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Cultural Issues faced while Adopting Agile

Avinash Gargav_garg@yahoo.com

91-9818642207

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Brief Update about myselfStarted my carrier as a Test engineerSoftware Quality managerSix Sigma Black Belt Got Role of development manager (by

accident) and my journey started towards Agile and still…..

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AgendaBefore Agile How I met with Agile and got hookedPilot Project (Agile and Dev team only)Agile at Organization level(other functions

got involved)How to save Agile, need help ??

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Before AgileDone all the QA work using traditional

waterfall modelThings worked fine though question was

asked why QA takes 4-5 months after Dev is done, used Six Sigma to bring it to 3 months and also reduced number of bugs reported by customer by 25%.

Continued my journey applying waterfall model in Dev process

• Contd..

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Before AgileBroken development in different pieces

(Requirement, Analysis and Design, Coding and Dev Testing)

Plan worked fine till coding phase and started getting surprises during coding phase, delivery was always late and schedule variance was about 20% to 25%, while effort variance was as high as 50%. Team always worked very long hours and on weekends to complete development work during end of Project. • Contd..

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Before AgileAnd after all the hard work, when delivery

goes to QA, there were so many bugs reported which raises questions has Dev team done any testing ??

Started doing more task level breakdown, more emphasis put on requirement and design phase however results were same

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How I met with Agile and fell in LoveMet with Agile on net, while searching better

methods for Software project managementGot impressed and started reading more

material and purchased some booksPresented my idea to my manager and he

gave his go ahead for pilot project…

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Pilot Project implementationDev team adopted Agile (Scrum)Team motivation was high and things worked

great, with no schedule variance and not much quality issues

News got spread and senior management started discussion regarding it.

Management gave go ahead to implement it at Organization level.

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Agile Adoption at Organization Level

Product Owners saw immediate benefit of Agile on cycle time reduction. Previously it was taking minimum 6 months to respond even if development work was 2 to 4 weeks.

Dev team was already motivated to implement itQA (Software Testing) and TP (Technical Writers)

were not at all enthusiastic with this new change. Dev manager became scrum master. QA and TP

continued to work as a separate team with their manager respectively.

• Contd..

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Agile Adoption at Organization LevelProduct Owners started raising storiesDev team started with 4 week sprint (Dev only)QA said they will not get involved with Dev in

same sprint, once the code will be delivered they will test it, however not along with development (I think this was one of the biggest deviation which led to many issues later)

Same thing happened with Technical writers team

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Issues which started comingPriorities getting changed very frequentlyRelease planning activity became adhocOne of the epic feature for a release got

dropped after 80% work is done.QA became more and more away from actual

dev sprints. QA is testing features which are developed by dev team 2 sprints back.

Code being sent to customer without QA testing.

• Contd..

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Issues which started comingDev team started working in fire fighting

situation to resolve customer issues, which came due to no QA testing.

Lot more pressure on dev team to work long hours to meet sprint commitment, while fixing reported customer issues.

Confidence of customer is low due to quality issues and slippage on dates

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Where we are heading towards..Customer is not happyDev team is de-motivatedQA team is not happy as release is sent to

customer without QA testingSenior management is concerned, as this is

getting impact on company financials

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How to get back to Happy days, few areas we are working onQA Testing is happening in parallel with Dev.

QA now more involved with development team, no code will be sent to customer without QA testing. Lot more formal/informal communication is happening between QA and Dev.

Improving communication to senior management preparing a master project plan, which will act as a data point, to show any change in priority what impact it will have on schedule and cost.

• Contd..

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How to get back to Happy days, few areas we are working onDev team will put more emphasis on dev

testing. I think one of the area which we missed was not much focus on automated unit testing and using XP practices.

More close co-ordination happening between different teams (marketing, dev, testing, writers, field and support ). Collaboration between different teams.

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Any suggestions you Have

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Things I learned from Day 1 Session

Shu, the student copies techniques without adapting them.

Ha, the student reflects on what has been learned and breaks free from traditions.

Ri, the student is now a practitioner extending the art.

• Contd..

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Things I learned from Day 1 SessionPersonal mindset is crucial

What did I do wrong?What can I do different?What can I do to help?

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Thanks