inthinc’s agile history [2013] levi sorenson director of project management

inthinc’s Agile History

[2013]

Levi SorensonDirector of Project Management

Copyright © 2013 inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Includes confidential information.

Who Is inthinc?

Based in Utah

Started in 1999

Safety Focus

Hardware, Software, Firmware

Global Install base of 50,000 devices in: US & Canada South America Africa Europe Australia & New Zealand


Products

Portals GAIN My.inthinc.com

waySmart 820 MCM (UClinux)

2.4 and 2.6 Kernel

TouchScreen (Windows CE) HandHeld (.Net Micro)

tiwiPro (Open AT)

waySmart 850 IVMM (Android) HMI (Android)


Reasons for becoming agile Wanted to do more with less Desire to move fast and increase quality Release predictability

Discussion points Brief Overview of inthinc’s Agile History What has helped us be successful?

Implementing Physical Kanban Contractors and Outsourcing * Killing Sprints Killing Release Planning Why Agile works for Hardware

What would we have done different?


inthinc 2006 - 2007

2006 Waterfall & project plans. Firmware and software releases are frequent and small. Every release requires heroics from the whole team. 10 people in Development including test.

2007 Growing pains, lots of heroics, very little process. Merged with our hardware manufacturing partner. Standups held frequently but not consistently (Always cross functional). Small teams, including a dedicated test team. 15-20 people in R&D.


inthinc 2008 - 2009

2008 Quick growth in R&D Moved to a bigger building 50 people in R&D 3 Project Managers 1 Product Owner Trying to build predictability with extra process PRD's, MRD, Gate Sign offs. Very PEMBOK

2009 Agile adoption on 1 team for 1 large project very successful.

New customer portal (we now support two portals).

Major reduction in work force, every team in R&D heavily effected. 1 Project Manager; no Product Owners.

Un-merged with manufacturing sister company.


inthinc 2010

2010 Adopting Agile

Daily standups ups Lots of half baked process All teams started Agile at the same time

Release planning and sprint planning is cumbersome and time-consuming Engineers have a hard time with time commitments Business has a hard time not breaking sprints with "emergencies" Commitments didn’t mean much after sprint planning Release planning is an unrealistic wish list

2 week sprints then 3 week sprints An extra week added to the sprints to make time for testing.

Unlikely to complete/accept work during the sprint. No Process around story acceptance.


inthinc 2011

2011 Dedicated test team disbanded and members are integrated into individual

teams. 3 week sprints Burn down was demoralizing, commitments are rarely meant. Moved to 1 week sprints at the end of the year. Began move of Production to AWS and EC2. Started a DevOps team. Continue to struggle with release planning. Cross functional planning breaking down. Backlog is out of control and unmanaged.


inthinc 2012 - 2013

2012 All teams moved to physical Kanban. More frequent releases. Lighter process with a more controlled feel. Process flow accounts for our holes in product management and story

acceptance. Backlog is out of control and unmanaged.

2013 Kanban Portfolio Management. Continuous Integration. Source code moved to GITHUB. Better cross-functional communication.


Continuous Integration

Production Release Time (Last Month) 2 Calendar days to deploy and test. 20-65 man-hours of testing. Lots of problems.

Production Release Time (This Month) 5 minutes to deploy. 30 minutes to verify.

Production Release (Very Soon) Less than 2 minutes to deploy. Deploys happen frequently throughout the day.

Prod


More DevOp Advantages

Cost 30% savings since we moved to AWS. 50% predicted as we optimize for the service.

Flexibility Production copies for anyone in less than 20 minutes with production data.

CF engine configuration New resources are automatically configured and audited every five minutes.

Testing DB alters ran against a current copy of production.

Releases are timed and verified

A/B testing Weighted DNS send a percentage users to new servers.


Kanban Portfolio Management

Value-Driven Prioritization What’s the most valuable now? Keeping balance between long and short term. Weekly portfolio-steering.

Hierarchal view of Features and User Stories Budget owners. Accountability for time.

Visible Priorities

MVPs Establishing MVPs and Acceptance criteria.

Keeping WIP limits intact


Secret to Our Success

Development Process: Code reviews

Pull requests Branching

TDD Unit Tests Business tests

Acceptance Criteria Established before the story is worked on Acceptance Tests written

Feature Demos Show the product early and often!


The Secret to Our Success

Scrumban Physical Kanban. Daily Stand-Ups. Continuous Process Evaluation and Improvement.

New Features are Driven by Sales

Communication Weekly cross-functional planning (Scrum of Scrums). Logged Team and Project Chats.

Contractors and Outsourcing In-house, China, India.

Support Escalation Dedicated Escalation Engineer Triaging Support

Commodity-based Hardware and Software


Sprint and Release Planning

Why Release Planning Failed? Over-committed

Why Sprints Did Not Work? Lack Training Lack of coaching Lack of Product Ownership


Why Agile and Lean Work for Hardware

Hardware development is naturally iterative.

Hardware engineers seem to have a harder time communicating, stand-ups and stories provide a feedback loop.

Feature demos remind the business that value is being delivered.

Assists the hardware team in communicating with the firmware team.


What Would I do Differently

Slower Implementation Roll Out for Each Team

Better Defined Scrum Master Role

Product Owner/ Business Analyst

A Different Type of Executive Support


Q&A


HARDWARE KANBAN


KANBAN CARD

USER STORY ##### POINTS EST #

AS A USER I WANT TO …...

TIME SPENT LEFT

ENGINEER 1 1 10

ENGINEER 2 5 0

TEST 0 5

OWNER NAME

inthinc’s agile history [2013] levi sorenson director of project management

Documents

inthinc technology solutions

confidential information

time release planning

week sprints

agile works

agile adoption

hard time

dedicated test team