Services July 1, 2011

Do You Want a Rapid Change? – A Journey from Waterfall to Scrum

Some comments from one of our customers: Magnus Sundset, Senior Change and Release Manager at Capgemini Procure Systems

“After running our projects for years according to a waterfall project methodology we realized that efficiency in the projects had gone down due to late scope changes. Over the years our platform had become more complex, and our teams are now distributed over several continents. Many parameters showed us that we needed to look at our Change and Release processes.

I contacted Marie Verona at Learning Tree to get more knowledge about the Agile movement out there. She put me in contact with Beatrice Düring at Changemaker AB and the journey took off after a very constructive discussion with me, Beatrice and Torsten, Head of Technology at Capgemini Procurement Services. The purpose was clear – to update the Change and Release process and the Software development process, to state of the art, fit for purpose, giving the highest Business Value to our customers.

After some interviews, training key staff in Scrum for the development process, we understood that a major change was on its way. A Continual Service Improvement team consisting of key players in Scrum was setup with Bea as our Scrum coach – driving our workshops where we broke down the elephant into smaller pieces and built it up again. After validating the new Software development process with management we were empowered to move on implementing this major change in our way of working.

Focus teams were set up, facilitating the speed and commitment necessary for the accelerated way of working. Product Owners, Scrum Masters and Feature teams were assigned to projects. Although rules were broken we at least made the organization working in the same direction. We built in inspections and adaptations in the process so that it could become sustainable over time. The transition moved on faster than we anticipated, because we realized before starting the first release, it would be harder to work with 2 different Project Methods at the same time. Scrum artefacts, naming conventions, roles and responsibilities had to be aligned, understood and committed to. Otherwise we would have broken the process apart, creating chaos. I was never afraid that we would lose focus on the path since we got Bea, coaching us, answering our questions and giving us feedback on all levels.

Bea, our trainer and coach followed us through our Scrum training and Requirement training at Learning Tree. She was also invited to the Bucharest office coaching the teams on location. This was really beneficial to us since she knew our processes, how we got there and our intentions to move forward. This way we could take faster and more correct decisions during the transformation period as well as keeping the momentum going. Without Bea, her knowledge and people skills I strongly believe that the process would have taken much longer. Her ability to understand our organization and processes helped us a lot when coming to standstills and conflicts. By giving us facts, best practices and tools we really helped us overcome some tough blockers. I can recommend Bea at Changemaker AB to companies and organizations that are not afraid of change, and especially if you are looking for rapid and controlled change.

Over and out – got to go to the next Daily Scrum meeting.”

/Magnus Sundset, Senior Change and Release Manager