2 Geographies, 3 Development Centers, 85 Engineers and One Common Goal

Global Agile Delivery: 2 Geographies, 3 Development Centers, 85 Engineers and One Common Goal

Kartik Matmari, SPM, MFGD - Microsoft Account, Seattle USA

 

I manage a services delivery program for arguably the largest software manufacturer in the world where we have 85 Engineers and managers, 3 different development centers spread across India and the United States. We use a perfect AGILE engineering model to deliver critical business functionality for the platform that is responsible for 95% of the client’s revenue.

 

CIOs and IT Decision makers at global corporations continue to express their skepticism on the efficacy of an Agile engineering model involving multiple geographies, multiple time zones, different set of people from different cultures, multiple development centers etc.

 

I have been often approached by my colleagues from different accounts in Infosys to discuss the details of my program, how’s it’s different from theirs and how we can adopt best-practices if any. I also got the opportunity to discuss the success of global agile delivery with the directors of a large US Retail giant who were skeptic about outsourcing work to Indian locations because they believed that Agile engineering model would not work in an Onsite-Offshore setup. My discussion with them was very positive and most of their myths were busted and also influenced their IT decision in favor of a global delivery.

 

The most common arguments by CIOs/Directors/IT Decision makers against a global agile delivery model are:

 

·         “All members should be at the same location for Scrum to be successful”

·         “Different locations means lack of involvement of team members”

·         “X-Geo Scrum is not truly agile”

·         “Onsite Teams more productive than offshore teams”

 

I am sharing some of the most common points of dicussion about global agile through some images and diagrammatical represetnation

 

The Need for a X-Geo Delivery

 

Why X-Geo Delivery? •       Huge Cost Savings and Time Advantages (Follow-the-Sun) were the key drivers for adopting a X-Geo delivery by the customer. •       High attrition and resource availability and loyalty at onsite location was a big challenge. •       Customer did not prefer subcontractors due to various issues (Loyalty / NDAs / IP Issues / Accountability / Governance etc) •       Customer wanted to effectively leverage their own offshore captive development center in India. •       Customer wanted a need-based ramp-up and ramp-down of resources via a strategic partner (Infosys) •       Customer wanted to reap the benefits of having a resources available with cross-functional skills (Different Applications, Dev, Test, Build Engineering, Performance Testing)

 

 

How infosys did it?

 

Program Snapshot •       Engineering team consists close to 82 Developers and Testers •       Team spread in 3 locations - US, Customer Location India, Infosys India •       Customer and Infosys formed several development scrum teams a.k.a “crews”. •       Large Releases targeting strategic initiatives [POR] 2 times in a year and several releases over a year for minor enhancements, bug fixes and hot fixes. Key Drivers for Agile Adoption •       Requirements of client driven by industry demands and partner needs. •       Cannot have requirements sign-off in one go. •       Most of the times requirements delivered by Engineering would be rendered obsolete due to market dynamics and changing needs during the project release schedule. •       Wanted a model which is AGILE and can adapt to ever changing business needs. •       Wanted higher velocity and throughput from teams. Higher ROI. •       Early risk identification and mitigation.

 

Challenges in SCRUM Adoption

 

Some of the key challenges faced during Scrum adoption in the program and how the challenges were met.

 

1.        Skepticism about SCRUM success among teams.	Senior management commitment and belief in Scrum methodology. 100% buy-in from all program managers. Education and Workshops on Scrum methodology. Success stories.
2.        Cultural Shift from Legacy Waterfall Model to Agile.	Project Managers owned the responsibility of bringing about the Scrum culture. Brown Bags, Offsite Events, Town-Halls planned to educate about Scrum and its benefits
3.        Teams guided by misconception about Agility	Invited speakers from all sections – PM, Dev, Test to talk about success in Scrum.  Myth buster sessions, Group Discussion, Blogs etc.
4.        Work-Life Balance	Initially there were WLB issues but with program maturity WLB was no more an issue.
5.        Efficient Task Allocation & Effort Tracking	100% Tool Usage for Program Management. Total dependency on Tool for User Story creation, allocation, progress tracking, release etc.
6.        Communication	Disciplined meeting and communication cadence.  Scrum-of-Scrums Model.
7.        Motivation	Rewards and Recognition, Team events etc.
8.        Governance and Reporting	Effort Burn Down Chars, Steering Committee Check point meetings, Task Force Audits, Engineering Excellence Meetings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Team Structure

 

 

The Scrum-of-Scrums (SoS)

 

A bi-weekly syncup of all scrum masters of various crews led by the release management team.

 

 

 

Communcation Cadence

 

 

Solution Apptroach and Advantages

 

	Solution Approach   1.        Disciplined communication Mechanism 2.        Rotational  Overlap in US and India timings 3.        “To-the-Point” discussions 4.         2 Week Sprints 5.        Daily stand-up meetings 6.        User Stories, Story Points, Planning Poker 7.        Strong Usage of Tools – VSTF 2010 8.        Scrum of Scrum (SOS) Meetings 9.        Sprint Retrospectives  and Review Meetings		Advantages   1.        Reduction in scope intrusions, scope overlaps, Code version conflicts 2.        Higher velocity, wider throughput, agility and scope creep mitigation. 3.        Ability to react faster to business changes. Requirement tradeoffs due to urgency. 4.        Transparency to Business teams about what Engineering teams are working on. Sense of inclusivity for all stake holders. 5.        Opportunity to monitor and see what is going to be released to production very early in Engineering cycle 6.        Clear visibility on Effort spent by the teams 7.        Due to short sprints and constant feedback, easier to cope with the requirement changes 8.        Issues identified well in advance through the daily meetings and can be quickly resolved
Kartik Matmari
Senior Project Manager, MFG- ADM, Microsoft Account, Seattle
		Kartik manages services delivery for hi-tech customers and ISVs.  Currently he is responsible for Application Services delivery for the Sales and Marketing IT group of Microsoft Corp. Redmond, USA.   He is also involved in mega-pursuits and transformation engagements for Infosys. He has worked with global customers in Retail and Banking for program implementation using AGILE methodologies. He is an avid quizzer and a voracious reader.      Kartik will be blogging on Application Services, Agile Challenges and Solutions, Cross Geography Global Agile Models and Digital Transformation.