Lessons learned rolling out agile at Pointroll from the perspective of the PMO.

1. Lessons Learned from the Trenches @Pointroll Presented by: Brendan Flynn Agile Comes to Chicago April 5, 2011

2. Mobile, iPad AUDIENCE / TARGETING INFO Open, Agnostic, Targeted Reach Targets Wherever They Are Measure Social/ Facebook In Stream Video Digital OOH Display Ads Target, Customize, QA, Test, Analyze & Optimize Ad Serving, Rich Media, Dynamic Ad Generation and Site Content Campaign Management, Production and Measurement DATA Promotions, Messaging Products, Offers, Inventory Feeds CREATIVE ASSETS Elements, Features, Functionality

3. Agile @ Pointroll Practicing Agile since 2007 Leverage practices from Scrum, Lean, TDD 7 Teams, average 10-14 people p/team Multiple product lines All teams on consistent 2-week cadence Agile utilized for product development, internal platform development and contracted client implementations Regular production code releases every 2 weeks Rally is used to manage Agile lifecycle Confluence (wiki), JIRA (support), Team City (CI), are some of the other tools we use regularly to create visibility throughout

4. Problems we had to address Rapidly changing, incomplete or inadequate business &/or technical requirements Organizational priorities were unclear to teams Team had “do whatever it takes attitude” which resulted in over promising and under delivering, resulting in business frustration Build quality into development framework; as opposed to testing for quality Visibility / Resource allocations No clear performance metrics

5. What have we achieved? True alignment of business and technology Always working on highest organizational priorities Consistently delivering business value every 2 weeks More responsiveness to customer Improved customer satisfaction Improve quality/Reduced defects Transparency into development lifecycle

6. Top lessons learned rolling out agile Burning visibility Executive support is critical to success Make data driven decisions Make business decisions Value of training Optimize the whole (not just tech) You still need to manage projects Rigorously inspect and adapt Agile is a framework, not a process Agile is hard work

7. Create burning visibility in everything you do If it is not visible, you should not be working on it Visibility into what your teams are working on Visibility into how much work is remaining, in-progress, complete, for the sprint, release Visibility into how much time is being spent on development vs. support, the types of support Visibility into the number of defects, technical debt, failing test cases Baseline and measure Identify patterns and create a plan with your team for improvement

8. Executive Support When rolling out any new framework, there is a lot of noise and misconceptions in an organization Create a bottom-up implementation with top-down executive support to help communicate and develop buy-in Tactics we use for achieving executive support: PMO holds weekly meetings with executive mgmt to review what teams are or plan to be working on against organizational priorities/project pipeline Utilize metrics to show, not tell. Show costs, business value delivered, quality At portfolio level, manage capacity vs. requested work showing resource variances End of sprint summary – team, business & quality KPIs

9. Make data driven decisions “If it is not measureable, it is your opinion” Support the story you are trying to tell with data What do we measure? Team and quality metrics How do we use it? To coach; Inform teams, stakeholders and executives How often? Daily, sprint & pattern analysis sprint-to-sprint

10. Example Team & Quality Metrics Velocity Estimates vs. Actuals Unplanned work Work in progress limits Earned business value 5 Why’s root cause analysis Development costs Committed stories vs. accepted stories Number of Deferred stories and why Defects by functionality Defects by discovery source, environment, priority Test coverage Test execution trends

11. Make business decisions Delivery teams @Pointroll provide a service We try to never speak in absolutes… “There is no way we can get this release complete by this date” Provide a holistic view of all projects across teams, people and provides options, impacts and risks Allow business to make decisions about priority Consistent team cadences allow easier priority decisions when planning 2-weeks vs. 2-months

12. Value of training Ensure that EVERYONE receives training… product, development teams, management Cost of training worth investment to ensure everyone on level playing field Creates understanding of the proper rhythm of an Agile team TRAINING WAS THE EVENT WE CAN ALL POINT TO AS THE TURNING POINT IN OUR ADOPTION

13. Optimize the whole Conduct value stream analysis to determine where waste is occurring How can you speed up the time it takes to go from concept to cash in the door Look at how information flows into teams Are there hand-offs? Lots of cycles back and forth? What assumptions are being made? Make work ready; great teams spend 5-10% of current sprint preparing for the next sprint

14. You still need to manage projects Tried and true project management tactics are still needed in any agile adoption What issues and concerns does the team have? What risks exist? What are your mitigation strategies? Create action plans, communication strategies and clear ownership Leverage adaptive planning techniques, review release plans after each sprint and proactively adapt based on team velocity

15. Rigorously inspect and adapt We are not text book, we have leveraged practices from Scrum, Lean, TDD, PMBOK and tailored agile to our needs We have evolved our practices over time – and will continue to do so How we practice agile today is different than what we did 4 years ago or even 2 years ago Establish team practices, regularly review as part of your teams retrospectives (start, stop, continue)

16. Agile is a framework, not a process

17. Agile is hard work Agile is hard work; Requires change at every level Requires new techniques on how to approach work Strong executive support along with training, coaching, and continuously inspecting and adapting at team and organizational level are essential components to Agile success Optimize the whole, not just technology Make data-driven decisions to tell your story

18. I knew it was working when… A developer said, “how did I ever build software before” [before using agile frameworks] Our CMO said in a company meeting, “you just don’t hear noise of projects not being completed anymore” Our CEO started using terms such as sprint, team’s velocity, release plan, burn down and other “agile” terms Sales and Account Management began writing user stories and acceptance criteria in contracts We began releasing client work in shorter, multiple releases, not a single huge release I had visibility into the entire portfolio of projects and where resource gaps existed

19. Contact me to continue the conversation… Brendan Flynn bflynn@pointroll.com http://www.pointroll.com