Microsoft developer division has implemented SCRUM while developing Visual Studio 2012, and TFS 2012. In this talk we will cover information on this implementation. You will learn about why Microsoft has decided to implement SCRUM, best practices that was helpful for us. How implementing SCRUM has changed our cadence and product delivery cycle. The content will be our developer division SCRUM journey. We are not pure SCRUM put at future leavel we are. I will also discuss which part of our process is SCRUm which part still is not.

1. Real World Experiences from
Microsoft
Deniz Ercoskun
Microsoft Corporation
DPE Developer Tools Lead for MEA

2. Istanbul

3. Istanbul
Redmond

4. Developer Division
• Visual Studio
• Team Foundation Server
• .net
• Silverlight
Which group?

5. Quality Milestone
After VS 2010 shipped

6. The Box & The Service

7. The Box
• Multi-year cycles
• Milestones and stabilizations
• Debt

8. “Firms today experience a much higher velocity of
business change. Market opportunities appear or
dissolve in months or weeks instead of years.“
Diego Lo Giudice and Dave West, Forrester
February 2011
Transforming Application Delivery
Why agile in the first place?

9. 1.Our Roles
2.Our Organization
3.Our Teams
4.Our Cadence
5.Our Plan
6.Our Practices
Our Experience

10. Our Roles
Program Manager – Responsible to ensure we’re building the
right thing.
Development – Responsible to ensure we’re building products
that are fast, reliable, and well engineered.
QA – Responsible to ensure we’re building high quality products
that meet customers needs.

11. Our Organization
Program Manager Development QA

12. Our Teams
Program Manager Development QA

13. Our Teams
QADev QADev QADev QADevPM PM PM PM
Collaboration Version Control Build Work Item Tracking

14. Sprint Cadence
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3

15. What’s Changed?
6 weeks
10 – 12 weeks
3 weeks

16. 3 Week Sprints
Sprint 43
Sprint 44
Sprint 45
Sprint 4642

17. 3 Week Sprints
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3
Sprint Planning
Backlog
Grooming
Deployment!
Sprint Planning
Backlog
Grooming
Done!

18. Sprint Mechanics

19. Same code base used for both
Work in a single branch
Gated checkin only builds
Rolling test system, including upgrade tests
Disruptive changes integrated at the beginning of a sprint
Merge to production branch, quarterly update CTPs
The service and the box

20. How about at Scale?
Sprint 43
Sprint 44
Sprint 45
Sprint 4642

21. Team Chats
Team Chats Team Chats Team Chats
3 questions:
1. What’s next?
2. How’s the team doing?
3. Any issues?

22. Team Chats
Collaboration Version Control Build Work Item Tracking

23. Our Plan
18 month vision

24. What does the work look like?
Scenario –Alarge initiative in a release.
Experience –An end-to-end set of user
stories.
User Story –Arequirement capturing
the role, functionality, and value.
Task – Work the team does to fulfill a
Story.
Experience
User Story
Task

25. Work Items

26. Bugs

27. Rolling Tests

28. Waterfall
• Big picture planning
• Design
• Specs
Rules We Follow
Scrum
• Sprint Planning
• Daily Standup
• Cross-functional teams
• Retrospectives
Kanban
• Visual Tracking
• WIP Limits

29. Rules We Break 
Waterfall
• We change our
minds… a lot!
• Design
• Specs
Scrum
• No Sprint Reviews
• Rotating Scrummaster
• Bug tracking
• Deploy one week after
the sprint
Kanban
• WIP Limits
• Iterations
• Schedule

30. What is the Value?

31. Our Delivery Cadence
3-week service delivery sprints
Frequent updates for on-premise/boxed products
September 2012 October 2012 November 2012 December 2012 January 2013
…
…
April
2013

33. Cultural change
Build an environment where your teams will thrive
Ship frequently!
Measure always
Test
Use Team Foundation Server 
Summary

34. Thank you
Deniz Ercoskun
Microsoft Corporation
DPE Developer Tools Lead for MEA

35. The service and the box
• Same code base used for both
• Work in a single branch
• Gated checkin only builds
• Rolling test system, including upgrade tests
• Disruptive changes integrated at the beginning of a sprint
• Merge to production branch, quarterly update CTPs

36. Differences
• Service scales differently
• Need cost model
• Multi-tenant database
• All content goes to Azure Blob Storage

37. Differences
• Tight loop with support
• Online upgrades
• Automated deployment
• No down time between cycles – engineering backlog