Foundations of the Scaled Agile Framework: Be Agile. Scale Up. Stay Lean. And Have More Fun

© 2014 IBM Corporation1

Foundations of the Scaled Agile Framework: Be Agile. Scale Up. Stay Lean. And Have More Fun.(April 1, 2014)

Host: Jean-Louis (JL) Marechaux

IBM Worldwide Technical Enablement and CoP leader : CLM-IT and Agile

Visit the DevOps community: http://bit.ly/dwDevOps

Worldwide Technical Enablement | IBM Rational Software

Dean LeffingwellChief Methodologist and FounderScaled Agile Framework

Welcome to the developerWorks DevOps Technical Chats

The webinar will begin momentarily....

Jennifer FawcettVP Scaled Agile Academy


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1 © 2008 - 2013 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved. © 2008 - 2013 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. Scaled Agile Framework ® is a trademark of Leffingwell, LLC.

By Dean Leffingwell

SAFe Foundations: Be Agile. Scale Up. Stay Lean. And Have More Fun.

IBM DevOps Community April 1, 2014

2 © 2008 - 2013 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved.

Keeping Pace

!  Our modern world runs on software. !  What doesn't now, likely will soon !  We’ve had Moore’s Law for hardware, and Moore’s

Law+ for envisioning what software could do !  But, our prior development practices haven’t kept

pace !  Agile shows the greatest promise, but was developed

for small teams !  We need a new approach – one that harnesses the

power of Agile and Lean – but applies to the needs of the largest software enterprises

Our development methods must keep pace with an increasingly complex world


We Thought We’d be Programming Like This


But Sometimes It Feels Like This


We Have a Choice of Approaches

4 444 : Documents Documents Unverified Code Software


Accelerating Value Delivery

Early value delivery accumulates and accumulates

Time

Valu

e D

eliv

ery


Makes Money Faster

TIME

VA

LUE

DE

LIV

ER

Y


First, Some Thoughts on Agile Methods

!  Scrum –  Works great. Less filling. Ubiquitous. Scrumptious. Let’s Sprint.

!  Extreme Programming –  Really great code from really great coders.

We can scale great code. Extremely useful. Let’s Program with it.

!  Kanban –  Clear thinking on flow, demand management and limiting wip.

Let’s flow, limit WIP and manage demand with it.

!  But if these innovative methods don’t have the native constructs to address the view beyond the team − the enterprise and systems view − shouldn’t we do something about that?

!  And, on behalf of millions of practitioners, working on really big systems in really big companies, and struggling badly with existing approaches, don’t we have an obligation to try?


Scaling, You Have a Choice

You have a blank slate.

Figure it out what works and grow it to suit you.


Or Start with A Proven Framework

A proven, publicly-facing framework for applying Lean and Agile practices at enterprise scale

! Synchronizes alignment, collaboration and delivery for large numbers teams

Core values: 1.  Code Quality 2.  Program Execution 3.  Alignment 4.  Transparency

http://ScaledAgileFramework.com


What’s Behind the Framework?


SAFe Roots

Lean, Systems Thinking

Principles of Product

Development Flow Agile Development

Field experience at enterprise scale

Iterative and Incremental Development


Lean Thinking Provides Thinking Tools

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen


Goal: Speed, Value, Quality

THE GOAL !  Sustainably shortest lead time !  Best quality and value to

people and society !  Most customer delight, lowest

cost, high morale, safety

All we are doing is looking at the timeline, from the where the customer gives us an order to where we collect the cash. And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value added wastes. – Taiichi Ohno We need to figure out a way to deliver software so fast that our customers don’t have time to change their minds.

Mary Poppendieck

Most software problems will exhibit themselves as a delay. – Al Shalloway

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen


Product Development Flow

1.  Take an economic view

2.  Actively manage queues

3.  Understand and exploit variability

4.  Reduce batch sizes

5.  Apply WIP constraints

6.  Control flow under uncertainty: cadence and synchronization

7.  Get feedback as fast as possible

8.  Decentralize control Reinertsen, Don. Principles of Product Development Flow

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen


Reduce Batch Size Small batches go through the system faster with lower

variability

!  Large batch sizes increase variability !  High utilization increases variability !  Severe project slippage is the most

likely result

! Reducing batch size –  Reduces cycle time; faster

feedback –  Decreases variability and

risk ! Most important batch is

the transport (handoff) batch

! Proximity (co-location) enables small batch sizes

Project slippage rises exponentially with duration

Fig. Source: Poppendieck. Implementing Lean Software Development Reinertsen, Don. Principles of Product Development Flow


Visibility and WIP Constraints

Question: How is this team doing? How do you know that? What would be the affect of a three story WIP constraint on Dev and Test

Today


Let’s Look at the Framework


Nothing Beats an Agile Team ! Empowered, self-organizing, self-managing cross-

functional teams ! Valuable, fully-tested software increments every two weeks ! Scrum project management practices and XP-inspired

technical practices !  Teams operate under program vision, system, architecture

and user experience guidance ! Value description via User Stories


That Focuses on Code Quality

You can’t scale crappy code

Agile Architecture

Con/nuous Integra/on

Test-‐First

Refactoring

Pair Work

Collec/ve Ownership

Code Quality Provides: !  Higher quality products and

services, customer satisfaction

!  Predictability and integrity of software development

!  Development scalability

!  Higher development velocity, system performance and business agility

!  Ability to innovate

Code Quality


Systems Must be Managed

A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves, components become selfish, competitive, independent profit centers, and thus destroy the system. . . . The secret is cooperation between components toward the aim of the organization. – W. Edwards Deming


Scale to the Program Level

! Common sprint lengths and estimating ! Face-to-face planning cadence for collaboration,

alignment, synchronization, and assessment ! Value description via Features and Benefits

! Self-organizing, self-managing team-of-agile-teams ! Continuous value delivery ! Aligned to a common mission via a single backlog


Synchronize to Assure Delivery

PSI

Sys 1 Sys 2 Sys 3 Sys 4 Sys 5 Sys 6 Sys 7 Sys 8

Iterate Iterate Iterate Iterate Iterate Iterate



PSI

PSI

PSI

Continuous Integration

Continuous Integration

PSI


Develop on Cadence. Deliver on Demand. Development occurs on a fixed cadence.

The business decides when value is released.

Deliver on Demand

Major Release Customer

Upgrade Customer Preview

Major Release New

Feature

Develop on Cadence

PSI PSI PSI PSI PSI


Cadence-Based Cross-Functional Planning

!  Two days every 8-12 weeks !  Most attend in person !  Product/Program Management/System Engineering owns

feature priorities !  Development team owns story planning and high-level estimates !  Architects, systems engineers work as intermediaries for

interfaces, and dependencies

Cadence-based Planning meetings are the “pacemaker” of the agile enterprise


DevOps

1.  Build and maintain a production-equivalent staging environment

2.  Maintain development and test environments to better match production

3.  Deploy to staging every sprint; deploy to production frequently

4.  Put everything under version control

5.  Start creating the ability to automatically build environments

6.  Start automating the actual deployment process

Tangible value occurs only when the end-users are successfully operating the software

Deployment pipeline streamlines delivery


Scaling to the Portfolio

“A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system.” – W. Edwards Deming


Scale to the Portfolio

! Centralized strategy, decentralized execution

!  Investment themes provide operating budgets for trains

! Kanban systems provide portfolio visibility and WIP limits

! Objective metrics support governance and kaizen

! Value description via Business and Architectural Epics


Agile Program Portfolio Management

Supporting lean and agile practices for business results

4.  Decentralized, rolling-wave planning

5.  Agile estimating and planning

6.  Self-managing Agile Release Trains

1.  Decentralized decision-making

2.  Demand management; continuous value flow

3.  Lightweight epic business cases

7.  Objective, fact- based measures and milestones


Winning is More Fun?


Better Quality is More Fun

ü  44% decrease in post release

defects ü  76%+ decrease in time to

respond to customer request ü  “greatest thing Mitchell has

done in my 14 years here”


More Engaging Work Environments

ü  Average delivery cycle time down from 12 month to 3 months

ü  6X increase in delivery frequency

ü  50% cost to deliver reduction ü  95% decrease in product defects ü  100% projects delivered on time

and on budget ü  Happy project sponsors ü  Happy teams


Faster Time to Market with Higher Quality

ü  Field issue resolution time: down 42%

ü  Warranty Expense: down 50% ü  Time to production: down 20% ü  Time to market: 20% faster ü  Employee engagement: Up

9.8%


Higher Engagement is More Fun

ü  Substantially improved communication with peer teams, program stakeholders, and domain and technical experts

ü  Teams were able to commit to a realistic plan

ü  Better alignment to the key program priorities

ü  Teams understand “why are we doing this important work”


The Management Challenge

It is not enough that management commit themselves to quality and productivity, they must know what it is they must do.

If you can’t change the system who can?

- W. Edwards Deming


Lean Foundation: Leadership

1.  Take an economic view of the full value chain

2.  Embrace the Agile Manifesto 3.  Develop people, not things 4.  Own the system of which they

speak 5.  Decentralize control 6.  Unlock the intrinsic motivation

of knowledge workers 7.  Implement software

development flow. Visualize work. Manage work in process.

8.  Build high-performing Agile teams

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen

Lean Thinking Manager-Teachers

! Management is trained in lean thinking

! Bases decisions on this long term philosophy


Conclusion

! The foundation of Lean is leadership

! The foundation of SAFe is you


DevOps

1.  Build and maintain a production-equivalent staging environment

2.  Maintain development and test environments to better match production

3.  Deploy to staging every sprint; deploy to production frequently

4.  Put everything under version control

5.  Start creating the ability to automatically build environments

6.  Start automating the actual deployment process

Tangible value occurs only when the end-users are successfully operating the software

Deployment pipeline streamlines delivery

Technology

Foundations of the Scaled Agile Framework: Be Agile. Scale Up. Stay Lean. And Have More Fun