Scaling Agile within Micro Focus

White PaperApplication Development, Test & Delivery

pageTable of ContentsChallenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Moving to a Global Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1No Business Disruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Team Support and Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2How We Scaled Agile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

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“It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small . . .It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow” . This quote from Jason Jennings clearly expresses the current hot topic in the world of agile project management . Size matters, but the importance of speed and fast feedback are dominating more and more markets . That’s why most big enterprises are looking into adopting agile solutions into their enterprise development processes, just like Micro Focus .

But how do you start such an agile transformation in an enterprise? Change is usually hard and accompa-nied by high risk . Our answer is to start small, make it successful, and build on your successes . Don’t force teams to go agile but make them want to because it is cool, fun, and delivers better results . Finally, don’t forget to actively manage the transformation, it won’t happen on its own . Therefore, you need to establish dedicated people, your so-called change agents, and educate, educate, educate .

You build it—you use it . Micro Focus is in a unique situation where we don’t just use agile tools, we also build them. That’s why our teams that build new agile tools are also the first ones to use them. We gather lots of internal feedback and knowledge before exposing our agile development solutions to our customers .

In this white paper, we will introduce the challenges, concepts, and actual implementation practices in-volved in scaling agile project management within Micro Focus .

ChallengesIn the modern world of IT, there are many well-known factors that motivate enterprises to move to agile development . The need to quickly respond to user requests and environmental changes, as well as reduce the cost of cumbersome traditional methodologies (i .e ., waterfall) are key . They have a direct impact on end user experience and the ability to maintain a fast pace of innovation, keeping up with their expanding competitive landscape .

Nevertheless, implementing agile across such large enterprises is accompanied by the following signifi-cant challenges .

Moving to a Global ScaleOne of our main challenges was to replicate successful agile adoption from a small scale to a global, cross-organizational scale. The first lesson we learned was that due to the heterogeneous manner of our various development teams, there was no single method of implementation .

An agile team consists of around seven members, similar to Scrum, XP, or Kanban . The question is, how do you work with multiple teams and organize them effectively? Can the teams self-organize or are coordina-tion and facilitation roles in order? What dependencies do other departments have? Should departments

“We have to get the whole of Hewlett Packard, from a development perspective, adopting the agile methodology, so that we can go faster and deliver more to our customers’ expectations.”

MARTIN FINKCTOMicro Focus

In this white paper, we will introduce the challenges, concepts, and actual implementation practices involved in scaling agile project management within Micro Focus .

White PaperScaling Agile within Micro Focus

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be reorganized into end-to-end cross-functional business units in order to remove dependencies, wait times, and delays? How big should these units be?

No Business DisruptionIn addition to finding the right approach per team, adoption should not disrupt regular business processes. Customers expect the same delivery quality regardless of what’s going on behind the scenes . Security and performance, for example, still have to be on top of their games . In other words, incorporating new tools and processes into a large enterprise cannot compromise core business processes and KPIs . However, this is a good point in time to challenge existing processes . Why did we introduce them and are they still the right approach to achieve the underlying goals?

Team Support and AlignmentTwo factors make adoption challenging . First, most teams claim that they already understand and practice agile, and therefore don’t want to get further training or help . In many training sessions, we’ve observed that there is a great deal of misunderstanding when it comes to agile and its principles, which is why teams often struggle with accepting the change . Second, in order to encourage innovation and empower team members, agile development also requires a level of standardization to be enforced across an organization . There needs to be a common strategy with local execution, vision and an understanding of underlying lean-agile principles . We’ve learned that aligning cross-organizational factors on a large scale is no simple task when it comes to execution .

How We Scaled AgileAs mentioned above, the most basic and best way to start is small . This allows you to reduce overall risk and requires less work and lead-time because you don’t have to convince your whole organization upfront . Find early adopters while you form your change agent team and make them successful . Once there is one successful team, others will hear about it . Good news spreads fast, so it will become easier and easier to find other teams that want to join. Of course, some managed communication helps spread the good news, too . Starting small also allows you to adjust your strategy and implementation according to the knowledge acquired by the early adopters .

Two factors make adoption challenging . First, most teams claim that they already understand and practice agile, and therefore don’t want to get further training or help . In many training sessions, we’ve observed that there is a great deal of misunderstanding when it comes to agile and its principles, which is why teams often struggle with accepting the change .

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SolutionsThe Framework: Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)You can start your agile scaling strategy with a blank sheet of paper and define all of your processes from scratch, or you can start with a proven framework, such as SAFe, and tweak it to your needs . In our case, we used the second option because it leads to an agile solution much faster with less effort. We also identified the following advantages:

■ SAFe is similar to our understanding of scaling .

■ The training and coaching material is outstanding .

■ It is an open framework that is publicly available .

■ The underlying lean/agile principles and systems clearly explain why it works and provide a theoretical background to make informed decisions about customizing it for your organization’s environment and needs .

SAFe defines roles, teams, activities, and artifacts to apply lean and agile principles at enterprise scale. The framework is based on three levels: the team level is the lowest level and practices Scrum XP, then the program level runs so-called Agile Release Trains (ARTs) composed of multiple teams, and lastly, the portfolio level manages several programs and value streams . The Enterprise Backlog Model helps manage and visualize requirements, work, and dependencies at each of the different levels.

Figure 1. SAFe

SAFe defines roles, teams, activities, and artifacts to apply lean and agile principles at enterprise scale . The framework is based on three levels: the team level is the lowest level and practices Scrum XP, then the program level runs so called Agile Release Trains (ARTs) composed of multiple teams, and lastly, the portfolio level manages several programs and value streams .

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Get Them to ListenStart educating your teams and get their support . To understand real agile performance, teams should be able to positively answer the following questions:

■ Are you able to produce running and tested software on a frequent basis (hourly, daily, weekly)?

■ Are you able to do the required testing in the same sprint?

■ Are you able to keep the commitments you made during the sprint planning meeting or will you roll a significant amount of stories to the next sprint?

■ Do you plan for and commit to your product or solution for no longer than three months ahead?

■ Is your defect backlog small and flat? Is your hardening phase nonexistent or only a few days/weeks long?

■ Are you constantly implementing small process improvements in your teams and programs?

If teams can’t positively answer these questions, there may be reason to talk . Asking these questions will help make team members recognize room for improvement as well as the potential that agile holds, ultimately cultivating support from each and every member .

Training and CoachingOne of the main challenges stems from the fact that teaching agile doesn’t end in the classroom . In order to get the most out of agile practices, each team should have a trainer who educates and coaches them throughout the adoption process . A coach’s job is to provide feedback to the team, asking the right ques-tions, and helping to find the right answers based on context, culture, and environment.

Ecosystem of ToolsPrinciples and methodologies alone are not sufficient when it comes to driving adoption. Scaling agile should come with a set of tools that supports agile planning and tracking on a team, program, and portfolio level with good integration with development tools and processes . Continuous integration and testing, including environment provisioning and automatic deployment, are core elements of agile project manage-ment implementation due to the fact that the major progress indicator should be the running software . The infrastructure should make the process transparent for everybody and help analyze current performance metrics to support ongoing improvements .

In order to share more information and collaborate with our teams, we built an onboarding portal, as you can see in the image below . We use it to aggregate all of the information that teams and managers need in order to keep up with agile processes and tools .

One of the main challenges stems from the fact that teaching agile doesn’t end in the classroom . In order to get the most out of agile practices, each team should have a trainer who educates and coaches them throughout the adoption process .

Continuous integration and testing, including environment provisioning and automatic deployment, are core elements of agile project management implementation due to the fact that the major progress indicator should be the running software .

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ResultsBy aggregating information about system usage, we can monitor adoption . In 2013, we ran agile adop-tion within a few teams, on a small scale, and as you can see below, in 2014, we experienced a significant growth in internal adoption, reaching 3000 users across Micro Focus .

While this doesn’t reflect the teams’ levels of agile adoption, it does show the amount of people using our own Micro Focus® Agile Manager tool . We measure agile maturity by indicators such as increased quality and reduced cycle time . For more details, a coach can go to a team’s Agile Manager Dashboard or release train and look at the graphs and KPIs for a better understanding .

Figure 2. Agile onboarding portal

While this doesn’t reflect the teams’ levels of agile adoption, it does show the amount of people using our own Agile Manager tool . We measure agile maturity by indicators such as increased quality and reduced cycle time .

One of the main benefits for us and our customers is the fact that as an R&D organization, we use our own tools . We see ourselves as the first customers to try internally built systems like Agile Manager .

SummaryWe are still in the process of adopting agile project management across our organization . However, we already see the impact it’s had on delivery . Our teams run iterations within a num-ber of weeks rather than months, all while running robust delivery processes . We have reduced overall customer reported defects by 20 percent a year and have significantly increased em-ployee engagement .

One of the main benefits for us and our customers is the fact that as an R&D organization, we use our own tools. We see ourselves as the first customers to try internally built systems like Agile Manager . As part of “drinking our own merlot,” we report bugs and give feedback about the user experience and usefulness of features while also coming up with new ideas for the product . This helps us release products with higher quality and practically proven, easy-to-use functionality .

Want to try Agile Manager yourself? Sign up here for a free trial .

Learn More Atwww.microfocus.com/agilemanager

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Contact us at: www.microfocus.com

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Figure 3. Increase in Agile Manager users

“Like most of our customers, [Micro Focus] must adopt Enterprise Agile practices. Working closely with our ALM and AGM engineering teams allows us to continuously improve our product, scale out our software operations while keeping our costs under control. We’ve seen tremendous benefits such as efficiencies, improved quality and a reduction in time to market windows.”JEROME LABATCTOMicro Focus