributed teams with sourcing partner
Systematic has created a setup to “co-locate” the distributed team
Systematic
Communicative competencies are
as important as the technical
competencies.
Project management
Team 1
Team 2
Team 3
Systematic hiring interviews with all
developers from partners.
3
4
2
All developers from partners receive
a two week on the job training in
Århus.
4
3
2
Frequent visits at both locations –
communication is crucial for succes!
Partner
E.g. specialists
Established guideline for
collaboration with partner.

24. Summary

25. Lessons Learned
The blend of CMMI, Lean and agile adresses hot spots for large project’s
1. Build on proven industry body of knowledge also CMMI & Lean
2. Manage product requirements independent to customers specific needs
3. Visible status and clarity to sustain focus on business objectives
4. Monitor cadence across value chain to keep all activities in sync.
5. Insist on a learning organization – in particular in management team
6. Teams have a long-term ownership of a well defined part of product
7. Setup teams with enough context to “see the whole”
8. Design to allow for fast escalation of issues – design informationflow

26. Large or complex projects need elements from all three

27. Interested in Systematic
For more information visit http://www.systematic.com
The agile transformation in Systematic, is also
documented in these articles :
2007
Scrum and CMMI Level 5: The Magic Potion for Code Warriors
Jeff Sutherland, Ph.D.
Patientkeeper Inc.
jeff.sutherland@computer.org
2008
Carsten Ruseng Jakobsen
Systematic Software Engineering
crj@systematic.dk
Mature Agile with a twist of CMMI
Carsten Ruseng Jakobsen
Systematic Software Engineering
crj@systematic.dk
2009
Kent Aaron Johnson
AgileDigm, Incorporated
Kent.johnson@agiledigm.com
Scrum and CMMI – Going from Good to Great
Carsten Ruseng Jakobsen
Systematic Software Engineering
crj@systematic.dk
2011
Kent Aaron Johnson
AgileDigm, Incorporated
Kent.johnson@agiledigm.com
Jeff Sutherland, Ph.D.
Patientkeeper Inc.
jeff@scruminc.com
Lean as a Scrum Troubleshooter
Carsten Ruseng Jakobsen
Systematic Software Engineering
crj@systematic.dk
Tom Poppendieck
Poppendieck LLC
tom@poppendieck.com
Carsten Ruseng Jakobsen
Senior Process Improvement Manager, M.Sc.E.E., EBA, PMP, CSP
See Jeff SutherLand’s perspective on Scrum and CMMI in this video:
http://systematic.com/how-we-work/approach/maintaining-a-high-level/
IEEE Best
Experience
Report

28. Lessons Learned
The blend of CMMI, Lean and agile adresses hot spots for large project’s
• CMMI and Lean provides substantial input to scale from a simple scrum
team project to a large complex project
• Principle: Build on proven industry body of knowledge
• CMMI and Lean extend agile methods with a proven body of knowledge
• Organize the program
•
•
•
•
Principle: Visible status and clarity
Ensure clear roles and responsibility are established
Establish Program Kanban board to create visible status management tasks
Sustain focus on business objectives to ensure sponsorship and organizational
support
• Organize Product Management
• Principle: Manage product independent to needs from specific customers
• Separate customer and product requirements, and exercise appropriate
stakeholder and requirements management using Product Roadmap and Vision
• Cadence is essential across all activities and should be monitored and kept in
sync. This involves synchronizing speed of requirements development, release
planning, development and release activities.

29. Lessons Learned
The blend of CMMI, Lean and agile adresses hot spots for large project’s
• Organizing Teams (what, how, right speed)
• Principle: Teams have a long-term ownership of a well defined part of product
• The team is responsible and empowered for that part and is established with
appropriate talent and knowledge
• The vision for that part of the product is owned by the team
• Multiple teams in a project requires more explicit allocation of responsibility
• Shared ownership of code across teams, but whenever another team changes
code owned by another team, the team owning the code must be involved
• Organizing product knowledge (consequences of team responsibility)
• Principle: See the whole
• Get people out of the ”feature”-box and let them see features in context of the
long term view for the solution. Get the team engaged with domain specialists.
• Map out who knows what, so the right person can be found on a given topic
• Identify what chapters are needed and how teams use them
• Allocate known deficiencies in the product to the team to handle

30. Lessons Learned
The blend of CMMI, Lean and agile adresses hot spots for large project’s
• Organizing status meetings and information flow
• Principle: Design to allow for fast escalation of issues, since it in most cases is
impractical to do a ”Stop the Line”.
• Principle: Insist on a learning organization – in particular in management team
• Cascading from team scrums to Product Owner Scrum to Management Scrum
• Separate Management and Team weekly status meetings
• Management team do weekly team retrospective
• Bi-weekly meeting with VP
• Monthly Project Status review with VP including A3 Project Status Report

31. Institutionalization – Scrum example
Generally ensures a disciplined approach by the organization
CMMI generic practices (Institutionalization)
Highlights from Systematic adoption of Scrum:
•





•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
GP 2.1 Establish and maintain an organizational policy
for planning and performing Scrum
GP 2.2 Establish and maintain the plan for performing
Scrum
GP 2.3 Provide adequate resources for performing
Scrum
GP 2.4 Assign responsibility and authority for
performing Scrum
GP 2.5 Train the people performing Scrum
GP 2.6 Place designated work products under
configuration management
GP 2.7 Identify and involve the relevant stakeholders
as planned (GP 2.7)
GP 2.8 Monitor and control Scrum against the plan and
take appropriate corrective action
GP 2.9 Objectively evaluate adherence to Scrum and
address noncompliance
GP 2.10 Review the activities, status, and results of
Scrum with higher-level management and resolve
issues

New policy: Default for all new projects to use Scrum
Process descriptions updated to reflect Scrum adoption
Established checklists for each of the Scrum meetings
Started with certification of 32 Scrum Masters by Jeff S.
Updated organizational training program to describe
training for SM and PO
Conducted peer-review with all scrum masters





The enforced standard had a focus on essentials:
- Define Team, SM and PO
- Do the meetings
- Do your sprint AND product burn down
- Know you sprint velocity


Project managers found process easy to adopt
- Leadership versus micro management

Architects, UX and test did a detailed analysis of how
Scrum fit into the existing practices of solution
development
People can easily change project – work is done in the same way
Amplifies learning across the organization

32. Organize technology & knowledge
Systematic sustains a high level of competency in employees
• 75% of our employees are software developers
7% domain specialists and 18% staff employees
“Better train people and risk
they leave, than do nothing
and they stay”
• 61% of our software developers have a Master’s
Degree or a Ph.D.,
22% have a bachelor of engineering degree, and
17% have diploma in advanced computer studies
or other similar qualifications
• Training and education are provided for all to meet
individual, project and organizational needs
• Knowledge networks drives knowledge sharing
• Open culture – people help across teams / projects
We staff projects with domain experts, e.g. nurses or military people
People in projects walk the ward with a doctor or participate in military exercises