Scaled Agile and Agile Transformation @ Sophos NSG

1. 1
Sascha Gessler, wibas GmbH
Wolfgang Hilpert, Sophos Technologies GmbH
Scaled Agile @ Sophos:
Eine lebendige Geschichte
Enterprise Agility, agile Transformation, Erfahrungsberichte

2. 2
Who we are?

3. April 2015 June 2016
You‘re good? So are we.
Then lets start!
Context

4. 4
Sophos Snapshot
1985
FOUNDED
OXFORD, UK
$450M
IN FY15 BILLING
(APPX.)
2,200
EMPLOYEES
(APPX.)
200,000+
CUSTOMERS
100M+
USERS
HQ
OXFORD, UK
90+%
BEST IN CLASS
RENEWAL RATES
15,000+
CHANNEL
PARTNERS
OEM PARTNERS:
KEY DEV
CENTERS
OFFICES

5. 5
Security made simple.

6. 6
Innovative, Integrated Approach to Next Gen Security
HEARTBEAT
ENDUSER SECURITY
SOPHOS CLOUD
NETWORK SECURITY
SOPHOS LABS
Project Galileo

7. 7
Network Security Dashboard (UTM/NGFW)

8. 8
Sophos Network Security Group (NSG) Standorte
Karlsruhe (DE)
Budapest (HU)
Vancouver (CA)
Ahmedabad (IN)

9. 9
April 2015 June 2016
Challenges and Impediments
Context
Challenges and Impediments

10. 10
Predictibility Issues - v1
• Case – Timeline: Lack of Predictability
• v1 required 35% more time than initially planned
• Long path towards Concept Commit
• More time spent for stabilization than for development
Reality
Plan Planning
Development
Hardening

11. 11
Transparency Issues - v1
• Lack of transparency about test execution & test results
•  Lack of transparency of true quality status and project status overall
• Issues found late in the process
• Combined development and test would be more effective  „move left“ by early testing

12. 12

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Diversity

14. 14
April 2015 June 2016
Agile@Sophos: What we aimed for!
Context
Challenges and Impediments
May to June 2015
What we aimed for!

15. 15
Agile@Sophos
Product
Owner
BC
Planning
Review
Retrospective
Prev.
BC
Next
BC
Planning
6
Sprints
per Team
Team Sprint
2 weeks
6 Sprints per Business Cycle
Business Cycle
3 months
Business
Owner
Business
Backlog
Business
Increment
Product
Increment
Preferred agile & lean
approach:
• Plan only next
Business Cycle / 3
months business
increment in detail
• All other business
epics to be added to
and prioritized
within business
backlog

16. 16
April 2015 June 2016
Agile@Sophos: How to enable it!
Context
Challenges and Impediments
May to June 2015
What we aimed for!
Start of first Business Cycle:
How to enable it?
Aug. 2015

17. 17
Buy-in for Agile Transformation on all levels
• Leadership provides
the frame for the
transition
• Teams own the
execution
Agile
Development
Agile
Support
Development Level
Management Level
Executive Level

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Right Mix of People
Mix of
existing & new
people, driver, heads

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Be aware who needs to be involved and how?
Container
Strategy, Environment, Budget
TRANSPARENCY
Management
Product Owner – the what
owns ROI & Vision
Scrum Master
owns Process Framework
Team – the how
owns Quality
Stakeholders
Customer
User, Sales,
Marketing;
Support
Separation of
Concerns to
optimize
Outcome

20. 20
Aim for Feature Teams
Product
Owner
Scrum
Master
UX-Lead
Software
Engineers
Architecture-Lead
QA
Engineers
QA/QM-Lead
Line
Manger

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Foster new experiences and change will happen

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April 2015 June 2016
Agile@Sophos: Key insights!
Context
Challenges and Impediments
Setup
May to June 2015
What we aimed for!
Start of first Business Cycle:
How to enable it?
Aug. 2015
Running Agile

23. 23
Give room for new experiences
•Learning new &
„un-learn“ some old behavior,
e.g.
• Estimation by (project) manager vs.
development team
• „Build-when-we-can“ vs.
daily (nightly) build AND integrate early
• Component vs. feature teams

24. 24
Aim for Feature Teams
• Case – Full Feature Teams
• Observed scenario
• To add a new incremental UI enhancement
• Multiple teams (in different locations) need to contribute
• Due missing separation of concern (APIs), every change had to be discussed in detail and several iterations
• Frustrating for all teams involved; bad impact on team morale
• Desired scenario
• Feature teams are fully functional feature teams
• Appropriate APIs and UI framework incl. documentation minimize need for skill-transfer & time zone impact
optimal
scenario
observed
scenario
time effort
communication and skill transfer
work
waste

25. 25
How to achieve this?
Promote new experiences
Existing rules are
allowed and wanted
to be changed!
=> True leadership and
lean thinking
PEOPLE THRIVE CHANGE => GET THEM INVOLVED AND TRUST THEM!

26. 26
Scrum hurts! Really?
Scrum is:
• Lightweight
• Simple to understand
• Difficult to master
That is:
• You will encounter impediments!
At least we did.
• Scaling Scrum will amplify this!
At least we experienced that.

27. 27
Scrum hurts! Really?
Scrum is:
• Lightweight
• Simple to understand
• Difficult to master
That is:
• You will encounter impediments!
At least we did.
• Scaling Scrum will amplify this!
At least we experienced that.
How we act on this:
• We tackle them TOGETHER and
OVER TIME

28. 28
Scrum hurts! Really?
• Some teams delayed their agile transformation
• Historical reasons
• Interface issues
• Resistance to adoption
• This hurts a lot:
• Yet we were able to generate important insights.
• We discussed it, we decided to improve in
collaboration between teams and alligned all teams to
an agile approach.
• This takes time. Respect that and don‘t force people.
June 2016
Agile
Development
Agile
Support
Development Level
Management Level
Executive Level

29. 29
Scrum hurts! Really?
Organization and leaders promote this by
„letting them invest time & money“
Do not blame
people, help teams
to overcome their
existing issues!
Teams deliver data, insights and ideas for improvements
=> Change is not a burden, IT‘S A CHANCE!

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Aim for Engineering Excellence
20%
40%
40%
An example
Engineering Excellence
Escalation
Feature Development
15%
20%
65%
Long-term Goal
Are 20% of capacity investment into engineering
excellence sufficient to improve the quality
long-term under the current circumstances ?
Or do we need increased early investments for
long-term benefits?

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How we think about it: Investment vs. Efficiency
15%
20%
65%
Long-Term Target
Investment
Distribution
Engineering Excellence
Escalation
Feature Development
1 2 3 4 5 6
StoryPointscompleted
Business Cycles
Resulting Velocity
dependent on the ramp-up investment
With significant ramp-up
investment into EE
WITHOUT significant ramp-
up investment into EE
Trend with investment
Trend WITHOUT investment
• Without investment into engineering excellence, even healthy effort
distributions become less and less efficient.
Reason: Even simple features take more and more time due to
increasing inefficiencies and complexities

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How we did it: make it a team sport ...

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How to achieve this?
Based on empirical process control (i.e. facts, data
and learnings) we have to invest to get new results.
“Put your money where
your mouth is!”
SCRUM HELPS YOU TO GAIN VISIBILITY, IF YOU WANT TO BE EFFICIENT YOU HAVE TO INVEST

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Scaling Agile – Step by step
0. Initially, only specific teams on Scrum
 one-team Scrum
1. One Business Cycle per product
 scaled Scrum on value stream
2. Consolidate & combine related business cycles
 ongoing
Targets of Organization
• Transparency
• Predictability
• Engineering excellence
by introducing scaled Scrum
Status quo

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How did scaling agile helps us so far?
• Alignment of business priorities and engineering backlog on quarterly basis
• A shared, clear, transparent and understood target and time-frame
• Quality driven
• Agility for entire value stream of Sophos products
• Whole product focus
• Customer & partner centric
• Agile interaction between multiple teams
• Addressing dependencies and risk well in advance
• Key for complex and sizable projects
• Lean thinking and engineering excellence
• Local decision making, i.e. self-organization
• Continuous improvement
• An early integrated product
• Risk mitigation (integration regularly and early)
• Early feedback (Customers, End-Users, Executives, ...)
• Opportunity to adapt along the way towards the shared vision

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Thank you!
sascha.gessler@wibas.dewolfgang.hilpert@sophos.com