Tom Ingram Inc. Home Page |
Agile Scrum, PMI, Rapid Results
Best Practices and Success Stories
Begin With The End In
Mind:
What results are we
trying to achieve?
Tom’s personal Agile project results:
Flowserve SOX
Project:
Replaced
dysfunctional $750,000 software package for $125,000.
Saving $350,000 per year in labor and extreme cost of mistakes
(estimates). System in production in 120 days.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Technology
Startup –
Software product development
project in extreme trouble.
Brought project under control through story board, process flow, use
cases,
scope management,
standards enforcement.
Recovered $300,000 from non-performing vendor and reduced cost to bring
product to market by $14 Million
in 90 days.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Celanese -
$5 million complex infrastructure upgrade project in trouble:
Brought under control, scope reduced, change control implemented,
project
completed in 90 days.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Texas
Instruments:
Two advanced imaging / workflow
projects completed in 120 days.
Saved $2.25 million in labor over 5 years in accounts payable,
improved internal customer service 400%, freed up $5 million+ in cash from
accounts receivable over 5 years.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Crossmark:
Series of 90 day projects
resulted in $7.5 million saved over
three years for cost of less than $400,000. Consolidated 36
offices to 13 while creating a nation-wide set of standard sales and
service processes.
CLICK HERE for technical details.
Frito Lay:
Imaging
/ workflow project completed in 90 days. Resulted in 25% reduction in accounts payable cost per invoice, accounts payable cycle time reduced by 25%.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Handleman
Subsidiary:
Series of 90 day projects for sales support systems
resulted in 30 small sales totaling $6.5 million and a landmark sale of
$5.5 million to P&G. CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Specialty
Retailer:
Order
processing time reduction from 5 days to 1 1/2 days.
Completed in 90 days.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Johnson &
Johnson Subsidiary -
Database to estimate IT department work load
and manage scope.
Resolved 200%
IT department under-funding.
Completed in 60 days.
CLICK HERE for
technical details.
Northern
Telecom:
Software development for telephone switch product completed in 90 days.
Scope and change control enforced, preventing
33% overrun.
CLICK HERE for technical details.
Engineered Air
Balance:
90
day project resulted in 30% labor savings on critical process and
improved customer service.
CLICK HERE for
technical details.
Grote
Consulting:
Software specification and bid package
for web development.
Completed in 90 days after multiple failures by previous vendors.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Ruhrpumpen – Quality project:
Resulted in
extremely complex manual processes, mapped as-is, designed to-be,
workflow and advanced SharePoint application developed within 60 days.
CLICK
HERE for technical details
Viscotech:
Resulted in processes mapped, sales,
purchasing, shipping applications up and running in SharePoint
in 90 days for minimal cost.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
MCI:
Two advanced imaging / workflow
projects.
Resulted in reduction of cycle time for deployment of workflow
systems from 6 weeks to 6 days. Completed in 60 days.
CLICK HERE for
technical details.
City of Fort
Worth – Year 2000 project:
Resulted in 25% reduction
in testing and quality assurance cycle time.
Completed
in 90 days.
CLICK
HERE for technical details
Ettinger
Rosini (Manufacturer's Rep), complex sales project tracking and
reporting.
Process map, requirements, initial
prototype developed in one week. Full prototype developed in 30
days. Full solution requiring complex reporting developed in 90
days.
CLICK
HERE for technical details
(Remember - there is a Dark Side - See at Bottom - Agile Projects that Got Into Trouble...)
Agile Scrum - Summary of Key Concepts:
PROBLEMS AGILE
SCRUM CHAMPIONS FACE
Executive Sponsor
Bosses don’t listen, don’t care, aren’t open to new
approach, opinions rather than facts, resist change, lazy
People in other departments do not complete their
action items on time
User
Participation
Users won’t participate, not available
Users do not complete their action items on time
Scope
Too many iterations, continual change back and
forth, never finished, burn up all the budget
Immature business processes, continually changing,
users cannot explain
Outcome, results needed from project never become
clear
Business Case
Big effort, great work, project stalls out, funding
removed, never put into production
Day to Day
Problems
User stories not completed, not signed-off as ready
to ship disrupting entire Burn Down Chart and project progress
Difficult to design sprints to include the right
user stories (can be completed and signed-off, will produce a valuable
business result for user within 30 days)
Burn Down Chart
Reporting
Difficult collecting accurate data on daily
completion, uses “estimate to complete” (risky), really needs time
capture against user story / sprint id number (WBS number) to be
effective
Non-Integrity
Conduct
People putting self, ego, turf, empire ahead of
doing the right thing for the customer, the company and the project team
AGILE SCRUM
FUNDAMENTALS
Roles
Product Owner:
Direction, scope, priorities, funding
Scrum Master:
Project management, sees that team has
what needed to get job done, sets meetings, scope, budget, release
management
Team:
Developer, tester, user, executive
Product:
Desired end result, has features, produces
benefits
User Stories: One sentence: “As a (role), I want (feature), so that (benefit)
User Epic:
A collection of user stories, risk of
trying to include too much in a single story
Product Backlog (Wish List):
Collection of all user stories
Sprint:
Groups of user stories authorized to begin work, 2
to 30 days
Goal is completed, ready to ship
Release Planning:
Prioritize product backlog, estimating.
Includes 2 to 12 sprints
Estimating:
Story points, good but lacks time estimate
Best is by hours using standards (1, 2, 4, 8 hours,
2, 3, 5, 10 days, 2, 3, 6 months but broken down to one week chunks
before work is authorized to start)
Burn Down Charts (Integral to Status
Reporting and Release Planning):
GREAT TOOL!
Consistent with PMI best practice (Earned
Value).
Shows daily amount of work
remaining, tracks completion of user stories, sprints.
Slope of graph, (burn down velocity) predicts
completion date and cost!
Late sprint completion is big indicator of something
wrong
Missing independent sign-off that user story meets
specification
Extreme risk of user stories not completed, not
signed-off as ready to ship disrupting entire Burn Down Chart, project
reporting
Difficult collecting accurate data on daily
completion, uses “estimate to complete” (risky), really needs time
capture against user story / sprint id number (WBS number) to be
effective
Earned Value, chart just turned upside down!
Daily Scrum:
15
minute stand up meeting to communicate work completed, obstacles, “plan to
complete today”
Scrum Retrospective:
Debrief meeting on what went right, what
needs improvement
Tools:
Big wall chart, note cards, spreadsheets,
SharePoint, MS Project or formal software developed by
www.axosoft.com (try for free)
Key Concept: "Fix Resources and Fix Schedule. Let Scope Float to Accommodate Available Time and Budget"
Can help with internal IT department projects due to difficulty getting full user engagement in process definition and requirements priorities.
Has the merit of "staying focused on useable, valuable chunks and user priorities." When money and time run out, produces valuable results (even if not all everyone would like.)
Not optimum - still shortcuts process, requirements and scope management due diligence, but has merit
VIDEO SCRIPT
NOTES:
Well done.
Agile Scrum may be one of the greatest
advancements in our field in your lifetime.
You stand on the shoulders of
giants.
Learn the lessons of history, pioneers
that have gone before you.
Learn how they overcame the problems you face every
day
Let’s talk about your problems…
Rapid Results - Agile Summary of Common Concepts: Robert H. Schaffer, author and creator of Rapid Results Methods, pioneered the "business side" adoption of Agile methods for General Electric (called the GE Work Out method) and other notable companies. CLICK HERE for our summary of his successes and methods
1. An answer to Big Bang, Waterfall project problems.
2. Break project into 30 to 90-day chunks – small teams of people close to the work.
2.1 Series of 90 day, rapid results projects used to change the culture, move toward the desired big changes.
3. Engage business people by solving high-value business problems in 30-90 days. Actually put into production.
4. Joint worker / customer-first focus.
5. Well planned team meetings, work sessions. Input from all, obligation to dissent, listen, follow.
6. Owners, accountability for completing actions
7. Help the business people discover and communicate requirements / what they need, best solutions within available time.
8. Some autonomy for team, decisions close to the work
9. High value work drives out lower value
10. Fact-based, Deming (Crosby) approach: Study, experiment, measure results, adopt.
11. Big Cautions:
11.1. Process implications: undefined, continually changing
11.2. Can’t afford to do it right – want juice without the squeeze
11.3. Contain the iterations
11.4. Scope management
11.5 Watch factors beyond our control: e.g. all people and money absorbed by big SAP financial implementation
11.6. User and executive sponsor support, participation, funding, buy-in
11.7. Managing architecture, framework, software supported – longer term
11.8 Worker / Customer-first stays top priority
Agile Projects
In Trouble (Where I Assisted in Turning Around)
(It is important to
understand why Agile projects get into trouble and how to prevent problems
in future. Full project details below.)
Federal Express:
Extreme cost overruns and delays
due to constantly changing scope and “religious zeal” among the developers.
Developers had to be severely disciplined to return their focus to
results needed by the business unit.
CLICK HERE
for technical details.
Technology Startup:
Extreme cost overruns and delays due to unsupervised,
out of control vendor and technology focus by engineers / developers.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
First Command:
Extreme out of control vendor created dozens of
iterations, uncontrolled scope and changes, extreme cost overruns and
delays. Resulted in
lawsuit and $3.5 million settlement for First Command.
CLICK
HERE for technical details.
Northern Trust:
Extreme problems matching technical solution to
business process changes.
Multiple, well intended vendors were uncoordinated, resulting in extreme
delays, iterations and a 10-fold technology cost overrun.
Lawsuit narrowly avoided.
CLICK HERE for technical details.
* Full credit and honoring of copyrighted materials is due to Robert H. Schaffer's body of work, especially his excellent book Rapid Results, 2005, excerpts from Agile Project Management with Scrum by (Microsoft Professional) Ken Schwaber, 2004, The Project Management Institute and an excellent Agile Scrum video by Hamid Shojaee, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU0llRltyFM
TOM INGRAM AND ASSOCIATES, INC. 972-394-5736 tom@tomingraminc.com