solutionsiq development on the cutting edge...team in the division to kanban, which was the best...

SolutionsIQ

Development on the Cutting EdgeCase Study

How a Financial Services Company Kicked Off the Training Wheels and Achieved Success with Kanban

SAFE AND BEYOND - A SUCCESS STORY

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Development on the Cutting Edge: Case Study

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“At some point, Scrum started holding them back. After three years, the discipline of ‘develop, demo, gather feedback, repeat’ was so ingrained in them that they felt no need for forced stops and starts.”

- Agile coach on the switch to Kanban

Just the Facts

IndustryData Storage

Number of Employees25-75K

Length of Engagement4 Months

Number of Coaches1

People Served600

Engagement Type Agile transformation

The Challenge Help a high-functioning Scrum team move to Kanban for even better productivity

The Goal Enable innovative solutions

The SolutionsIQ Solution » Assess the current situation and rally leadership around

an organization-wide change roadmap.

» Design a plan leveraging Kanban and begin execution.

» Adjust the plan as needed, scale out small successes, and offer recommendations toward sustaining results.

» Help client initiate culture shifts throughout the organization.

The DeliveryMove an established, high-performing Scrum team to a new level of Agility and continuous development with Kanban


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A high-performing, highly experienced Scrum team accustomed to leading their division began to notice that their improvements had leveled off. They felt blocked by the very framework that had given them so much success—Scrum. The client, a financial services company, called SolutionsIQ to get help pinpointing the problem and moving the team to the next level. Our Agile coach helped them transition from Scrum to another methodology more geared toward continuous development: Kanban. Using this simple approach, this client took their development to the cutting edge of technology and achieved enough success to convince them to implement a full-scale adoption of Kanban.

A few years before contacting us, our financial services client successfully launched an innovative new offering: infrastructure as a service. Heading the initiative was a brand new Scrum team. As a result of this success, the client division, as they phrased it, “put our business-as-usual model out of business.” The revolutionary new product bred more opportunities for this high-performing Scrum team. They had more than proved themselves but continued to produce high-quality products for a good time. Yet, even as they continued to lead their division, the team began to notice that their improvements had leveled off. Accustomed to continuously improving and winning big, plateauing like this was hard on the team, to the point where the client decided it was time to take

action. They called on SolutionsIQ to do an assessment of the team’s performance and make recommendations about further improvement.

The team was not struggling by any measure, our coach found. In fact, our initial assessment revealed a cohesive team that produced quality features every two weeks at a predictably high velocity. They consistently incorporated feedback from the Sprint review to revise the backlog and the product roadmap. They were also faithfully holding retrospectives at the end of each Sprint to improve their process. They had an effective and insightful internal coach. On the surface, things seemed to be going quite well.

The team, however, felt constrained by Scrum

Abstract

Overview


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and wondered if it might actually be slowing them down. The forced stops and starts every two weeks were demonstrably interfering with the team’s flow. They had tried reducing Sprint length, but that didn’t help. They weren’t sure whether their internal assessments were accurate or whether they were missing something, so they brought SolutionsIQ in to help them decide how to break through to the next level.

“Very often, team complaints about Scrum being too much overhead are actually symptoms of other problems,” explained one SolutionsIQ coach. “In this case, though, their internal metrics were accurate.” The team’s planning sessions were fast and efficient and the reviews and retrospectives were productive. The team was estimating and grooming the backlog consistently. Yet, all of the Scrum ceremonies — which were once

key to the team’s success — seemed no longer necessary. The team members were doing all of these things automatically at the prescribed cadence. But the fact of the matter was that the team was ready to transcend Scrum.

LaunchHow do you increase the productivity of an already high-performing team? Lose the training wheels.

Our coach introduced the team to Kanban. Instead of advocating strict timeboxes, Kanban has only a few simple rules that happen to be difficult to adhere to. For this reason, Kanban is generally leveraged by more experienced teams — those like our client’s, which through concerted, consistent adherence to Scrum have achieved high productivity and a smooth workflow but are now ready to try

a less regimented methodology. Kanban, which comes a Japanese word meaning “signboard” or “billboard”, uses a simple task board to categorize work items — at the simplest level — as “To Do”, “In Progress”, and “Done”. The main focus being to get work to “Done”, Kanban limits work in progress (WIP) and makes clearly visible where work is in the release chain.

Simple Kanban board with the three basic columns


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After an initial training period and some hands-on coaching, the client team transitioned to Kanban. The team immediately felt liberated from the strictures and prescribed cadence of Scrum. In the process of moving from Scrum and its many ceremonies to Kanban, the highly experienced team recuperated half or an entire day’s worth of effort and capacity, and no longer felt constrained by a structure they had outgrown. They recognized that Scrum was instrumental in their achieving such a high rate of productivity but were also ready to simplify their workflow through Kanban.

Scale & SustainLeadership began to take note of the cost savings, predictability, and innovative solutions this Agile team (and others) were producing. They wanted to expand those results to other areas, and even more complex structures, across their division. Consequently, the client decided to transition every team in the division to Kanban, which was the best choice for the high-interruption environment that the entire division worked in.

The client was happy to continue working with SolutionsIQ to help ensure that this Agile transformation went smoothly. By the end of the engagement, the client was more than happy to move the work item “Make great teams greater” from “In Progress” to “Done”.

Game Changer:Embracing Change

When faced with a choice between

playing it safe and chancing

failure, this team of cutting-edge

innovators chose to push the

envelope. They consistently looked

beyond the status quo for ground-

breaking solutions.

We can and did coach process and

culture change; technical practices;

and cross-functional teamwork. All

of that continues to play a part in

this group’s success. Yet, we readily

admit that the group’s courage and

wisdom, both in knowing when to

push the boundaries and when to

ask for help, is what ultimately gives

them that winning edge.

In the client’s own words:

“We want to question everything—no holds barred. We refuse to be held back by any existing rules or assumptions.”


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Want to be the next success story?

Contact us now to learn more about how SolutionsIQ can guide your Agile transformation!

Visit SolutionsIQ.comEmail: [email protected]

Toll-Free: 1-800-235-4091Direct: 1-425-451-2727

Big Wins

Replicate this success with SolutionsIQ!

» A high-performing team reached new heights with a switch to

Kanban

» The client made plans to adopt Kanban across the division based

on the successes seen in this engagement

» The existing team recuperated up to a full day in productivity

DISCLAIMER: The engagement on which this case study is

based was performed by BigVisible Solutions. SolutionsIQ,

Inc., formally acquired BigVisible Solutions in December 2014.

solutionsiq development on the cutting edge...team in the division to kanban, which was the best...

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