Agile Implementation at AT&T

AT&T Tel Aviv Center of Excellence

Dotan Naveh

© 2010 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other AT&T
marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated
companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
 Who are we?

• Fast growing site

• 4 Lines of Business
• 20 Projects/Releases
• 54 Scrum teams
• 25 Discovery teams
• 450 employees adopting
Agile
2
Products Technology
• AT&T Connect • Linux, Java, WebSphere, Oracle
• Unified Communication • Windows / .Net
Services • Mobile development (iOS /
• Telephony Application Android / RIM)
Server • SIP and Telephony
• AT&T Messages • HTML 5
• Network Abstraction • Cloud
Broker

3
 Why we chose Agile?
Embrace
Content and
Technology
Changes
Planning &
Visibility

Focus
on
Quality Increase
Empowerment
& Satisfaction

Improve
Communications
and Teamwork Need for
Frequent
Deliveries &
Quick TTM

4
 AT&T Agile Implementation Approach

“Sandwich” approach
• Top-down (management track) and bottom-up (team track)
Loosely-coupled approach
• Independent implementation per each LOB
• Aligned terms, concepts and re-use of learning
Optimizing the whole
• Focusing on the end to end process (not just development)
• Discovery team approach: Idea to Cash
• E2E agile lifecycle management tool from day 1

5
 Pre-implementation “checklist”
Management education, buy-
in, and approval

HL process

Roles & Responsibilities

Agile lifecycle tool

LOB leadership workshops

6
 AT&T Development Lifecycle
Items Gathering

Elaborate Items into

prioritized Epics + HL
Architecture

Elaborate Epics into

prioritized
„Ready‟ User Stories

User Story Daily Scrum

Scrum team
Meetings
User Story “sniffing” Team
Continuous
Discovery User Story Sprint Planning
Integration
Team
Epic Task

Epic Task 2-3 Week

Item Sprints
Task
(Prioritized)
Sprint Backlog Working Software
Product Backlog
Demo

7
Retrospective
 Continuous Improvement: always
planning ahead…
Q4 2011 Q1 2012 Q2 2012 Q3 2012 Q4 2012

Measuring/improve
Set the Quality Define
Measurements mindset Measurement
State Baseline measurements
Metrics analysis

Process Set forums and flow

Practice in org.
Practice in team level level
Formulize the at&t LC
Set continuous improvement
Run Improvements
Define process initiatives
Improvement Shape the process tracking mechanism
Quality

Engineering Technical Ceremonies

and roles
Working Software
Define Continuous
Integration
Perform Continuous Advanced Engineering
every Sprint Integration Practices
practices implementation guidelines

Automated Automated testing Advanced Automation (System

…% Unit Test
…% Sanity
(Unit & system) level)
Testing …% Regression

Review Items' High High Quality

Product Backlog 'Ready' Stories
level solution Backlog

Visualization of E2E
Basic Release management Focus on optimizing the E2E flow Continuous system Acceptance Test Closer work and earlier feedback from
E2E flow process,
policies & QG
practices and tools (Kanban) stabilization Driven Development Marketing

Testing is part of
Team Agility QA & Development start
collaborate
the team
Conduct all ceremonies correctly Leveraging team performance through
and efficiently advanced coaching the SM and managers

Visibility Release backlog Release Progress Release Quality

8
LOB Agile Implementation plan

Session Objective Participants

Management Learn specific LOB constrains & challenges PMO
interviews Product Owner
R&D
Testing
Architect
1-2 Day LOB 1. LOB pains, constrains & challenges Extended LOB
Management 2. Why do we need to change? management
workshop 3. Agree on the LOB e-2-e process team
4. Structure the Discovery & Scrum teams
 agreement on process and plan
LOB Kickoff Whole group introduction All group
1 Day 1. Backlog management Discovery team
User Stories 2. How to elaborate an Item\Epic? members
Workshop  Initial Backlog for 1-2 Sprints

Scrum Course All group

Ongoing Support 1. SM forum, PO forum
2. Supporting Scrum and Discovery teams
3. LOB change management and on-going process improvement
4. Training for Project Management and Testing organizations
9
 Current Implementation status

Perform
Form Norm
Storm

Implementation Start Forming Storming Norming Performing

Date

Mobility Oct 2011

74%
Connect Oct 2011 71%
UC Jan 2012
60%
IMS Mar 2012 57%

Agile maturity level

10
Our Main Challenges

 Roles &
Responsibilities

 Automation
 Documentation

11
 More content delivered

Working software on time

Our
Quick Low number of bugs and flat trend
Wins
Ability to start early and cope with change

Better visibility

12 © AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T and the AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property.
Recommendations / Takeaways
Management Early
Quality backlog and
attention and implementation of
a ready stories
ownership Agile tool

Continuous
Focus on Zero Invest in coaching
Integration &
Defect Approach and training
Automation are key

Inspect and adapt!

13 © AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T and the AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property.
Any questions?

© 2010 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other AT&T
marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated
companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.