Lean-agile change initiative at Yle, year one (Agile Prague 2014)

LEAN-AGILE CHANGE INITIATIVE AT YLE, YEAR ONE

Mirette Kangas (YLE) & Antti Kirjavainen (Houston Inc.)

About us

Mirette Kangas •  Head of Development at

YLE •  Project Management

background •  Changing Media market,

Lean and Agile

Antti Kirjavainen •  Organization coach •  Developer background •  Management 3.0 trainer

@AgilePrague @mirettekangas @anttiki #yle #houstoninc

Yle, the Finnish Broadcasting Company

•  4 television channels •  9 radio channels •  extensive online services •  20 regional radio services in

Finnish, 5 in Swedish and 1 in Sámi

•  8 regional television news broadcasts

•  3,173 permanent employees (January 1, 2014)

•  Yle is financed by a tax paid by both individuals and companies.

VALUES •  Reliability •  Independence •  Respect for everyone GOALS •  Yle serves all Finns •  Yle provides value

to the society •  Yle has

the media sector´s best competence

Yle´s web services Main services

•  Yle Areena (IPTV service), Finland's most appreciated online media brand

•  Yle News •  Svenska.yle.fi

Other services •  Children •  Learning •  Web journalism •  Buu.yle.fi •  Vetamix

All of Yle´s channels are streamed in Yle Areena

AREENA DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION

First Initiative, Spring 2013

Activities

Software Developers

Product People

Head of Business

Steering Group

Head of IT

IT Managers

Create Portfolio Backlog

New ways of working


SUCCESSES

Increased visibility: daily meetings

Software Developers

Product PeopleIT Managers


Fostered collaboration inside the development organization

Software Developers




KEY LEARNINGS

Improvement demands time


Collaboration in decision-making is needed

Software Developers

Product People

Head of Business

Steering Group

Head of IT

IT Managers


Areena: Consequences

•  Collaboration with YLE and Houston Inc. was strengthened due to weekly status, feedback and coaching sessions between Mirette and Antti •  Essential in order to get ideas how to continue

•  And what happened next…


YLE’S VISION FOR INTERNET

2015 Second Initiative, Spring 2013

YLE’s Vision for Internet 2015

•  YLE had created an ambitious vision for company-wide internet business in early 2013

•  The vision was planned to be realized by 2015 •  Realization of the vision needed new kind of

collaboration between different business units and technological functions at YLE

•  It was seen that that would require a significant shift in ways of working and management

•  There was no shared understanding of processes and decision-making


•  Internet Vision 2015 Workshops •  To facilitate the change to new ways of working and •  To create shared understanding of the goals and

content of Internet Vision 2015

•  Set of 8 workshops •  ~60 people from all units at YLE •  From all levels: experts, managers, directors •  Different disciplines: developers, journalists, UX

designers, producers, architects


SUCCESSES

Shared goal for all internet work

•  Customer perspective •  Target condition for ways of working


Photo by stavos (CC2.0 by-nc-nd) Photo by yuan2003 (CC2.0 by-nc)

Roadmap operating model brought into use

Roadmap meeting Every 2 weeks

30 minutes

Service dev organizations

Areena News yle.fi

frontpage

Kids

Learning

Content creation

Platforms

Arch. Swedish

Events

Roadmap demo Every 2 months

Roadmap retrospective Every 2 months

Steering Group

Reviews roadmap Every 3 months

Roadmap Content related to work coordination (no direct customer impact)

Surface. Customer impact. To steering group.

Legend

Yle.fi etusivu Areena U&A Lapset Oppi-minen Muu verkko-journalismi Svenska Alustat Väline Toiminta-malli


Transparency of all internet work over organization boundaries


KEY LEARNINGS

Shared understanding of work is a prerequisite


Photo by yuan2003 (CC2.0 by-nc)

Hard to decide on suitable level of abstraction for roadmap items


Internet Vision 2015: Consequences •  Roadmap wall, meetings for communication and

transparency of work between units have been running for a year

•  Roadmap is visible for all, accessible online in Trello •  Using roadmap wall to communicate with board of

directors on company-wide steering •  YLE’s lean-agile change initiative is based on the

introduction of these practices •  SAFe was benchmarked as a reference implementation •  Positive spirit of collaboration growing between different

units


AREENA PORTFOLIO

MANAGEMENT Third initiative, Autumn 2013

Goals (and commitment) for the new portfolio management

Effective steering of

Areena development

Improve Visibility on

Areena Development

Improve collaboration

with stakeholders



Areena development


Areena Development


with stakeholders

Goals and principles

Describe the customer impact of new

development ideas

Identify and improve ineffective ways of

working

Transparent division of responsibilities

Working and transparent

communication

Transparent goals and decisions

Impact-based steering

Modeling and improving the ways

of working

Stakeholder needs mapping

Transparency of new development ideas, goals and

decisions @AgilePrague @mirettekangas @anttiki #yle #houstoninc


Areena development


Areena Development


with stakeholders

Actions Merging the portfolio

management with Yle.fi roadmap and steering

group

Way of working for describing new

development ideas

Stakeholder interviews

New model of continuous planning


Making planning model transparent,

designing interfaces for stakeholders

Areena development demos

Sharing all material in one location

Rolling planning, merging project planning and

reporting

Merging of decision processes

SUCCESSES

Internet continuous (project) planning model and investment process

Internet Roadmap Short and long term epics in all service areas

Steering Group

Defines the strategy and focus areas

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PORTFOLIO BACKLOG 1 Q 1 Q 1 Q 1 Q

High level goals and focus

BUILD

MEASURE LEARN

Goals and development

actions described in Portfolio

Goals= Customer value, Technical impact, Content objectives




Continuous Planning Model for Areena Portfolio Management

Areena Product Owner Team

Need, size = big

Is the need relevant for

Areena?

Document the need

Yes

ImpactValue

(Confluence)No

Research

Technical implementation

optionsSizeRisks

(Confluence)

IT Managers, architects and developers

Priority?(decision:

Confluence)

Prioritization

Portfolio board:Before current work

Portfolio board: To the next quarter

Portfolio board:Backlog (4-9 months)

No actions

No Actions

Portfolio board: As a part of existing epic

Urgent

Timely and valuable

Valuable

Part of existing work,valuable

Not current

Move the other items in the

Portfolio board

Communicate changes to the

roadmap

Communicate changes to

project tracking and planning

Demo the decisions at the Areena steering

group


Increased visibility: weekly meetings

Software Developers



Areena Portfolio Management: Successes The change initiative itself:

•  Demos •  Goals •  Communication •  Transparency


OUR LEARNINGS FROM THE

FIRST YEAR


Expectation management is hard


Scaled Agile Framework


Market research Field research Measurements Crowdsourcing

Trial versions Complete product versions Adjustment in

working

Teams

Company portfolio

Subjective metrics

Adaptive design

Setting subjective goals

Balancing investments

Lead times

Investments / progress

*What to do / How to do

Organizational learning

Continuous improvement

Problem-shooting

Continuous work

Scaled Agile Framework

Nitor Delta

If you want to be more agile, fail early


Individuals and interactions count


Image source http://runkle-consulting.com/

Thank you!

@mirettekangas

@anttiki
