Agile Practices Benchmarking
Case Study
by
Nokia Siemens Networks,
Bangalore
OSS Group
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Nokia Siemens Networks
General Organizational Information
Captive / Non Captive
Non Captive
About Business
Provider of Data Networking and Telecommunications
Equipment
Major Verticals
WCDMA frequency reframing
Device management
Fixed-mobile convergence
Integrated provisioning
Mobile backhaul
Mobile TV
Unified charging and billing
Number of
Employees
Nokia Siemens Networks operates in more than 150
countries worldwide and has about 73,000 employees
including the joinees from Motorola Networks
Quality/Process
Models embraced
ISO 9001:2008, ISO27001, Agile Methodologies
& CMMI
Contact for this
Presentation
Ashfaq Ahamed M Ashfaq.m@nsn.com
Anju SW anju.sw@nsn.com
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+919880310310
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Agile Penetration @ OSS
Bangalore
Agile Related Information
Type of Project
New Development , Feature Enhancement, &
Maintenance of Operations Support Software
for Network & Service Management.
Most are mature products which have seen
multiple releases, each being more than 50
Staff Year in size.
Domains
Telecom
Technologies
C++, Java, J2EE, Oracle, SOA, XML
Number of Projects & % of
Projects
100%
Agile Institutionalized since
OSS started its Agile Journey in 2008 and
instutionalized since 2009
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Agile Penetration @ OSS
Bangalore
Agile Related Information
Key success factor
1. Organization way of working built around
Agile principles
2. Infrastructure enabling Agile Development
3. Senior Management Support
4. Customer Involvement
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Agile Execution @ OSS
Bangalore
Project Name
Project Size
Average 6 Scrum Teams per Product
Project Structure
Distributed Product Development Environment
With Co-located Scrum Teams
Agile Approach
SCRUM
Agile Practices
Time Boxed Iterations, Sprints, Pair programming, Scrum of
Scrums, continuous integration, Automated testing ,code
refactoring, User Story Burn down, Retrospective Meetings,
Customer Demo, Product Backlog Grooming, Automated Backlog
Management, ATDD, Poker estimation, Information Radiators ,
Daily Stand Up Meetings , Standard Scrum Roles etc
Agile Metrics
Product velocity, Burn down chart, Defect density, cyclomatic
complexity, Code Coverage , Feature Readiness, Sprint
Commitment , Feature Cycle Time, Test Automation %, Code
Growth Trend, Build Success Rate, Fault Metrics, Fault Closing
Speed, Team Velocity
Agile Tools
Jira (Confluence), Backlog Management Tool, Sonar, Change
Management Tools, Focal Point, Common Production Pipe,
Bamboo, Sub-version, Excel, wiki
Agile Skills
Certified SrumMaster, Certified Scrum Product Owner,
Certified Scrum Professional, Certified Agile Coach
Why Agile in this project
Faster delivery , Process improvement, Customer Delight
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Measurement and Analysis
Metrics
Analysis
Scope Burn Down
Tracking of remaining work for a release and within the sprint
Sprint Commitment accuracy
Measures the accuracy of sprint planning sessions and effectiveness of
groomed stories
Code Coverage
Ensures availability of unit testing for newly added code
Feature Readiness
Progress tracking metric - to track the work remaining for the release.
Velocity
Product velocity used for release planning and to compare it against the
planned burn down.
Significant change of Team velocity is analyzed.
Feature cycle time
Measured for meeting the organization objective of reducing the Go To
Market cycle time
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Measurement and Analysis
Metrics
Analysis
Test Automation
Aim is to have all e2e TCs automated. Also a measure of the maturity of
agile implementation
Build success Rate
Ensures that newly added code does not break existing functionality
Fault metrics
Open fault status tracking
Code Quality metrics
Complexity, Coverage, Coding rules compliance as Code Quality index
Code Growth trend
Trend analysis of code across sprints – significant changes are analyzed
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Challenges & Solutions
Focus
Areas
Challenges
Solutions
Scope and
Estimation
Sprint planning accuracy was less
•
•
Size estimations not accepted by Product
Management as they don’t want to derive
costing out of it.
•
Release/Milestone Planning still based on effort
estimates as Velocity data and SP estimates
are not reliable.
•
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•
•
Calibrate and standardize “Story
Point Estimate” at Product Area Level.
Improve pre-studies to ensure
effective grooming.
Use velocity for planning at team
level
Periodic Calibration session to have
common understanding of reference
Avoid Frequent Team changes to have
reliable velocity data
SP Estimation Coaching/Mentoring
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Challenges & Solutions
Focus
Areas
Challenges
Solutions
People
Becoming self organized teams
Constant Coaching and
Mentoring
Misinterpretation of Agile
principle/values/practices
Best Practices sharing about the
benefits realized from agile
Methodology
Strong waterfall mindset,
Moving from plan driven approach to adaptive
planning
Follow Go & see principle
Agile methodology supports
progressive planning.
Disconnect between the Line Managers and the
Team.
“Go & See” methodology
Helped convincing that they
can connect and be updated.
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Challenges & Solutions
Focus Areas
Challenges
Solutions
Product / Process
Quality
Minimal Required (Lean) Documents not
consistently maintained
Enhancing the DoD with
required Lean documentation
update as an requirement
Defect Leakage from development
Test Case Review by APO
Definition of Done not followed in essence
DoD compliance review
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Challenges & Solutions
Focus Areas
Challenges
Solutions
Customer
Bringing customer’s view point to all work
Involving Customer in
Demos/Reviews
Involve members from
Customer Team, Technical
Support etc during Requirement
Hearing
User Stories didn’t have effective CoS
Condition of Satisfaction (CoS)
clearly documented with
Acceptance Criteria /
Requirements.
Resistance to change the working model.
Customers involvement during
the product life cycle (In Demo)
and frequent feedback, the
resistance reduced.
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Challenges & Solutions
Focus Areas
Challenges
Solutions
Culture / Collaboration
Cross Functional/Feature Team
Getting adjusted to open space
Culture (Handling NonFunctional Requirements in
Ones Print)
Competence Development
/Knowledge sharing gave teams
opportunity to pick up User
Stories in different area.
Scrum with more than 100
people working on it on various
sites
Product Management Team was
skeptical about Scrum and
participation was minimal
initially
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Confidence was instilled with
“Product Grooming Workshop”,
“Requirement workshop”,
“Demo” etc
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Challenges & Solutions -6
Focus Areas
Challenges
Solutions
Sustenance
Sustenance of agile practices in
all teams when release schedule
is fixed
Constant coaching on their
importance of sustenance of
basic agile practices
Practices
Follow up of Retrospective
actions to closure
Dedicated resource in a team to
follow up on retro actions with
the help of Retro Action Tracker
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Limitations &
Recommendations
Focus Areas
Current Limitation
Future
Recommendation
Scope and estimation
Pre-analysis team and scrum
teams have separate definition
for a Story Point.
Common calibration of story
point required, so that ‘1’ story
point means same to all.
Culture / Collaboration
Cross Functional/Feature Team
Getting adjusted to open space
Culture (Handling NonFunctional Requirements in
Ones Print)
Competence Development
/Knowledge sharing gave teams
chance to pick up User Stories in
different area.
People
Becoming truly Self organizing
teams probably due to a cultural
issue where teams look up to
seniors for tasks allocation.
Continuous coaching
Role of a Line Manager in Scrum
Environment
•
•
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Help remove blocks that
the team is not able to
resolve
Provide advice and input
to the team on technical
difficulties
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Significant Benefits
Focus Areas
Benefits
Scope and
Estimation
•
•
•
•
People
•
•
•
•
Enhanced visibility and problems become evident
sooner.
Easy to incorporate late customer features in a
release.
Everyone contributes via Poker estimation & not just
the expert thus giving chance to enhance knowledge
Prioritized work
Dynamic Teams
Co located teams helping in faster resolution of
technical issues.
More Team collaboration
Good Cross learning
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Significant Benefits
Focus Areas
Benefits
Product / Process Quality
•
•
•
•
•
Tools / Technology
• Continuous Integration provides immediate
visibility to quality of committed code encouraging
stop and fix culture.
• Information Radiators provide the status of
builds and code quality status
Customer
•
•
Increased focus on Test automation
Ease of maintenance
Effort optimization
Reduced defect level with high reliability.
Short feedback loop
Reduced feature cycle time
Good visibility to Customer
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Significant Benefits
Focus Areas
Benefits
Practices
Development is done is small steps iteratively. Therefore
Designers and developers have time to deeply understand
what they are doing.
Metrics
Helps in early detection of problems/risks
Productivity
In mature products, agile way of working helps us handle a
huge code base with limited number of people.
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