Pasadena

January 16, 2020

Christopher Yang

Vice President of Engineering, Corporate Travel Management

Make Agile Your Own: Adapt It To Succeed In A Client-Centric Environment

Christopher Yang• PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, ICP,

ICP-ACC, CSPO, CSM, ITIL, CPM, PAL

• MBA, MSISE, MSCS from USC

• Vice President of Engineering, Corporate

Travel Management (ASX:CTD)

• Member and Contributor, Forbes

Technology Council

• Member of Outreach Committee and

Investor, Tech Coast Angels

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Agenda

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Agile in Software Development

Agile Adoption Challenges in Profession Services

Client-Centric Agile Enterprise Framework

Best Practices for Maximum Return

Q&A

Agile Software Development

More engineering teams have moved away from the traditional waterfall

methodology and toward the flexibility that an agile framework offers.

Agile embraces:

– Incremental and iterative development

– Shorter release and iteration planning cycles and adaptation

– Ongoing alignment with company goals and customer needs

Challenges in Professional Services

Although an agile approach yields many benefits, it also comes with

certain limitations when directly applied in a client-facing environment:

• It can be difficult for clients to adapt to new work models.

• Implementing agile practices can be challenging and less

appealing to clients who have long been influenced by the plan-

driven waterfall model.

• Clients don’t always know what they want.

• It may be counterproductive for development teams to focus solely

on delivering against a fixed-cost contract.

Three Principle Layers:

Client-centric Agile Enterprise Framework

Project Portfolio Management

Project Delivery

Iteration Management

Flexibility

Project Portfolio Management

The primary objective of project portfolio management is to align

business goals with execution.

– Related projects from the same client should be grouped into

a single project portfolio to establish a value stream with a

single backlog and intake process.

– All projects and maintenance work should be forced ranked,

creating clear priorities for the team.

Project Delivery

This middle level connects all the pieces of a project’s release, from project

intake to requirement analysis to development to deployment.

– Collaboration with stakeholders is a key part of this stage and therefore

requires a work model that is flexible enough to all parties.

– For clients used to working within the safe confines of a plan-driven

waterfall methodology, some longer-range planning, such as fixed-

scope release planning, may be necessary to offer them the

appropriate level of confidence.

Iteration Management

The bottom layer, iteration management, is the part of the agile

framework that focuses on planning, execution, and leadership

during timeboxed iterations.

– The team must effectively engage clients, solicit constructive

feedback, and concentrate on the work that is the most likely

to generate the most value.

Align Resources Within Each Portfolio

During the project portfolio management phase, align your resources within

each portfolio. Assigning dedicated teams to work on a portfolio consisting of

projects with similar technical domains minimizes switching costs.

– Any developer can then take on a task with a minimal learning curve.

– Doing this not only allows senior management to effectively balance

efficiency with resource utilization but creates resource and cost

transparency, all the way to the client level.

Use OKRs to Measure Team Performance

Using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can help leadership set

goals for each portfolio team.

– OKRs not only help establish priorities, but they can also

track progress.

– Although goals are generally set by management,

implementation details are left to the team, which determines

the most sensible approach to take.

Include Account Managers on Agile Teams

Including account managers on agile teams can be extremely beneficial.

– As a part of the agile team, account managers can act as clients/product owner and provide real-time feedback during development.

– Incorporating an account manager can help enhance the structure and boundaries between clients and the developmental team, which yields in an increase in positive results.

Behavior Driven Development Example

Feature: Add an item to an online shopping cart

Scenario: User clicks to add the item to the cart,

Given: The user is on the product detail page

AND is signed into the user’s account

When: The user selects a product size, color and quantity

AND clicks the “add to cart” button

Then: The item is successfully added to the shopping cart

AND the user receives a notification

Be Flexible About the Work ModelsTraining and educating clients on agile methodologies can be quite challenging,

especially when working with time constraints.

– Agile teams must remain flexible concerning the structure they use to deliver the project while keeping the core product development in Agile.

– At times, adopting a hybrid approach can be optimal. For example, the product development team could run effective sprints to research, design, build, and test new functionalities while the implementation team focuses on systems integration and executes against more predicable milestones and timelines.

Provide Transparency Into Projects

Clients want transparency from the start. No one likes surprises.

• When communicating to the clients, speak in their languages. For

example, the teams could normalize and convert agile estimates

such as story points or ideal days to standard time intervals.

• Use functional work breakdown structure, earned business

value metrics or epic burndown charts to communicate project

statuses.