Copyright BSPIN Agile Practices Benchmarking - Report Report at the end of first panel discussion held on 30 th April Chairperson -Thara Srivathsa, Improvalue Consulting (Mail:

Copyright BSPIN Overview Panel Discussion date – 30 th April 2011 No. of Organizations presented – 2 Large, 1 Small Organizations Participated/No. of Participants - Types of Organizations – Service and Product Companies Predominant domains covered – Banking, Insurance, Media, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Quality

Copyright BSPIN Common Agile Practices  Agile implementation found efficient with smaller teams. However adopting Agile for large, distributed teams is not a major challenge anymore;  Larger teams divided into smaller scrum teams.  Offshore SCRUM masters handled dependency issues in daily stand-up.  While large and distributed teams adopted Agile, initial sprints were at on-site and subsequently the later sprints were moved to off shore.  Common benefits found are : handling changing requirements, better alignment to business, better time to market, good quality and delighted customers.  No. of projects per year is increasing year on year. Small organizations have 2 to 3 products/projects embracing Agile where as large organizations have 25+ new projects per year.  Mostly US customers show interest in adopting Agile. However there is an increasing trend in the interests among Europe, Asia and Australian Customers.  Predominantly SCRUM with some XP practices are being followed- Daily Stand-ups, Retrospective, continuous integration, Automated build process and sanity testing, code refactoring, demonstration.  Agile adoption has been predominantly with respect to enhancements to the existing project and few case studies on new product development were also discussed. Agile is being adopted for Testing, Service projects as well more in the SCRUM mode.  Usage of Project Management tools are not very significant (Small organizations use excel files).  Velocity stood out as a common metrics adopted by all organizations. Other metrics include burn down chart, delivered defect rate, % of user stories accepted, velocity variation (between planned and actual),  Engineering metrics like cyclomatic complexity and test coverage were also reported by 1 organization.

Copyright BSPIN Agile Execution-Challenges  Merging Agile and CMMi practices in CMMI focussed organizations. No contribution to the organization metrics while adopting Agile.  One large organization had kept Agile and CMMi projects separate. Agile COE team reviewed the progress of Agile projects, rated the projects, consolidated the results.  Clarity on Initial scope and estimation was seen as a challenge.  Tendency to fallback to waterfall or V model observed – Scrum masters, Agile COE to handhold.  No individual heroes – appraisal was a challenge.  Multiple tools and technologies – Choosing the right tool but not the prescribed tool.  User story articulation by Business and Customer – creating awareness helped.  Frequent changes in requirements throughout the iteration – interruptions in sprints.  Cultural change – managing communications, team spirit, articulation  Attrition-one organization managed by including the new member as a pair with the experienced programmer. Large organizations use KM Portals, Agile training for new members.  Documentation – How much and when to document especially when the product needs to be handed over to a different team for Maintenance - Separate sprint planned frequently for documentation. Sometimes documentation requirement was treated as a User story and executed.

Copyright BSPIN Future sessions – What to look for?  Agile implementation in hardware dependent domains like – Telecom, Embedded.  Agile adoption in safety critical domains with regulatory requirements – Nuclear, Pharma IT, Defence, Avionics, Healthcare.  Contribution of Agile projects to organizational metrics.  Handling Agile in Fixed price projects (contractual commitments for a FP project)  Agile projects need experienced people – can a premium rate be charged for AGILE projects?  Productivity – Measurement and demonstrating improvements in productivity  Balancing between Test Automation (key to AGILE methodology) and cost of change  Agile Testing – Tailoring AGILE for “Independent V&V” projects  Adopting Agile in “New Product Development” – How much of “UPFRONT DESIGN”?

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