inthinc’s agile history [2013] levi sorenson director of project management
TRANSCRIPT
inthinc’s Agile History
[2013]
Levi SorensonDirector of Project Management
Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Who Is inthinc?
Based in Utah
Started in 1999
Safety Focus
Hardware, Software, Firmware
Global Install base of 50,000 devices in: US & Canada South America Africa Europe Australia & New Zealand
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Products
Portals GAIN My.inthinc.com
waySmart 820 MCM (UClinux)
2.4 and 2.6 Kernel
TouchScreen (Windows CE) HandHeld (.Net Micro)
tiwiPro (Open AT)
waySmart 850 IVMM (Android) HMI (Android)
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Reasons for becoming agile Wanted to do more with less Desire to move fast and increase quality Release predictability
Discussion points Brief Overview of inthinc’s Agile History What has helped us be successful?
Implementing Physical Kanban Contractors and Outsourcing * Killing Sprints Killing Release Planning Why Agile works for Hardware
What would we have done different?
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
inthinc 2006 - 2007
2006 Waterfall & project plans. Firmware and software releases are frequent and small. Every release requires heroics from the whole team. 10 people in Development including test.
2007 Growing pains, lots of heroics, very little process. Merged with our hardware manufacturing partner. Standups held frequently but not consistently (Always cross functional). Small teams, including a dedicated test team. 15-20 people in R&D.
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
inthinc 2008 - 2009
2008 Quick growth in R&D Moved to a bigger building 50 people in R&D 3 Project Managers 1 Product Owner Trying to build predictability with extra process PRD's, MRD, Gate Sign offs. Very PEMBOK
2009 Agile adoption on 1 team for 1 large project very successful.
New customer portal (we now support two portals).
Major reduction in work force, every team in R&D heavily effected. 1 Project Manager; no Product Owners.
Un-merged with manufacturing sister company.
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
inthinc 2010
2010 Adopting Agile
Daily standups ups Lots of half baked process All teams started Agile at the same time
Release planning and sprint planning is cumbersome and time-consuming Engineers have a hard time with time commitments Business has a hard time not breaking sprints with "emergencies" Commitments didn’t mean much after sprint planning Release planning is an unrealistic wish list
2 week sprints then 3 week sprints An extra week added to the sprints to make time for testing.
Unlikely to complete/accept work during the sprint. No Process around story acceptance.
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
inthinc 2011
2011 Dedicated test team disbanded and members are integrated into individual
teams. 3 week sprints Burn down was demoralizing, commitments are rarely meant. Moved to 1 week sprints at the end of the year. Began move of Production to AWS and EC2. Started a DevOps team. Continue to struggle with release planning. Cross functional planning breaking down. Backlog is out of control and unmanaged.
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
inthinc 2012 - 2013
2012 All teams moved to physical Kanban. More frequent releases. Lighter process with a more controlled feel. Process flow accounts for our holes in product management and story
acceptance. Backlog is out of control and unmanaged.
2013 Kanban Portfolio Management. Continuous Integration. Source code moved to GITHUB. Better cross-functional communication.
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Continuous Integration
Production Release Time (Last Month) 2 Calendar days to deploy and test. 20-65 man-hours of testing. Lots of problems.
Production Release Time (This Month) 5 minutes to deploy. 30 minutes to verify.
Production Release (Very Soon) Less than 2 minutes to deploy. Deploys happen frequently throughout the day.
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
More DevOp Advantages
Cost 30% savings since we moved to AWS. 50% predicted as we optimize for the service.
Flexibility Production copies for anyone in less than 20 minutes with production data.
CF engine configuration New resources are automatically configured and audited every five minutes.
Testing DB alters ran against a current copy of production.
Releases are timed and verified
A/B testing Weighted DNS send a percentage users to new servers.
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Kanban Portfolio Management
Value-Driven Prioritization What’s the most valuable now? Keeping balance between long and short term. Weekly portfolio-steering.
Hierarchal view of Features and User Stories Budget owners. Accountability for time.
Visible Priorities
MVPs Establishing MVPs and Acceptance criteria.
Keeping WIP limits intact
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Secret to Our Success
Development Process: Code reviews
Pull requests Branching
TDD Unit Tests Business tests
Acceptance Criteria Established before the story is worked on Acceptance Tests written
Feature Demos Show the product early and often!
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
The Secret to Our Success
Scrumban Physical Kanban. Daily Stand-Ups. Continuous Process Evaluation and Improvement.
New Features are Driven by Sales
Communication Weekly cross-functional planning (Scrum of Scrums). Logged Team and Project Chats.
Contractors and Outsourcing In-house, China, India.
Support Escalation Dedicated Escalation Engineer Triaging Support
Commodity-based Hardware and Software
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Sprint and Release Planning
Why Release Planning Failed? Over-committed
Why Sprints Did Not Work? Lack Training Lack of coaching Lack of Product Ownership
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Why Agile and Lean Work for Hardware
Hardware development is naturally iterative.
Hardware engineers seem to have a harder time communicating, stand-ups and stories provide a feedback loop.
Feature demos remind the business that value is being delivered.
Assists the hardware team in communicating with the firmware team.
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
What Would I do Differently
Slower Implementation Roll Out for Each Team
Better Defined Scrum Master Role
Product Owner/ Business Analyst
A Different Type of Executive Support
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
Q&A
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
HARDWARE KANBAN
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Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.
KANBAN CARD
USER STORY ##### POINTS EST #
AS A USER I WANT TO …...
TIME SPENT LEFT
ENGINEER 1 1 10
ENGINEER 2 5 0
TEST 0 5
OWNER NAME
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