NTT DATA – Adopting SAFe for Business Agility Improvement

Customer Story โ€“ NTT DATA: Japanese Payment Services Leader Transforms Organizational Culture and Improves Business Agility with SAFe

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NTT DATA brings the first Japanese customer story to the SAFe Summit audience. Headquartered in Tokyo and operating in more than 50 countries as a top 10 global IT services provider, NTT Data turned to SAFe to improve its ability to respond to market demands and stay ahead of a growing number of competitors. In his presentation, Product Manager Takenori Osada describes the difficulty of introducing Agile in Japan, how their culture transformed, and how they applied SAFe in their Payments Services Division and were able to see significant improvements in employee Net Promoter Scores, time-to-market, productivity, and quality.

SAFe is essential for us to be able to compete in the payment market. This resulted in an investment cost advantage.โ€ โ€”Director (Business owner)

Presented at the Global SAFe Summit, October, 2020.

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Cerno – SAFe Adoption to Become a Total Agile Enterprise

โ€œWe collaborate more than ever with our customers by involving them in planning as much as we can. And we deliver frequent demosโ€”even beyond customersโ€™ expectations. Our customers have found communication to be more effective since the SAFe implementation.โ€

โ€”Sam Wu, Agile Head Coach and Training Director, Cerno

Challenge:

Deliver custom solutions faster and with higher quality for clients.

Industry:

Information Technology, Software

Results:

  • Delivery cycle time dropped by 58%
  • The rate of release failure went down from 0.6 times on average per release to 0
  • The interface automation level increased from zero to 70 percent
  • Reported defects decreased from 13 times per release to five

Best Practices:

  • Power through setbacks โ€“ Find solutions and donโ€™t let them stop your momentum.
  • Assess regularly โ€“ Inspect & Adapt and DevOps health checks keep teams aware of progress and on track toward goals.
  • Choose a compatible partner โ€“ A partner with a business view, not just R&D, moved Cerno ahead with training and coaching.

Introduction

As a custom software factory, Cerno is poised for rapid growth as part of Chinaโ€™s expansive technology market. The company delivers technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, open source software, and IoT solutions for a diverse range of clients, from logistics to government.

Cerno - SAFe Implementation for IT

To compete effectively, Cerno set out to elevate the speed of delivery, reduce defects, and improve the quality of its solutions in the long term, with the ultimate objective of being more client-focused.

โ€œWe needed a next-generation software development method to meet customer needs and reach our goals,โ€ explained Sam Wu, Agile Head Coach and Training Director, Cerno.

Cernoโ€™s founders brought experience in developing software for the financial industry. They found the โ€˜weak matrixโ€™ structure worked in HR outsourcing, but not so well in product delivery. (A weak matrix is an organizational structure in which the balance of power tilts decisively in the direction of line or functional management.)

And while the traditionally waterfall company had experimented with Lean-Agile development in the past, they lacked the training or business support to build momentum.

SAFeยฎ: The Path from Strategy to Delivery

While attending Leading SAFeยฎ training, a Cerno executive saw a promising path to Agile, leading Cerno to adopt the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFe). โ€œIt was clear that we needed SAFe to make Cerno a total Agile enterprise, to expand Agile not only to product lines but also to the business and functional departments such as HR and finance,โ€ explained Liu Yilei, VP, Cerno. โ€œWe saw SAFe as the model that would take us from strategy to delivery.โ€

โ€œSAFe provided a comprehensive toolkit and an easy way to move forward,โ€ added Wu, who was hired at that time to lead the effort as the internal change agent. At the same time, the company brought in SAFe Gold partner Aura International for coaching and training.

Per the SAFe Implementation Roadmap, James Li, Principal Consultant from Aura, led the SAFe Executive Workshop. Jack Xu, Senior Consultant from Aura, delivered SAFeยฎ for Teams training and helped prepare for the first Program Increment (PI) planning event. They organized teams, reconfigured the office to better support those teams, and reorganized the product plan with user-story mapping.

For the first Agile Release Train launch, they began with four Agile teamsโ€”the entire R&D team plus Infrastructure and Operationsโ€”on an existing initiative to digitalize a logistics solution for a client.

From that first PI, team leaders embraced the Lean-Agile mindset. They identified priorities based on business value and began allowing people to self-organize. Instead of waiting to be assigned work, developers identified the work based on business objectives, committed to the work in PI Planning, and moved forward with it.

More Stories in Less Timeโ€”Despite Setbacks

Though Cerno set out to follow SAFe by the book, they ran into roadblocks that forced mid-course adjustments. In middle of the first PI, the Systems Architect left, leading Cerno to assemble a team to assume his responsibilities.

Additionally, the customer cut some funding because of market forces. And when managers wanted to move some teams to another client project, it nearly stopped the train. Given technical and capacity challenges, Cerno chose to postpone 15 percent of the high-risk PI objectives and scale back the size of the train.

Developers also found it challenging to transition from private to public code, a decision made to reduce bottlenecks in bug fixes and hidden technical debt. As the project team transitioned away from three-week waterfall development, the coaching team helped set code standards. In time, they found that developers took more pride in their code because of its public nature.

Even with the early challenges, the Inspect and Adapt session after the first PI showed the teams had met PI objectives and reduced defects. The ART could produce 45 stories per two-week iteration, on average, by the end of the first PI, compared to 30 stories per three-week iteration in waterfall.

Routine DevOps Health Checks

When Cerno first introduced DevOps practices, the company lacked a SAFe DevOps Practitioner. Still, they made progress on a delivery pipeline and staging environment, supported a grayscale release of a product, and shortened the time to release future versions.

Additionally, they formed a new system integration testing (SIT) plan that shrunk testing time by 25 percent initially, and then by half, freeing the development team to put more effort into new features.

To expedite progress, they began conducting DevOps health checks. Early on, those checks uncovered opportunities to improve delivery. To stay on track, they now perform this exercise every PI. With the habit of regular checks, Cerno has made strides with automated testing and continuous integration/continuous deployment.

To support their efforts, they also established Communities of Practice and hold monthly technical workshops for developers.

Cerno - SAFe Implementation for IT

Delivery Cycle Time Down 58 Percent

Today, Cerno runs two ARTs with 80 people. These high-confidence teams agree on, and begin working on, requirements faster. They communicate and collaborate more tightly than before they introduced SAFe and are continuously improving.

When the ART completed work with one client, they simply switched the train to support another logistics client with a similar solutionโ€”effectively a plug-and-play release train. The company then added a second ART to deliver value to another client. Each train continues to serve a single client.

To date, Cerno has made remarkable progress:

  • Delivery cycle time dropped from 3ยฝ weeks to two weeks, or 58 percent
  • The average offline time for a new production environment release decreased from 3ยฝ hours to half an hour
  • The rate of release failure went down from 0.6 times on average per release to 0
  • The interface automation level increased from zero to 70 percent
  • Reported defects decreased from 13 times per release to five

Most importantly, Cerno realized its goal of becoming a more customer-centric organization.

โ€œWe collaborate more than ever with our customers by involving them in planning as much as we can. And we deliver frequent demosโ€”even beyond customersโ€™ expectations,โ€ Wu said. โ€œOur customers have found communication to be more effective since the SAFe implementation.โ€

โ€œThis is the first SAFe transformation case I have coached in a local company in China,โ€ Li said. โ€œAlthough thereโ€™s still more to improve, it is really a great and wonderful start! It is a significant milestone for SAFe in China.โ€

Looking ahead, Cerno is building toward agility beyond solution delivery, into administrative management and marketingโ€”to become a total Agile enterprise.

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Suggested Case Study: Amdocs

Murex – Deploying Agility at Scale in Financial Software Using SAFe

Murex - SAFe Implementation for Financial Software

โ€œUsing SAFe to deploy agility at scale across our product factory has been fundamental to putting in place the mindset necessary for our transition to DevOps across our value chain. We still have further to go on this journey, but the benefits we see have proven that the SAFe framework was the right choice to accelerate our transformation.โ€

โ€”Jonathan Coyle, Head of Agile Factory Operations

Challenge:

With its MX.3 platform in use across the globe, Murex sought to maintain and build upon its market-leading position while continuing to respond rapidly to support the changing needs of clients and global regulatory demands.

Industry:

Information Technology, Financial Services

Solution:

SAFeยฎ

Results:

  • 10X faster production-like testing
  • A full functional testing cycle in just one hour
  • 85% reduction in user story cycle time
  • Time to release for internal test management system dropped from 37 man-days to two
  • 95 percent of those asked would not want to return to the old way of working

Best Practices:

  • Communicate continuously – You cannot over-communicate on your vision or the ‘why.’ Constantly reinforce the mission context.
  • Prepare for challenges – Be ready to tackle the problems that emerge quickly as teams and trains accelerate.
  • Anticipate changes in culture and people – Donโ€™t underestimate the cultural impacts that agility at scale brings and be ready to invest in people.
  • Invest in collaboration infrastructure – Murex invested heavily in digital solutions to help foster collaboration between distributed teams.
  • Provide coaching and SAFe training – Coaching and training guides teams and individuals through the huge changes that they go through during the transformation and sets the stage for success.

Introduction

Every day, over 50,000 people in 60 countries rely on financial software from Murex. For more than 30 years, Murex has provided financial technology solutions for capital markets, from banking and asset management to energy and commodities. The independent, Paris-based company employs more than 2,200 people across 17 countries.

Murexโ€™s flagship, award-winning platform, MX.3, supports trading, treasury, risk, and post-trade operations, enabling clients to better meet regulatory requirements, manage risk, and control IT costs. To maintain its industry-leading position, Murex continues focusing on building transformative technology, but faces numerous challenges in those efforts:

  • Changing regulations across regions
  • Complex and growing customer demands
  • Legacy IT and processes

As well, Murex wanted to improve its quality and time-to-market in getting new capabilities to customers.

โ€œThe impact of technology and regulation on financial institutions means they need to find new ways to adapt faster,โ€ explained Joe Iafigliola, Head of Americas for Murex. โ€œTo answer this challenge, Murex realized that we needed to provide a more flexible and Agile approach to project delivery. While this brings more predictability and convergence, it also allows greater flexibility to make changes that are required during a project.โ€

Murex - SAFe Implementation for Financial Software

Pursuing Continuous Delivery the SAFeยฎ Way

Murex - SAFe Implementation for Financial Software

Murex chose to apply SAFe to both its product development and the infrastructure supporting product development for proper business agility, and thus created a Value Stream for each:

Value Stream #1 โ€“ Development of MX.3, its flagship product

Murexโ€™s first Value Stream onboarded 700 engineers in eight ARTs for the development of its MX.3 trading, risk, and post-trade platform. This ART targets consistent Agile development practices, continuous integration, improved cycle time, and a faster feedback loop.

Value Stream #2 โ€“ Infrastructure evolution for MX.3 development and delivery

Murex created a second Value Stream to evolve the underlying development infrastructure, which includes development environments, versioning, build pipeline, and test management systems. Before SAFe, this portfolio released about every 10 weeks. Following the SAFe implementation, this timeframe has been reduced to two weeks.

Both Value Streams run with a DevOps flow. They follow sprint-based development on a two-week cadence with a continuous delivery pipeline. And batch sizes, iterations, and feedback cyclesโ€”all hallmarks of DevOps best practicesโ€”are all reduced.

Murex has also started piloting a DevOps approach for client rollouts and upgrades. They created a full development environment for customization of the MX.3 platform for clients. They now handle configuration, tests, test data, and infrastructure as code, and every piece is importable and exportable, and version-able in source control. Smaller changes flow to production more easily, reducing the challenges associated with large releases.

In pilot tests, the SAFe DevOps approach has shown promising results and is fostering more collaborative relations with clients.

โ€œWe found that, with a DevOps approach, validation timescales can be cut in half when compared to traditional methods,โ€ added Hassan Kamal, Head of Software Engineering. โ€œThis unlocks huge potential in terms of delivering incremental value because we can react faster to changing market and regulatory requirements.โ€

Impressive Productivity Gains

As of today, Murex has trained more than 1,000 people in SAFe, or half the company, with teams distributed across its three development centers in Paris, Dublin, and Beirut. Its efforts have driven measurable progress across numerous benchmarks:

  • 10X faster production-like testing โ€“ Client Delivery teams can now simulate 10 weeks of real production activity in a single weekend
  • Complete testing in just one hour, instead of days โ€“ The full client delivery testing cycle, including environment provisioning, functional tests, and upstream/downstream interface validation dropped from five days to just one hour, making it possible to run this full suite to customize each new customer configuration
  • 85% reduction in user story cycle time โ€“ Internal user story cycle for MX.3 platform development time dropped from 90 days to 15 days
  • Lower release cost for internal IS โ€“ The time to release for the internal test management system dropped from 37 man-days to two
  • Positive feedback from employees โ€“ 95 percent of those asked would not want to return to the old way of working (pre-SAFe)

Just as critical as the numbers, Murexโ€™s people have embraced the mindset required to make the transformation.

โ€œThe most notable difference at Murex is a change in the way we plan and execute solution development. We do not commit to tasksโ€”we commit to outcomesโ€”and we let the teams decide how best to get there,โ€ said Wissam Ghamroun, Head of EMEA Customer Delivery Services.

The company credits SAFe with helping it adopt best-practice engineering standards around test-driven development and CICD.

โ€œUsing SAFe to deploy agility at scale across our product factory has been fundamental to putting in place the mindset necessary for the transition to DevOps across our value chain,โ€ Coyle said. โ€œWe still have further to go on this SAFe journey, but the benefits we see have proven that the SAFe framework was the right choice to accelerate our agility transformation.โ€

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Suggested Case Study: Westpac

Cisco IT – Adopting Agile Development – A SAFe Case Study

Cisco - SAFe for Agile development

โ€œContinuous delivery improved quality, increased productivity, and improved the employee experience.โ€

โ€”Ashish Pandey, Technical Lead, CSIT Team

Challenge:

Cisco wanted to shift away from waterfall, and replace periodic major releases with continuous delivery of new features.

Industry:

Information Technology, Telecommunications

Results:

Cisco achieved significant improvements by using SAFe on two major projects:

  • 16% drop in the defect rejected ratio (DRR)
  • 40% decrease in critical and major defects
  • 14% increase in defect removal efficiency (DRE)
  • Improved employee satisfaction by eliminating the need for after-hours work and reducing meetings/calls
  • 25 percent fewer quality assurance defects
  • Sprints that ran more efficiently each subsequent time

Best Practices:

  • Carefully build teams โ€“ Build teams with the best members from any location.
  • Assemble the right tools โ€“ Cisco realized it could not have conducted regression testing every two weeks without test automation tools.
  • Adjust as needed โ€“ For un-integrated or loosely integrated products, features or components, consider eliminating the Program level of SAFe.

Introduction

Cisco IT constantly looks for new ways to go faster and simplify. As part of its digital IT strategy, the Cisco Cloud and Software IT (CSIT) organization wanted to adopt more Agile development as a way to replace periodic major releases with continuous delivery of new features.

Cisco - SAFe for Agile development

โ€œOur goals are to speed up releases, increase productivity, and improve quality,โ€ says Ashish Pandey, technical lead for the CSIT team.

Although a few small teams had adopted Agile techniques, waterfall was still the norm for teams that were large, distributed, or working on complex projects.

To solve these challenges, CSIT moved to the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFeยฎ) and immediately began applying scaled Agile practices on two major initiatives: their Subscription Billing Platform, and the Webex app for Samsung tablets..

Ciscoยฎ Subscription Billing Platform Challenge

For its Subscription Billing Platform (SBP)โ€”which supports various subscription servicesโ€”the company originally formed different teams for design, build, test and deploy. In waterfall fashion, each team began work once the previous team had completed their part.

Cisco - SAFe for Agile development
  • The separate tracks bogged down the process
  • Release cycles exceeded three months
  • They got late closure on requirements documents
  • Teams missed delivery dates
  • There were quality issues due to late integration cycles
  • Teams worked long hours to make up for schedule slippage

The Solution

  • On SBP, Cisco launched three Agile Release Trains (ARTs) in 2015: capabilities, defects and fixes, and projects.
  • All three trains worked together to build and test small features within one SaaS component, while regularly delivering tested features to the system integration and testing team.
  • Every day, the delivery team met for 15 minutes and determined action items.

Results โ€“ 40% Defect Reduction

Cisco delivered the new release of SBP on time and with all planned capabilities. When the company compared this release to those using waterfall, it found a 16 percent drop in the defect rejected ratio (DRR). Plus, critical and major defects decreased by 40 percent.

Continuous delivery also increased defect removal efficiency (DRE) by 14 percent due to greater collaboration among international teams, and by helping members identify opportunities for improvement during daily meetings.

Cisco - SAFe for Agile development

The CSIT team attributes those quality improvements to several factors:

  • Improving team collaboration and focus
  • Enabling all team members to see current project status, promoting accountability
  • Helping the three teams see beyond their own track
  • Enabling teams to manage themselves

Additionally, the new way of working improved employee satisfaction by eliminating the need for after-hours work and reducing meetings and calls. Employees also saw how they fit into the bigger picture.

WebExยฎ App for Samsung

Challenge

In early 2014, the application for WebEx Meetings came pre-installed on Android tablets. Leading up to the release, developers had to work quickly to meet the release date, despite frequently changing requirements.

Solution

The team followed an Agile Scrum framework with three sprints for geographic rollout, the first two consisting of three weeks and the last of five weeks.

During planning, Cisco IT and others gathered requirements, and evaluated the readiness of environments, partners, and engineering and marketing teams.
Developers employed extreme programming, including test-driven development, where they first write an automated test case for a new function. Then they produced the minimal amount of code needed to pass the test and then refined code to make it simpler and easier to maintain.

Results โ€“ 25% Reduction in Quality Assurance Defects

On the WebEx app, Cisco reduced quality assurance defects by 25 percent. Plus, with developers checking code in several times a day, the business group reviewed new features sooner in the cycle than before. And each sprint ran more efficiently than the last.

Ultimately, Samsung sold more than 35 million tablets with the new app, creating wide exposure for the brand.

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Suggested Case Study: Royal Philips

Johnson Controls – Bringing More Engagement by Adopting SAFe

โ€œSAFe brings so much more engagement, which has really been key for all parties. I wouldnโ€™t want to do it any other way.โ€

โ€”Rajbir Bal, Program Manager, Access Control

Challenge:

JCIโ€™s access control division needed to improve coordination among firmware and software teams across three locations with the goals of improving time-to-market, quality, and engagement.

Industry:

Information Technology

Solution:

SAFeยฎ

Results:

  • The division releases at least 2-4X more frequently than before
  • JCI reduced the size of its bug backlog by at least 3X
  • Access control delivers on its commitments 100 percent of the time
  • Customers/stakeholders appreciate the chance to provide feedback during the processโ€”instead of at the end

Best Practices:

  • Get help โ€“ Especially early on, partner with a consultant
  • Train leadership โ€“ JCI trained resource managers, product management, and directors to get buy-in before moving forward
  • Train SPCs โ€“ They serve as change agents and coaches
  • Follow progress โ€“ JCI used automated Agile dashboards in Team Foundation Server

The partner that made it happen:


Introduction

Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI), a global diversified technology leader, serves customers in more than 150 countries and reports $30 billion in annual revenue. The companyโ€™s access control division develops systems to help buildings achieve maximum security while increasing efficiency and lowering costs.

Johnson Controls - a Case Study of Implementing SAFe

Developing access control systems demands that firmware and software teams work together to deliver on a coordinated schedule. At JCI, those teams are spread across Southern California, Milwaukee, and India.

In 2014, the division began an effort targeted at improving time-to-market and the predictability of releases. They also sought to identify quality issues sooner, increase transparency, and raise team engagement.

โ€œWe were having very little success at agility planning, predicting releases and committing to and delivering on the timeline,โ€ explained David Richter, Director of Engineering, Access Control. โ€œWe wanted to increase our flexibility and ability to react to change, and to react to our customer’s needs in a positive and respectful manner.โ€
But Richter and other change agents knew they would have to contend with several roadblocks along the path to SAFe transformation:

  • Changing the established paradigm of working in waterfall
  • Aligning teams in three disparate locations

Taking the SAFe route

JCI identified the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFeยฎ) as the most promising route for instilling lasting Lean-Agile practices.

โ€œSAFe brought all the practices for us to start and then learn and adapt as we go,โ€ said Rajbir Bal, Program Manager, Access Control. โ€œIt also forced us to have tough discussions early and throughout developmentโ€”versus down the road when we got close to release.โ€

To gain leadership backing, the Director of Engineering gave decision-makers clear reasons for deploying SAFe and the expected outcomes. Concurrently, Scaled Agile Gold Partner Icon Agility Services trained leaders in Leading SAFeยฎ so they would fully understand the Framework. This worked well as change agents succeeded in securing executive backing.

They followed with Leading SAFeยฎ for directors, product managers, and resource managers, bringing together 15 individuals from California, Milwaukee, and India. Next, they defined the structure of the various teams that would begin the first Agile Release Train (ART), and put all team members through SAFeยฎ for Teams training.

Two individuals, including Bal, earned certification as SAFeยฎ Program Consultants (SPCs) in order to serve as change agents and coaches. Following certification, they became authorized to deliver SAFeยฎ Scrum Master, SAFe for Teams, and SAFeยฎ for Product Owner/Product Manager training.

In addition to Bal, other coaches included engineering managers and the director of engineering, while Scrum Masters became coaches at the team level. When it was apparent that Scrum Masters and Product Owners had an overlap of responsibility, or at least their understanding of it, Bal brought them together in one location for a custom Product Owner/Scrum Master workshop to clarify roles and responsibilities.

Navigating the path to alignment

In 2015, JCI launched its first ART at a Program Increment (PI) Planning meeting with about 100 people and followed Essential SAFe. Bal and others knew they were taking the first steps toward progress, however, early planning events felt chaotic.

โ€œThe first two PIs were not fun and we did not come out with committed plans,โ€ Bal said. โ€œSome features were not well defined, people were not clear on the process, and we needed more time to break down user stories.โ€

Bal attributes the discord to a couple of factors. The company included some user interface teams in that first ART, but not others, which caused misalignment. Geographic distribution also created challenges.

For more cohesive teams, they tried several approaches. First, they brought representatives from India to present on behalf of their teams. However, in doing so, they lacked the voices of those not in attendance.

Instead, they decided to start concurrent planning in the U.S. and India, with India beginning 12 hours ahead due to the time zone differences. As teams in India complete their planning days, those in the U.S. come in early to overlap with them. The Indian teams present their planning via videoconference. The same goes for day two of planning. American teams presented in what was the evening for their Indian counterparts.

Richter notes that, in those early months, JCI attempted to modify the Framework. Only some teams attended training and the company followed three-week sprints. โ€œWe tried to make changes to SAFe, but that was a disaster,โ€ he said. โ€œAfter that experience, we then started following SAFe exactly.โ€

Johnson Controls - a Case Study of Implementing SAFe

Many people also insisted on continuing lengthy documentation of functional and design specs, after 50 years of following this practice. But that changed over several PIs. โ€œWe realized that documentation is not adding value,โ€ Bal said. โ€œInstead, we switched more to flow diagrams and writing code versus paragraph after paragraph of specs.โ€

With these tweaks, subsequent PIs progressed more smoothly as everyone became accustomed to the ceremonies and practices of SAFe. They made better use of their time at PI planning events. By the third PI, all teams also joined the train.

Over time, JCI found it more feasible to modify the framework to its own processes. In the access control division, developers must follow a specific process. They found that SAFe allowed them to implement Lean-Agile methods that worked in conjunction with these required processes. Other modifications included concurrent planning for India and the U.S., and face-to-face meetings between Product Owners and Scrum Masters to walk through the features radiator.

Acting like โ€˜One Big Teamโ€™

Richter and Bal saw a number of positive outcomes emerge during the transformation:

  • Increased ownership โ€“ Entire teams committed to goals in PI planning and delivered on those goals
  • Less technical debt โ€“ Issues were identified earlier in development, which allowed for course corrections along the way, instead of at the end of development
  • Greater participation โ€“ All levels joined in, including business partners and architecture
  • Earlier decisions โ€“ Using the Lean Startup Cycle, they make go/no-go decisions sooner in the cycle than they had before practicing SAFe
  • More automation โ€“ Automation reduced the overhead of testing and corrects quality issues earlier
  • Enhanced transparency โ€“ People bring up issues sooner, rather than at the end of a PI
  • Greater teamwork โ€“ Inter-team collaboration improved as well, with individuals reaching out to help others when needed

โ€œWe started acting like one big team, instead of a bunch of teams of teams,โ€ Bal said. โ€œWe saw more engagement at all levels.โ€

Driving time-to-market, quality, predictability

Johnson Controls - a Case Study of Implementing SAFe

After early growing pains, JCI began seeing the results of its efforts:

  • Faster time-to-market โ€“ The division releases at least 2-4X more frequently than before
  • Higher quality โ€“ JCI reduced the size of its bug backlog by at 3 times
  • Predictability โ€“ Access control delivers on its commitments 100 percent of the time
  • Customer satisfaction โ€“ Customers appreciate the chance to provide feedback during the processโ€”instead of at the end

โ€œThis wasnโ€™t an easy process for us,โ€ Bal said. โ€œIt takes time getting everyone jelling PI over PI. But SAFe brings so much more engagement, which has really been key for all parties. I wouldnโ€™t want to do it any other way.โ€

For more details on JCIโ€™s Essential SAFe implementation, download the supplemental PowerPoint presentation.

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Suggested Case Study:

Deutsche Bhan

EdgeVerve Systems – Agile Business Transformation Using SAFe

โ€œSAFe was the right fit because of the dynamics and goals at EdgeVerve. It helps bring the alignment and cultural change needed to deliver faster results in an organization with many dependencies across products.โ€

โ€”Dr. Ronen Barnahor, Head of Agile Business Transformation, EdgeVerve Systems

Challenge:

With releases every 6-18 months, the company set a goal of further improving time-to-market, quality, flexibility, and predictability.

Industry:

Information Technology

Results:

  • Release time improved by 50 – 66%
  • Planning every 10 weeks sharpens predictability
  • Feature cycle time went down by 50 percent
  • The cost per feature point dropped by eight percent from one PI to the next
  • Reduction in escaped defects and increased customer satisfaction

Best Practices:

  • Managers first – By beginning training with managers, EdgeVerve gained essential buy-in that helped influence the C-level and team level
  • Merging Testing and Engineering – Bringing these groups together reduced what were distinct silos
  • Common cadence – EdgeVerve kept everyone on a common cadence, even before bringing all teams into the Framework
  • Hybrid model of implementation – ARTs and managers of non-ARTs aligned on the same cadence and planning activities

Introduction

Banks across 94 countries, serving 848 million consumers, rely on Finacle, an industry-leading universal banking suite from EdgeVerve Systems Ltd. A wholly-owned subsidiary of the global IT company, Infosys, EdgeVerve develops software products that enable businesses across multiple industries to innovate, accelerate growth, and have deeper connections with stakeholders. Gartner and Forrester consistently name EdgeVerve at the top of their rankings for banking platforms.

In 2015, the company set an aggressive goal of improving time-to-market, quality, flexibility, and predictability.

SAFe: a framework for faster results

Scaled Agile Framework for IT

For guidance, the management brought on Dr. Ronen Barnahor, now Head of Agile Business Transformation. Barnahor recommended the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFeยฎ) to help instigate real change, quickly.

โ€œOur mission is to adopt a Lean and Agile mindset and practices, and become a learning organization focused on continuous improvement to provide better value to our customers,โ€ Barnahor says. โ€œSAFe was the right fit because of the dynamics and goals at EdgeVerve. It helps bring the alignment and cultural change needed to deliver faster results in an organization with many dependencies across products.โ€

Prior to adopting SAFe, the teams at EdgeVerve were working in cadence, however, their approach wasnโ€™t effective in meeting new organizational goals.

Building a coalition from the ground up

To bolster internal buy-in, EdgeVerve appointed Jasdeep Singh Kaler, an AVP and 20-year veteran of the company, to help Barnahor lead the effort. Through a contest, the transformation earned the name โ€œMach 1โ€โ€”a nod to the importance of speed.

In alignment with SAFe, EdgeVerve began with training, choosing first to focus specifically on managers. VPs and directors, and about 30 leads across all functional areas attended two days of Leading SAFeยฎ. The SAFe training created a buzz about the agile transformation and gave the C-level confidence that moving to SAFe was accepted by internal leaders. By the end of the class, participants signaled they were ready to move forward with SAFe, with confidence scores of 4 and 5.

With positive feedback from leaders, C-level executives attended a one-day management workshop that included principles from Leading SAFe. There, they set implementation goals and approved the new direction. Knowing they would begin with the Finacle banking solution, they identified dependencies, defined all Value Streams and established who would join in the first two Agile Release Trains (ARTs).

โ€œThis was a crucial meeting with leads from product strategy, delivery, architecture, and testing, to help them embrace the concepts of the Value Stream and the ART, optimize the whole process, gain a systems view, decentralize decisions, and more,โ€ Barnahor says.

Quick Wins

In April 2016, EdgeVerve kicked off the first Program Increment (PI) using SAFe with a 2-day planning meeting in Bangalore, India. The event brought together 60 individuals from multiple locations across India. The CTO attended, sending a message about the importance of the change for EdgeVerve.

In subsequent ART launches and PI planning events, the heads of engineering, product strategy, product management and other senior leaders participated with great commitmentโ€”bolstering the adoption at a grassroots level.

The event itself excited and motivated team members: โ€œWe had fun as a team in PI planning and that enabled us to do better work,โ€ says one team member.

Scaled Agile Framework for IT

Hybrid implementation modelโ€”ARTs + Non-ARTs

As the company launched two ARTs, it did so with just two coaches. For that reason, EdgeVerve continued running non-SAFe teams on the same cadenceโ€”in what it calls a โ€œhybrid model.โ€

โ€œWe didnโ€™t have the coaching capacity to structure everyone into SAFe, but they all aligned on the same cadence with a centralized backlog,โ€ Barnahor explains.

While EdgeVerve began implementing SAFe, managers of other products outside of ARTs were trained concurrently in Program-level activities.
Under the hybrid approach, all product teams (ARTs and non-ARTs) aligned in several ways:

  • The same cadence (sprints and PI)
  • Working in IBM Rational Team Concert
  • Pre-planning + PI Planning (For non-ARTs, only managers joined in PI planning)
  • Execution (For non-ARTs, there was no coaching. Leads managed the work as previously but with a focus on demos in cadence with ARTs.)
  • Product and solution-level demos
  • Retrospectives (In non-ARTs, only managers joined.)

โ€œThe hybrid model of implementation of a full ART plus managers first in non-ART teams contributed to faster alignment and predictability across products within the integrated banking solution,โ€ Barnahor says.

Very quickly, teams began delivering on cadence, demonstrating early value to management. SAFe also sharpened visibility, enabling them to predict more accurately. As a result, the Product Management Organization began to understand the power of โ€œvelocityโ€ as a prediction metric and began using the Agile dashboard that EdgeVerve developed.

Changing the Culture

As EdgeVerve launched trains, the company concurrently focused heavily on changing the culture, with the belief that โ€œculture eats strategy for breakfast.โ€ According to Kaler, since EdgeVerve focused on โ€˜managers first,โ€™ these individuals became key influencers in the cultural change. The main focus was around breaking the silos, establishing common ownership on quality, managing and improving through data, and an emphasis on outcome and business value instead of on utilization.

The new, common terminology of SAFe (ARTs, ceremonies, and cadence) ensured everyone spoke the same language. With a common language, they could more easily understand expectations and minimize misunderstandings.

โ€œFrom a change management perspective, everyone understood that EdgeVerve had embarked on something important at the organizational level that is based on a proven industry framework,โ€ Barnahor says. โ€œWe had fewer arguments on definitions. I told them, โ€˜Letโ€™s adapt SAFe definitions and practices, observe the impact on the ground during execution, and then change. Why reinvent the wheel?โ€™โ€

Scaled Agile Framework for IT

The company also altered its success measures to help influence behavior, asking questions such asโ€ฆ

  • Are we delivering desired value to customers?
  • Are we on time? If not, when can we deliver the committed scope?
  • Are we on scope? If not, what we will not deliver on due date?
  • Are we on top of quality?
  • Are we on flow? Any bottlenecks? Starvation? Backlog readiness for the next PI? What is the average cycle time?
  • Can we predict well?
  • How do employees feel about the change?

As attitudes changed, EdgeVerve collected feedback from the field and shared positive comments from team members and managers widely on posters and in videosโ€”with the goal of spreading enthusiasm.

Additionally, the company adjusted the organizational structure to support the change. From developer to head of engineering, EdgeVerve reduced the number of organizational layers from seven layers to just four layers.

Perhaps the biggest difference came in moving the distinct testing organization, which was under delivery, into engineeringโ€”a decision that quickly improved relations between developers and testers. In line with SAFe, testing also now happens concurrently with development with greater focus on acceptance automation.

Reducing cycle time, increasing quality

Today, the company runs eight ARTs with approximately 800 people across three value streams and one portfolio. They launch a new ART every six weeks. At the same time, they run five teams of teams that are not part of the SAFe transformation.

Less than a year after deploying SAFe, EdgeVerve reported significant gains:

  • Reduced time-to-market โ€“ For large enterprise products, release time dropped from 12 โ€“ 18 months to six months, and for small products, from six months to three months
  • Improved predictability โ€“ The company plans consistently every 10 weeks, which increases flexibility for changing scope with minimal cost
  • Expedited feature speed โ€“ Feature cycle time went down by 50 percent
  • Elevated efficiency โ€“ The cost per feature point dropped by eight percent from one PI to the next
  • Fewer defects โ€“ The company significantly improved early detection of defects, leading to fewer escaped defects and increased customer satisfaction

Dissolving silos

As the PIs progressed, team members could clearly see the advantages of the new approach. Most notably, communication and collaboration improved, with evidence that silos were dissolving.

โ€œThe way teams were working, even a minor downtime was clearly a cascading effect in the teamโ€™s progress,โ€ says one team member. โ€œTeams identified it, they came up with solutions, and they worked together.

โ€œIf code was not working, we got the right contacts, spoke to the code team and got the issue resolved,โ€ says another team member. โ€œThis is a big change from the software developerโ€™s perspective on how they approach their work.โ€

โ€œThe developer-tester relationship was better,โ€ says another. โ€œYou can directly check with them for the issues youโ€™re facing.โ€
Additionally, anonymous participant surveys reflected progress. The company asked approximately 300 people about the impact of SAFe. Most notably, there was an 89% improvement in trust and communication across different functions while 73% believe that SAFe helped increase productivity/throughput.

Scaled Agile Framework for IT

Even as EdgeVerve sees positive results and culture shifts, transformation leaders find it is an ongoing process. With demonstrated results, they gained backing to hire more coaches. Looking ahead, the main challenge, Barnahor says, is middle managementโ€™s mind-setโ€”transforming managers to act as Agile leaders and mentors to the teams by focusing on an Agile leadership program.

โ€œItโ€™s a transformation of hearts and minds,โ€ Kaler says. โ€œWe made sure that managers believed in what weโ€™re doing and slowly the culture is changing.โ€

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Thales โ€“ Adoption of Business Agility Across the Enterprise with SAFe

Thales - Bringing Agility Across the Enterprise with SAFe

โ€œThe great thing about SAFe is that we have a structure in place to deliver better quality more rapidly. We can easily share with our customers and OEMs how Lean-Agile is a part of what we do.โ€

โ€”Celie Navatel, VP Quality and Customer Satisfaction at Thales InFlyt Experience

Challenge:

Reduce cycle time, control costs, and improve quality in a highly regulated environment.

Industry:

Information Technology, Aviation

Solution:

SAFeยฎ

Results:

  • The company is two times faster in introducing releases.
  • The ability to spot bugs sooner raises quality and enables more frequent releases.
  • Employees report higher engagement and satisfaction.

Best Practices:

  • Invest in training โ€“ From gaining support for SAFe to the first PI and ongoing, Thales InFlyt Experience has invested heavily in training people at all levelsโ€”contributing to buy-in and a smooth transition
  • Engage change agents โ€“ Thales trained seven change agents to influence the rest of the organization

Introduction

With 64,000 employees and over 25,000 engineers and researchers in 56 countries, Thales has a global presence no other provider can match. For inflight entertainment solutions and digital services, the leading airlines in the world have come to rely on the companyโ€™s Thales InFlyt Experience division to enhance the travel journey and create engaging and personalized experiences for their passengers.

From the comfort of your airline seat, the Thales Inflight Entertainment System allows you to watch shows, play games, browse the dining menu, or find your current location on a global map. You can also connect to in-flight Wi-Fi on your own device. The Thales system is guaranteed to work at highest quality, all the time.

Such in-flight entertainment and connectivity has become an essential and expected benefit on commercial airlines. Every year, more than 300,000,000 passengers across 75 partner airlines rely on Thales InFlyt Experience solutions.

At Thales, success depends on innovation, competitiveness, and teamwork to meet and exceed customer expectations. The company designs and develops highly complex integrated hardware and software solutions, within a regulated environment across all regions where Thales customers operate, which adds to the challenge of frequent deliveries.

Bringing Agility Across the Enterprise with SAFe

In the past, individual teams at Thales began experimenting with Lean-Agile approaches. However, their efforts remained limited to software teams, and they continued to release in large batches. Something had to change.

โ€œWe needed a framework to meet our goals of providing exceptional customer satisfaction with reduced cycle time, lower costs, and better quality,โ€ says Ted Tomoyasu, Director of SAFe Transformation at Thales InFlyt Experience.

SAFe: A Clear Vision for Implementing Agile

Leo Alonso, Thales VP of Engineering, had used the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFeยฎ) successfully at a former company. To explore the option for Thales, the company sent seven people to Implementing SAFeยฎ training with Portofino Solutions, a Scaled Agile Gold Partner. All received certification as SAFe Program Consultants (SPCs). With that knowledge, the group returned ready to explain the approach to executives and gain buy-in.

โ€œSending a cross-functional team to SAFe training was one of the big success factors and a major step in gaining executive sponsorship,โ€ Alonso says. โ€œThey returned with a clear vision for how to implement SAFe, which supported the decision of our senior executives to move forward.โ€

That core of seven team members became what Thales calls the Lean-Agile Transformation Team (LATTe), which was designed to provide the vision, guidance, and support to take the organization forward with SAFe.

From there, the company identified one large value stream to begin with and moved forward with training. This initial training brought together architects, project managers, and functional managers related to the value stream along with people from additional shared services such as HR, Finance, and leadership.

โ€œThales took training very seriously,โ€ says Armond Mehrabian, President of Portofino Solutions. โ€œWhen we talk to other companies about SAFe, they ask if they can just send one person. But if you want to be successful, you need a critical mass of trained people to bring about change.โ€

In August 2015, Thales conducted a Quickstart SAFe implementation that involved two days of training in SAFe for Teams, two days of Program Increment (PI) planning, and two days of SAFe Scrum Master training. In total, about 150 people joined the first PI.

PI Planning events allowed for the diverse working groups to come together quickly and collaborate face-to-face in real time. โ€œWe were able to see how all the layers of technology fit together to deliver this complex system,โ€ says Robert Magnusson, Continuous Improvement Project Manager at Thales.

The adoption of business agility across the enterprise using SAFe faced some resistance from those in traditional project manager roles. Thales kept them as the primary interface to customers and gained their buy-in by showing that they could respond more rapidly to customer requests.

SAFe in a Regulated Environment

Thales must comply with diverse regulations in all the regions and countries where its customers operate, as well as with the requirements from aircraft manufacturers. In addition to these requirements, there are customizable features that are unique to each airline. Thales designs its systems by focusing first on fixed solution intent (aircraft manufacturer requirements) and tackles variable factors (airline requirements) later.


Through the SAFe agility transformation, Thales InFlyt Experience has successfully reduced software release cycle time by more than 30 percent, lowered cost per size point by 25 percent, improved quality with a 20 percent reduction in solution rework, and enhanced collaboration and transparency.

โ€œThe great thing about SAFe is that we have a structure in place to deliver better quality more rapidly,โ€ says Celie Navatel, VP Quality and Customer Satisfaction at Thales InFlyt Experience. โ€œWe can easily share with our customers and OEMs how Lean-Agile is a part of what we do.โ€

Bringing Agility Across the Enterprise with SAFe

Delivering More Often, with Higher Quality

Today, Thales InFlyt Experience has been using SAFe for two years, and now runs several Agile Release Trains (ARTs) and one value stream. The company has trained over 800 people and deployed across all departments and functions.

Through the SAFe agility transformation, Thales InFlyt Experience has successfully reduced software release cycle time by more than 30 percent, lowered cost per size point by 25 percent, improved quality with a 20 percent reduction in solution rework, and enhanced collaboration and transparency.

DevOps also proved critical for Thales, since it cannot test its systems on actual flights. Instead, the company relies on state-of-the-art tools to simulate how in-flight systems will perform. In line with SAFe, the company matched development and production environments, which is vital for successful deliveries.

Transformation leaders credit SAFe with helping to strengthen Lean-Agile practices throughout the organization.

โ€œThalesโ€™ framework changed from waterfall to streams of agility,โ€ says Ted Tomoyasu, Director of Program Management. โ€œSAFe has been instrumental in bringing agility across the enterpriseโ€.

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Intel โ€“ Implementing SAFe for Information Technology

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore made a stunning observation: The number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every 18 months since their invention. He predicted the trend would continue into the foreseeable futureโ€”and it generally has. A billion transistors now fit on a chip the size of a pea.

Challenge:

In a complex, fast-growth industry, Intel must continuously innovate while controlling costs and maintaining quality.

Industry:

Information Technology

Solution:

SAFeยฎ, Agile and Lean

Results:

  • MVE delivered 65% more products with the same capacity.
  • Improved Commit-to-Accept ratios from 74% to +90%.
  • Everything is visible to everyone.
  • Scope change reduced to less than 5%.

Best Practices:

  • Choose the right RTEs โ€“ Intel found that effective RTEs have a combination of technical background and a deeper Agile mindset/experience
  • Train the Leaders โ€“ Business owners and Train Management should be required to attend SAFe training. It is critical that the leaders speak for the transformation, act as role models, and reinforce direction within the organization. Leverage advocates in the organization whenever possible.
  • Always end with Inspect & Adapt โ€“ Just get started and then learn and adapt. Favor โ€œprogress over perfection.โ€
  • Keep it Simple โ€“ Donโ€™t overcomplicate the process, and bring things back to the basics of Agile and Lean.

Introduction

Intel has been integral in pushing that pace of growth in the marketplace. Today, the company employs more than 100,000 people globally and reports net revenue of $59.4 billion.

But like most enterprises, as it continuously innovates and expands, Intel must balance cost control while maintaining high quality.

โ€œWith the complexity and number of the products skyrocketing, if we didnโ€™t adjust or adapt, other than adding more people, Mooreโ€™s Law would crush us,โ€ says Allen Ringel, Lean & Agile Transformation Leader, Intel.

Agile at Enterprise Scale

Agile at Enterprise Scale

Intelโ€™s Manufacturing Development Organization (MDO) division tests and validates Intel solutions, producing over two million lines of code every two weeks. In an effort to deliver more value, MDO began to adopt Lean-Agile practices in 2005, and by 2012 had small pockets of Scrum and a homegrown solution for scaling Scrum.

โ€œWe found the Agile approach attractive because it turns the Iron Triangle on its head,โ€ Ringel says. โ€œFeatures are negotiable but time, cost, and quality are not.โ€

Yet as more people and divisions were folded into MDO, Intel found it increasingly difficult to scale Scrum. Thus, a team of about 15 people tasked with driving Lean-Agile at Intel looked at industry frameworks for ways to scale more effectively.

In 2013, MDO discovered the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFeยฎ), which provided clear structure and roles for taking the company into the next phase of Agile. SAFe also aligned well with the companyโ€™s broader Lean approach as a learning organization focused on continuous improvement and waste elimination.

โ€œIn an organization as large as MDO we needed to standardize the planning and execution process we use to work together to deliver value,โ€ Ringel says. โ€œWhen we encountered SAFe it provided a proven, public framework, with well-defined roles and artifacts for applying Lean and Agile at the enterprise level.โ€

Those 15 Lean-Agile leaders prepared for the implementation by attending the SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) Certification training. After mapping the roles, principles, practices & tools to back to what currently existed in the organization, they had essentially created a trail through the forest with a visible plan for implementation. Then they jumped in with both feet.

Leading up to the first Program Increment (PI) planning event, Intel trained more than 1,500 people. Over the course of eight weeks, they launched eight Agile Release Trains (ARTs) with 170 Scrum teamsโ€”with Christmas and New Yearโ€™s in the middle. To ease the transition, the 15 Intel Lean-Agile coaches were embedded at the 14 different sites with MDO teams to answer questions and provide guidance.

At Intel, executive backing proved critical to the success of the rollout. Mohsen Fazlian, General Manager of the division, created a shared vision by communicating clearly about the reasons for adopting SAFe and scaling Agile. Intel also reinforced Scrum rules for teams to be properly sized, co-located, 100% committed, and cross-functional. Where co-location was not possible & budgets allowed, Intel brought together people in person for at least the first planning event.

That first PI, admittedly, demanded considerably more effort than subsequent events. Yet, the ability to see immediate value spurred momentum. โ€œThe planning events were essential for teams to align at the train level while highlighting dependencies and allowing risk mitigation early on,โ€ Ringel says.

Intel made a few enhancements to the typical SAFe deployment. They digitized the program board so they could see everything on a dashboard at all times and identify efforts quickly as progressing normally or abnormally. Lean-Agile leaders guided managers in looking at abnormal areas from a new perspective. If something turned red on the virtual program board, instead of managers saying, โ€œFix this,โ€ they ask, โ€œHow can I help?โ€

Training 2,000 Over Three Months

Fast forward to 2017. Intel has grown Lean-Agile practices at a pace that rivals Mooreโ€™s Law. The well-defined roles and terminology within SAFe serve as essential signposts for those new to the Framework.

The structure has kept the trains on track as the organization continuously expands. A merger with another groupโ€”now combined under the name Manufacturing Value Engineering (MVE)โ€”nearly doubled the size of the organization.

To fold in the new division, MVE trained nearly 2,000 people over three months and immediately organized them into trains. While the change came as a bit of a shock to some, the rapid integration enabled people to participate in the Agile system while trainers consistently communicated the value of the change, helping people experience it first hand and embrace their roles with the new way of working.

โ€œWe all feel part of a bigger thing and speak a common language that everyone understands,โ€ Ringel says. โ€œThereโ€™s clarity in the model we work in, which has definitely been something people latch on to.โ€

Ringel says that Intel has settled on an acceptable ratio of coaches to employees: 1:200-250. โ€œWe have shown management that we can deliver value with half a percent of the organization as transformation leaders,โ€ he says.

Agile at Enterprise Scale

One of the Largest Reported SAFe Deployment

Today, MVE has over 440 Scrums organized into 35 ARTs, including software and hardware engineers. MVE continues to widen the circle and is frequently consulted by organizations throughout Intel. Adjacent organizations at Intel interested in MVEโ€™s success have enlisted MVE to help with scaling Agile, leading to eight additional ARTs in partner organizations. In fact, Intelโ€™s effort is one of the largest publicly reported SAFe deployment based on number of ARTs.

While scaling has not been easy, it has been worth it. The impact of these efforts ripples across the company.

Increased Product Variants

  • Helped MVE to delivered 65% more product variants

Strong Performance-to-Schedule Discipline

  • Capacity-based planning and cadence provides a heartbeat and prevents schedule slips
  • Customers and upper management are changing their behaviors to protect the cadence set by Program Increments
  • Commit-to-Accept ratios improved from 74% to +90%
  • MVE minimized scope change in Program Increments to less than 5%

Increased Transparency & Visibility

  • The company identified bugs, impediments, weak tools and poor engineering habits
  • Transparency is invaluable and everything is visible to everyone
  • Communication & conversations are more valuable than tracking indicators in a tool
  • MVE now has a strong community with a common language

Institutionalized Process

  • Teams have demanded adherence when the environment becomes chaotic

Ultimately, Intelโ€™s Lean-Agile efforts help it maintain the industryโ€™s rapid rate of growth.

โ€œLean & Agile help us deliver more products without adding more people, so we can stay competitive and keep up with Mooreโ€™s Law,โ€ Ringel says.

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Vantiv โ€“ Lean-Agile Transformation with SAFeยฎ

โ€œSince beginning our Lean-Agile journey with SAFe, Vantiv has focused its strategic efforts and its execution. We have improved the predictability of product delivery while maintaining high quality, and have become even more responsive to customersโ€”resulting in higher customer satisfaction. And just as important, employee engagement went up over the past year.โ€

โ€”Dave Kent, Enterprise Agile Coach, Vantiv

Challenge:

Deliver solutions with more sustainable, long-term impact, and do so quickly to stay ahead in a competitive industry

Industry:

Information Technology, Financial Services

Solution:

SAFeยฎ v4.0

Results:

  • In 2015, Vantiv delivered 7 percent more features and capabilities with 9 percent less staff.
  • In response to an internal customerโ€™s request, teams delivered on timeโ€”if not ahead of scheduleโ€”with a significant positive impact to financial results.
  • Teams delivered on commitments 80 to 100 percent of the time.
  • Year over year, the number of changes in its solutions has doubled, yet the number of quality incidents reported by customers has not increased.

Best Practices:

  • Quarterly Business Reviewsโ€”Collaborative meetings keep product teams and the business on the same page.
  • Get experienced helpโ€”Agile coaches provided experience and practical examples that made a difference compared to previous efforts.

The partner that made it happen:


Introduction

Payment processing leader Vantiv Inc. powers more than $25 billion financial transactions every year, from the largest retailers in the U.S. to your local coffee shop. The company makes payments smarter, faster, and easier by partnering with software companies and technology service firms to embed payments processing in front and back office applications. Its commerce technology integrates into a broad set of point of sale systems, reaching merchants through an extensive partner network of thousands of point-of-sale software developers and value-added resellers.

Vantiv - Scaled Agile Business Solutions with SAFe

The company also offers a comprehensive suite of traditional and innovative payment processing and technology solutions to merchants and financial institutions of all sizes, enabling them to address their payment processing needs through a single provider.

Exceptionally responsive to customers, Vantiv creates many of its solutions specifically for individual organizations. While retaining its renowned enterprise service, the company sought to take a longer-term view by developing solutions to meet the needs of a broader range of its customer base. The goal is to deliver solutions with more sustainable, long-term impact, and do so quickly to stay ahead in a competitive industry.

SAFe: For Consistency and Continuous Improvement

In 2015, Vantiv embarked on several business transformation initiatives under a common umbrella called True North. True North seeks to create a culture of clarity, direction, and continuous improvement; and rewire the company for excellence in product, IT, marketing, and strategy.

For an objective view, Vantiv brought in a well-respected thought leader in product management and product development. The consultant made two key recommendations: take a more holistic view with a product-led strategy, and pursue a Lean-Agile approach for product development across the enterprise. At that time, there were pockets of Scrum within IT.

To address both those goals, the company started a Lean-Agile transformation of its entire enterprise, however, momentum was hindered by a lack of focus on people and teams and little understanding of Agile. For help, Vantiv turned to Scaled Agile Gold Partners, CA Technologies and Icon Technology Consulting, along with the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFeยฎ) for the structure and methodology needed to deploy Lean-Agile practices.

โ€œTo be successful with Agile, we realized that we needed a more concerted effort at the team level and more consistency in how we deliver,โ€ says Henry Noble, Program Director, Transformation. โ€œWe found SAFe the ideal framework for achieving that.โ€

1000+ SAFe Users

With the help of their partners, Vantiv held a series of โ€œAgile Awarenessโ€ roadshows around the companyโ€™s various locations. They answered questions and encouraged employees to talk about past Agile efforts.

Next, Vantiv employees attended a 2-week formation program with an introduction to Lean-Agile practices and tools. Dedicated coaches worked daily with the group that ultimately formed into seven teams. They began working in two-week sprints, but held off on forming their first Agile Release Train (ART) until they were ready to fully embrace the new way of working.

Though initially hesitant, teams soon embraced with the new approach. โ€œThe biggest misunderstanding that developers had was that if youโ€™re Agile youโ€™re fluid,โ€ Noble says. โ€œBut they soon learned there is quite of bit of structure required to be successful.โ€

Teams soon became more engaged, and after 6-8 weeks teams had matured enough to be ready to assemble an ART. For the first Program Increment (PI) planning meeting, in June of 2015, the event brought together 150 people.

โ€œWe see a common pattern where the first PI event for each newly formed train feels like theyโ€™re not ready, but post PI event every participant says itโ€™s one of the best planning meetings they have ever attended,โ€ Noble says.

From there, Vantivโ€™s Agile maturity accelerated with multiple Agile Release Trains containing multiple teams and all of the enterprise leveraging the SAFe framework.

Vantiv - Scaled Agile Business Solutions with SAFe

Collaborative Quarterly Reviews

Part of the transformation required improved alignment between business goals and product development.

โ€œOur quarterly business reviews were a great opportunity to provide greater transparency and feedback, and demonstrate how the whole organization adjusts and collaborates to help address customer needs,โ€ says Dave Kent, Enterprise Agile Coach at Vantiv. โ€œParticipation in this strategic planning by all stakeholders not only helps with product leadership, but also shows how powerful it is when product and IT strategy are aligned.โ€

Gains in Every Area

Eighteen months after deploying SAFe, the company has measured improvements:

Productivity

In 2015, Vantiv delivered seven percent more features and capabilities with nine percent less manpower. โ€œWe can comfortably say weโ€™re delivering more capabilities with less staff while going through a transformation at the same time,โ€ Noble says. โ€œWe do more with less by eliminating waste and focusing on core functionality.โ€

Time to Market

Vantiv has met its goal of becoming more focused on product deliveryโ€”creating innovative solutions ahead of market demand.

Predictability

At the ART level, teams delivered on commitments 80 to 100 percent of the time by focusing on incremental delivery and listening to the stakeholdersโ€™ feedback.

โ€œTo continue to stay ahead of the market, we focused on our responsiveness and predictability, resulting in firm commitments to our customers and providing transparency to the organization,โ€ says Henry Noble, Program Director, Transformation at Vantiv.

Quality

Year over year, the number of changes to its solutions has doubled, yet the number of quality incidents reported by customers has not increased. โ€œOur quality continues to improve, with quality now being built in from the smallest pieces,โ€ Kent says.

Employee Engagement and Retention

With greater transparency comes more trust and employee engagement, making for a real culture change. That led to a decrease in attrition over the past two years, and Vantiv has been voted Best Place to Work in Cincinnati.

โ€œSAFe provides alignment and transparency,โ€ Kent says. โ€œIndividuals feel like they truly understand their part in the whole, and how their work aligns with the goals of the company.โ€

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Fitbit โ€“ Benefits of Using SAFe in Consumer Technology

Fitbit Benefits of SAFe in Consumer Technology

โ€œSAFe has been a successful story for us. It allowed us to grow our team in a seamless way that integrated cross-functional groups and aligned with the companyโ€™s long-term strategy. Fitbit has grown significantly since we adopted SAFe, and we were able to scale the process and still deliver high achievement every PI. My VP calls it the scaffolding that has helped moved our team forward.โ€

โ€”Damian Brown, Sr. Director of Program Management Office, Fitbit

Challenge:

With major consumer holidays as deadlines, target dates are immovable. Early Scrum efforts could not keep pace with company growth.

Industry:

Consumer Products, Information Technology

Results:

  • Fitbit achieved a long-term look-ahead on its product roadmap and a short-term look-ahead on team tasks
  • Teams now achieve five business goals per PI, compared to three previously
  • Velocity increased 33 percent year over year
  • Fitbit launched a record number of products last year

Best Practices:

  • Donโ€™t miss retrospectives โ€“ After every PI planning event, Fitbit listens to feedback on what went well and what needs improvementโ€”and integrates those changes for the next PI.
  • Establish long-lived teams โ€“ Long-lived teams provide more stability and predictability.
  • Collect metrics along the way โ€“ Collect as many metrics as possible, which could back up decision-making. These could include velocity, overall objectives completion rate and reasons for scope changes during execution.
  • Always plan for the next PI โ€“ Cadence is important to align multiple groups in the PI in preparation for the next PI planning event. Start early and make sure every participant is aware of the timeline, so all stakeholders are well-informed and prepared for PI planning.

Introduction

In 2016, consumer technology company, Fitbit, released four new products to the market that were positively received by consumers, and shipped over 22 million devices.

Delivering its highest number of products in a year is due in part to the companyโ€™s commitment to, and success in adopting SAFeยฎ (Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ) as a way to scale the team to meet target dates.

Challenge: Delivering for Consumer Shopping Seasons

Benefits of SAFe in Consumer Technology

Since 2007, Fitbit has helped millions of people around the world lead healthier, more active lives by empowering them with data, inspiration, and guidance to reach their goals.

At Fitbit, major consumer holidays drive the product delivery schedule, including the year-end holiday season, Valentineโ€™s Day, graduation, and Motherโ€™s and Fatherโ€™s Days. For that reason, target dates are inflexible when it comes to developing firmware and software for every product for each major platform (iOS, Android, and Windows).

In working toward targets, Fitbit engineering managers, tech leads, and Scrum masters have collaborated closely in recent years, sprint to sprint. But as the company and user base grew, Fitbit had to expand and evolve this process to meeting company and consumer needs.

โ€œWith our growing team and global presence, we knew our Scrum efforts were not going to scale,โ€ says Damian Brown, Sr. Director of Program Management Office, Fitbit. โ€œThe question was, โ€˜How do we keep the organic culture people like about Fitbit while addressing the needs of the business and our global community of users?โ€™โ€

Always Planning, Always Delivering

At a previous company, Brown and colleague, Brian Hsieh, had been part of a successful Agile effort by deploying SAFe. When they arrived at Fitbit, they saw an opportunity to deploy SAFe once again.

โ€œWe had done research on the different models for scaling Scrum,โ€ Brown says. โ€œBrian and I had been to Leading SAFe training, and once you see that big picture, your eyes start lighting up. Itโ€™s a powerful story how the Program layer aligns with Scrum teams. We knew that SAFe was something that would work for us at Fitbit.โ€

But first, they had to gain executive buy-in. โ€œI think the story we told of always planning, always delivering, was very powerful for leadership,โ€ Brown says

A Big Pictureโ€”for the First Time

With leadership on board, in fall 2015 the company started with 12 Scrum teams at its first Program Increment (PI) planning event in San Francisco. They created a highly interactive experience with physical boards and red ribbon for a visual of team dependencies within the PI. In that first meeting, teams were energized and excited about their PI objectives.

Benefits of SAFe in Consumer Technology

โ€œTeams reported that they could see the whole picture across company-wide initiatives and understood where they could contribute,โ€ says Hsieh, Manager of Program Management Office.

But as early as the first PI retrospective, the company realized it had not included all the teams that would benefit from this process. Thus in the next PI, Fitbit added other teams, including firmware engineering groups.

With each PIโ€”now up to tenโ€”Fitbit folded in more teams and more functional groups, including some not typically part of an Agile transformation. Today, members of Firmware, Software, Design, Research, Marketing, Customer Support, Data Analytics and Infrastructure Engineering all participate in PIs. Fitbit trained all those who were leading PI events, with events extended to its other office locations, including Boston, San Diego, and Minsk, Belarus.

100% Delivery on Objectives

In adopting SAFe, Fitbit aimed to evolve its process for scaling development teams in many ways:

  • Create a fast and flexible flow across the entire Fitbit ecosystem
  • Create a system of teams across the ecosystem that work together to deliver quickly
  • Scale up to adopt team growth
  • Improve visibility with the objective of a two-month look-ahead on what each team will be working on
  • Create mechanisms for teams and stakeholders to identify cross-team dependencies and add items to other teamsโ€™ backlogs as needed
  • Align key business dates across all of the programs, including security, data center moves, compliance, and marketing programs

With the help of SAFe, Fitbit successfully achieved process evolution.

As for visibility, Fitbit achieved a long-term look-ahead on its product roadmap and a short-term execution plan at areas of work for the teams, supporting planning and decision-making for leadership. Itโ€™s a roadmap process that Brown and Hsieh credit SAFe with providing.

Velocity likewise increased; teams now achieve five objectives per PI, on average, โ€œWith the metrics that SAFe provides, combined with what we regularly report on, we can tell our CTO that velocity has increased 33 percent over the past year,โ€ Brown says.

With higher cadence and velocity, Fitbit can more readily respond to market needs. For example, when the company noticed an opportunity to add a specific capability to its products, it brought the new feature to market in a very short time with no major bugs in internal and external testing.

Benefits of SAFe in Consumer Technology

In 2016, with an aggressive plan for launching four new products, Brown and Hsieh credit the SAFe approach with enabling teams to complete goals and objectives two to three PIs ahead of schedule.

Additionally, the integrated, measured approach contributes to the quality of the user experience. In particular, Brown points to that critical time between Black Friday and New Yearโ€™s Day when many new Fitbit owners activate products and visit the Fitbit app and website for the first time to create accounts and sync their new devices. In 2016, the company experienced no major impact to the site during that timeframe.

Just as critical, team engagement has gone up since deploying the SAFe. As a result, teams now regularly hit their top objectives. โ€œHaving PIs and objectives really rallies us around something positive several times a year,โ€ Brown says.

Now, as the company plans for next year, itโ€™s working toward funding value streams rather than projectsโ€”a goal that SAFe 4.0 supports with its Value Stream level.

โ€œSAFe has been a success story for us. It allowed us to grow our team seamlessly that integrated cross-functional groups and aligned with the companyโ€™s long-term strategy,โ€ Brown adds. โ€œFitbit has grown significantly since we adopted SAFe, and we could scale the process and still deliver high achievement every PI. My VP calls it the scaffolding that has helped move our team forward.โ€

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