1. Skype Agile
history, present and future plans
AgileDays Alek Kozlov March 2012
2012 © Skype.

2. Product portfolio – core proposition
Skype-to-Skype Skype-to-Skype Messaging File and
voice video screen sharing
2012 © Skype. Slide 2

3. Paid offerings
Call landlines Group video Skype WiFi
and mobiles calling
Online number SMS Call forwarding
/ Caller ID
2012 © Skype. Slide 3

4. Context
2012 © Skype. Slide 4

5. Context
Numbers
• ca 25% of 2011 all phone calls by telegeography
• will grow 48% per year (twice as much as all telecos in world)
• http://www.webpronews.com/telegeography-skype-international-calls-2012-01
• 35 million users concurrently using Skype at peak times (March 2012)
• 200 million connected users per month (March 2012)
Twitter - #ILoveSkype
2012 © Skype. Slide 5

6. Context
Organization
• 6 dev sites and ca 50 products (with product candidates)
• ca 500 in engineering org – WE ARE HIRING!!!
• Ask me or please visit jobs.skype.com
• ca 1000 ppl in total
• Game name – „Buy/Sell Skype“
• eBay, Silverlake (begining of Agile era), Microsoft
• Living through „Transition programs“
• „Consultant“ syndromes
• „Every new consultant knows what is wrong with Skype“, „They are coming, AGAIN, to "fix us"!"
2012 © Skype. Slide 6

7. Skype Agile
Why, How, What
2012 © Skype. Slide 7

8. Why
Why Skype went agile
Situation (2010) Business Goals
• Optimized around team • Shorter delivery cadence
• Ad hoc engineering practices – • Be able to scale the product
lack of discipline
• Reduse cost and risk
• No common taxonomy
• Show business value of the
• Knowledge sharing was missing purchase
• As a result - a lot of waste
2012 © Skype. Slide 8

9. How
How – the strategy
„Top-Down Push“ of Agile/Scrum
• Initiated by Silverlake (at that moment the main Owners of the Skype )
• Consultancy agencies was deeply involved
• Organizational transition program (so called "OPUS") was prepared and executed
2012 © Skype. Slide 9

10. What
What – the transition program „OPUS“
• New org structure and roles was prepared
• agile transition execution
• Organization for driving and supporting the change was created
• For driving the engineering org change after OPUS ended
2012 © Skype. Slide 10

11. What
Product team concept
Skype Product Organization Skype Engineering Organization
Product Team
Product
Product Engineering Product
Product Manager Manager Engineering
Management
Management
organization
Analyst Engineers organization
Design UX Pixel Quality
Quality
organization designer perfect Engineers
Engineeri
desinger Organization
2012 © Skype. Slide 11

12. What
Training program was rolled-out
• Certified Scrum Master
• Certified Scrum Product Owner
• Scrum Team Member
• Intro to Scrum
• Cross products planning and delivery
2012 © Skype. Slide 12

13. What
Engineering Lifecycle (Lifestyle) and Services
• Initial goal - Engineering Excellence
• Higher Velocity
• Higer Quality
• Splits into
• Engineering tools development and support (services) organization
• Engineering Lifecycle
2012 © Skype. Slide 13

14. What
Engineering tools organization
• Jira – GreenHopper
• Centralized CI and build system infrastructure
• Quickbuild, Nexus, SVN
• ca 250 servers and counting
• Build agents is a major contributor to the number
• March 2012 – 1 million builds 
2012 © Skype. Slide 14

15. What
Engineering Lifecycle organization
• Agile practices and knowledge
• Agile Maturity Model
2012 © Skype. Slide 15

16. What
Agile Maturity Model (framework)
• 3 Levels - each 11 YES/NO topics and 4 process metrics
• "Set of common sense„
• Incentives
• Level 1
• "If you breathing, you are good enough" to meet L1 – eg „One backlog for the product“
• Expected to get in 4 months after MM was introduced
• Level 2
• Harder to achieve – eg „centrilized CI in use“, „current +2 more sprints are estimated“
• Team were expected to get there in 8 months after L1 and L2 was introduced
2012 © Skype. Slide 16

17. Current state
Good, Bad, Ugly
2012 © Skype. Slide 17

18. Current
state
Good
• Transitioning „Everything at once“
• Vocabulary and common language for the whole company is in place
• Product Managers:
• We are doing much more features than did ever before
• At least 6 releases per year (previously – at the best once a year)
• Maturity framework
• As a reflecting, thinking and focusing tool
2012 © Skype. Slide 18

19. Current
state
Bad
• Need for coaching support were understood only after transition started
• People doing the practices but don't understand principles
• Some people feel that they were „opused“/pushed into this change
2012 © Skype. Slide 19

20. Current
state
Ugly
• Transitioning „Everything at once“
• Lessons learned: Preparation should be more thorough
• A lot of „agile leaders“ who thinks that they know what to do
• But they don’t know
• Even agile coaches were guilty in this sin
• Product management on portfolio level is a big challenge
• too hard to manage dependencies - we still need to discover the way how to do this well
• Product Quality
• Technical debt and cutting the corners (in push to deliver)
2012 © Skype. Slide 20

21. Next steps
2012 © Skype. Slide 21

22. Building the right product and engineering Next
steps
excellence
• Transitioning from push to pull
• Sustainable development
• Continuous delivery
• Mass „hallucination“, but we believe that achievable
2012 © Skype. Slide 22

23. Thank you!
Questions?
2012 © Skype. Slide 23