Leadership had already taken some positive steps toward an Agile delivery methodology.  Co-location and cross-functional team members were being established as departmental norms.  However there was no clear understanding of team capacity in relation to the numerous work requests received from various segments of the business.  Frustration resulted from an inability to deliver on commitments, and the relationship between the business and the data warehouse department was strained. Business priority was unclear, and it was difficult to understand work remaining, or have confidence in the delivery schedule.  Collaboration meetings were usually held by phone (although participants were co-located), and there was a lack of strong team engagement.

With the support of our client’s leadership team, Plaster Group employed a three-pronged approach to help alleviate the frustration and delivery challenges:

By leveraging the Scrum framework ceremonies, such as the Sprint Planning ceremony, it became possible to facilitate a deeper engagement between development teams and stakeholders, and to increase clear communication on expected deliverables, mitigating any ambiguity with requirements. Complete transparency on business expectations and development team commitments with regards to dates and functionality delivered over short iterations ensured that teams were in better alignment with the business.  Maintaining team composition was emphasized over changing team membership arbitrarily.  Clear roles were defined (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Delivery Team), and responsibilities were elucidated.  There was emphasis on the Product Owner role, and the importance of chasing down requirements and clarifying questions so that the development team could focus on their work and not be distracted or delayed by ambiguities in understanding requirements.  Daily Scrums would be held collaboratively, and in-person when teams were co-located.  Two-week sprints were established and User Stories employed to carry requirements.  Sprint Retrospectives were scheduled regularly to ensure everyone had a voice and there was attention to continuous improvement.

Providing guidance to the development team, Product Owner, and management during the process of transition, keeping Agile practices in the forefront, and creating awareness of important information via the use of information radiators were all components of the coaching approach in support of the Scrum Framework.  Coaching also centered around creating an environment to help foster a connection between team members, their work, and their understanding of commitment.  Coaching at the individual level, as well as the team level, was done to help individuals develop an understanding of empowerment in Scrum, and how they could organize their work, and themselves, as a team.

The first team to adopt Scrum delivered a data universe suitable to the needs of the end users, stakeholders, and subject matter experts. Subsequent teams were formed and followed a similar pattern, implementing Scrum and executing two-week sprints.  End users and stakeholders were delighted with results, and end users began rolling off an older, less reliable system.

The development team met regularly with the Product Owner and reviewed requirements, breaking them down into User Stories with clear and measurable acceptance criteria.  This allowed no room for ambiguity either in what was expected by the business or what the team would deliver. The time-box and scope for the sprint was mutually agreed upon. Based on completion of pulled work, a velocity expressed in story points was recorded.  After only a few iterations, the team was able to examine remaining work and estimate output per sprint, allowing for a release schedule and timeline for major milestones. This created a sense of transparency with the business as they could see and adjust the plan with the cooperation of the delivery team.  Since the development team created the timeline out of estimates based on empirical evidence, they felt in control of the commitment being made, revisiting the estimates as more information became available.

At the end of each iteration, the team would demonstrate work completed to the product owner, business customers, and stakeholders in a Sprint Review.  The ability to watch the product unfold each sprint allowed for a dialogue between the development team and the product owner as new needs arose and priorities evolved.  The business was free to alter the plan as dictated by business need, and the team was free to modify the timeline based on requirements that were either added or removed. There was increased attention and focus on the most important business priorities.

By partnering with leadership, Plaster Group was able to apply a successful strategy to bridge the communication gap between stakeholders and the EDW team, create a reliable schedule for work delivery, deliver a strong product out of the EDW, and ultimately meet the greatest needs of their customers.