Form 100 Consulting Case Study: Agile and Product Implementation
A Seattle-based airline was funding an initiative to mobilize their employees by moving functionality to an iPad-based application. Three software development teams were developing a suite of applications to improve airline efficiency, reduce costs, and streamline internal processes.
Objective
We were asked to provide agile coaching and scrum master services to the program. The team was having issues getting new features deployed and into the employee’s hands. Our objective was to improve the team processes to increase the speed of value for the organization.
Initiatives and Results
Over the course of 12 months, we focused on three main areas to ultimately improve the flow of features into the field. During the 12-month engagement, the team had increased their deployment cadence from once a quarter to one every two weeks, completed all their assigned roadmap items for the year, and saw measurable business results (reduction of 50% in attributed delays and the retirement of legacy systems)
Agile development practices:
Our team implemented a more structured agile cadence including a standardized daily standup, additional refinement meetings, and an actionable retrospective cadence. These changes help the team develop on a cadence and structured the communication flow to remove wasteful meetings allow for more engineering time.
Product Backlog Organization:
A focus was placed on Azure DevOps backlog organization at the User Story and Bug level. The average team backlog was reduced by over 40% and dashboards were put in-place to ensure the backlog was continually maintained. Old and stale User Stories were removed, Product Owner prioritization syncs were created, and a new state was created to ensure work was ready to bring into a Sprint prior to the planning meeting. This focus area increased team alignment and reduced churn from the engineering team. After implementing these changes, the team averaged 90% to 110% sprint predictability.
Roadmap Readiness Process:
A critical change implemented by the team was how the Product Managers worked with the engineering and design team to organize and prioritize backlog items. A practice was instituted to ensure Azure DevOps reflected the roadmap at the Epic level. The Epic backlog was maintained like a User Story backlog with priority and readiness gates developed. A Product Canvas was created as a communication tool to bring in the engineering and design team during the discovery phase. As a roadmap item moved through the gates, the team was able to ensure the problem, persona, and potential solutions were validated with data which also drove team consensus. In addition, a portfolio Kanban board was created for executive leadership to monitor status and potential timeline implications. This change allowed the team to reduce their new initiative WIP to under 2 and led to an over-performance of the annual roadmap.
Conclusion
The above initiatives are only a fraction of what the team accomplished during our time on this project. We were able to succeed by observing the team, tracking data, and providing solutions tailored to solve specific problems. More importantly, we were able to implement the changes which became a part of the team culture and will persist after our team leaves the organization.
“It’s amazing how much we have done this year! It feels so good to see our changes making a difference to the employees in the field.” - Software Engineer
Objective
We were asked to provide agile coaching and scrum master services to the program. The team was having issues getting new features deployed and into the employee’s hands. Our objective was to improve the team processes to increase the speed of value for the organization.
Initiatives and Results
Over the course of 12 months, we focused on three main areas to ultimately improve the flow of features into the field. During the 12-month engagement, the team had increased their deployment cadence from once a quarter to one every two weeks, completed all their assigned roadmap items for the year, and saw measurable business results (reduction of 50% in attributed delays and the retirement of legacy systems)
Agile development practices:
Our team implemented a more structured agile cadence including a standardized daily standup, additional refinement meetings, and an actionable retrospective cadence. These changes help the team develop on a cadence and structured the communication flow to remove wasteful meetings allow for more engineering time.
Product Backlog Organization:
A focus was placed on Azure DevOps backlog organization at the User Story and Bug level. The average team backlog was reduced by over 40% and dashboards were put in-place to ensure the backlog was continually maintained. Old and stale User Stories were removed, Product Owner prioritization syncs were created, and a new state was created to ensure work was ready to bring into a Sprint prior to the planning meeting. This focus area increased team alignment and reduced churn from the engineering team. After implementing these changes, the team averaged 90% to 110% sprint predictability.
Roadmap Readiness Process:
A critical change implemented by the team was how the Product Managers worked with the engineering and design team to organize and prioritize backlog items. A practice was instituted to ensure Azure DevOps reflected the roadmap at the Epic level. The Epic backlog was maintained like a User Story backlog with priority and readiness gates developed. A Product Canvas was created as a communication tool to bring in the engineering and design team during the discovery phase. As a roadmap item moved through the gates, the team was able to ensure the problem, persona, and potential solutions were validated with data which also drove team consensus. In addition, a portfolio Kanban board was created for executive leadership to monitor status and potential timeline implications. This change allowed the team to reduce their new initiative WIP to under 2 and led to an over-performance of the annual roadmap.
Conclusion
The above initiatives are only a fraction of what the team accomplished during our time on this project. We were able to succeed by observing the team, tracking data, and providing solutions tailored to solve specific problems. More importantly, we were able to implement the changes which became a part of the team culture and will persist after our team leaves the organization.
“It’s amazing how much we have done this year! It feels so good to see our changes making a difference to the employees in the field.” - Software Engineer