1. SITA Agile
Transformation
Case Study
17/Feb/2012
By: Dinesh Sharma

2. SITA Introduction
SITA is the world's leading specialist in air transport
communications, IT solutions and Border
Management Solutions
2

3. Dinesh Sharma
• Around16 yrs of experience as a
Developer, Development Manager and now Agile Coach
• J2EE and Oracle background
• Used/implemented Scrum, Kanban and XP.
3

4. 4 | Case Study | Confidential | © SITA 2012

5. Three States of Transformation
Confusion (Shu) Exploration (Ha) Commitment (Ri)
5

6. State Before The Transformation Journey
• A big project won using Traditional Delivery approach
• Customer expecting delivery in “n” months.
• Delivery “folks” wants to adapt Agile but lacking skills to
implement Agile. Few agile transformation attempts in past
without little success.
• A Design Study underway to understand customer
requirements and propose solution.
• Management willing to support Agile implementation but need
help
• Technical teams not sure how Agile going to change their way
of working.
6

7. Transformation: State of Confusion
How Risk
How are we
and Issues Who is
going to
will be responsible
measure the
addressed in for the
progress?
Can we deliver Agile? delivery?
everything On
time? How existing
roles going to
be fit in Agile?
Can you
really
deliver so
Who is
often?
responsible
for quality
Delivering potentially
shippable product
every two weeks? Cross-
You must be functiona
kidding!!! l teams?
My %^&
Where is Who the
predictability You know all hell is
Why do you Story point?
? requirements
No upfront need us so
what else do
Architecture often?
you need
and design? from us?
%^&$

8. State of Confusion: Management
• Can we deliver everything in 12 months?
• How Risk and Issues will be addressed in Agile?
• Who would be responsible for delivery and quality?
• How are we going to track/measure progress?
• What are the roles and responsibilities in Agile?
• Who would be Scrum Master & Product Owner?
• How existing functional roles going to be fit in Agile?
• Who is responsible for Quality?
8

9. State of Confusion: Management
Education
• Agile Manifesto
• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right,
we value the items on the left more.
• Commitment before Success
• Provide environment to promote openness.
• Agile manages Business Risk & Expectation
9

10. State of Confusion: Management
Education
Responding to change over following a plan
• Planning is important but not the plan
• Agile projects require more planning
• Five Levels of planning in Agile
• Continuous planning improves predictability and adaptability
10

11. State of Confusion: Management
Education
Working software over comprehensive documentation
• This statement doesn’t mean
no documentation but
advocates not to write
unnecessary document
• Assure the customer through
early and continuous delivery
of valuable software rather
than documents
• Face to Face communication
with teams rather than
passing of documents
(Handoffs are waste).
11

12. State of Confusion: Management
Education
Empowerment over Command and Control
• Step 1 - Form a cross-function (BA/Dev/QA) team
• Step 2 – Work with them to be and behave like a team
using Agile values
• Step 3 – Let them take most of the decisions but provide
active coaching
It takes good 6-12 months for teams to fully feel
empowered with active coaching.
12

13. State of Confusion: Management
Education
Agile manages Business Risk and Expectations
Potentially Shippable
Source: Rally Software Product Increment
13

14. State of Confusion: Customer
• Explained Agile Delivery Approach and it’s benefits
• Improved satisfaction with the end product
• Deliver the highest business value features first and will avoid
building features that will never be used.
• Flexibility towards scope reprioritization.
• Early and regular education about the system being built
• Responsiveness is best achieved by fulfilling customer requests
quickly.
• Regular deliveries of quality software, ready for Customer
Review, Feedback, Acceptance and Ready to be used
• Work as one team to ensure the final system delivers as much
value as possible.
• Transparency & clear visibility with Delivery Progress
14

15. State of Confusion: Customer
• We have already given our requirements, what else do
you need?
• Famous Quote “We asked to build a car, so go and build the car
and come back in 12 months”
• Why would you need us so often?
• Can you really deliver software every two weeks?
• What’s in it for us?
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16. State of Confusion: Customer
Stakeholder Engagement Expectation
• Setting the Product Vision and Context
• The goal, the benefits, the constraint
• Prioritisation and Decision Making
• Change Management based on business value
• Communication to the Team
• Clarifications of business needs and processes
• Provide feedback on developed software
• Communication to the Business
• Ensure the Business is ready to receive the software
• Change to the way of working, training
• The product is fit for the purpose
16

17. State of Confusion: Customer
Power of Visualisation
• Visual Feature Mapping with Customer
• Visual Product Roadmap
• Backlog & Release Burndown
• Visual Progress Report
17

18. State of Confusion: Customer
Feature mapping
18

19. State of Confusion: Customer
Ordered Product Backlog
19

20. State of Confusion: Customer
Estimated Product Backlog
20

21. State of Confusion: Customer
Product Roadmap
Release 1 Release 2 Release 3 Release 4 Release 5
• IIR Integration • Arabic UI • Disaster Recovery, • Monitoring • PNR-DCS Data
• New interface • Denial of Boarding • Cleared List and • Reporting • Travel Pattern
• Watch List Targets • Referral Workflow • Auto Qualification Analysis
Manage Arabic Name Carrier PNR / DCS
New English
Watch List Arabic UI Matching Cleared List Processing Visualisation Data
UI
Targets using IIR Rules Acquisition
Fuzzy English Deny Pre-
Automatic Print/Export Auto
Name Boarding Carrier Portal System Departure
Identity Risk for remaining Qualification
Matching (using Watch Update Auditing Scan
Assessment screens of Referrals
using IIR Lists)
Print/Export for View APP View
Load
APP Travel Transactions, Disaster PNR/DCS
Referral Balanced Reporting
Integration Data, and Alert Govt Recovery Travel Data
Workflow Carrier Portal
lists Override
Travel
SLA User Monitoring Watch List Monitoring SMS DAS Pattern
Recording Administration Tool Configuration Tool Notifications Monitoring Analysis
ARAS
User PNR-DCS
Active: Active Online Help
Administration Reporting
Infrastructure
21

22. Backlog Burndown
1200
Backlog Burndown
1000
800
Story Points
600 Realistic Case
Best Case
Worst Case
Actual
400
200
0
31-Jan 02-Mar 02-Apr 02-May 02-Jun 02-Jul 02-Aug 02-Sep 02-Oct
Dates
22

23. Release Burndown Chart
450 Required Project Burndown
405 Actual Project Burndown
400
350
300 285
Story Points
250
200
165
150
115
100
50
0
0
21 22 23 24 25
Sprints

24. Release Plan
Release 1 – prod 20th Feb Release 2 – prod 1st Mar Release 3 – w/c 12th Mar
• Please wait • Get Lucky Email • Ticket Endorsement
• CCV Masking • Manual Refunds • Fees in Sales Accounting
• Disclaimer texts • Tidy up Reports
Please Traveller Get Lucky Manual Ticket Meal
Refund (Trip Endorsement
Wait Text Detail Text 1 Email 2 Refund) 2 Preference
1
Payment CCV Concession International CC Refund No Price
Cancellation Reverse Adjustment
Disclaimer Masking 3 Fees 5 3 Order in Acc
4
Booking Breadcrumbs Refund Remove Reissuance Fees in Sales
Report Accounting
Statistics 6 (quick) 7MIS Report 5 - Single
6
• Moved from Release 3 DOT US
Tidy Sales Sales Acc
Code Share Flight 8 Acc. Report 9 Ref Report 7 routes only
Display details
• Extra Single Currency
10 Name 11 Converter
DOT Daily
Baggage Schedule • Moved from Release 1
Show
RBD
4
Key:
Not 25% 50% 75% Complete In 1 = Top priority in release
Started Complete Complete Complete Production
24

25. State of Confusion: Delivery Teams
• When and how are we going to do detail architecture & design
(BDUF)?
• How can we become cross-functional team? Developer can
only develop and tester can only test.
• How can we develop if we don’t have detail requirement
specifications and design? Quality is definitely going to suffer.
• What’s this Story points estimation? Why do we need
“another” estimation technique?
• TDD, Pair Programming!!!
• Big Resistance!!!
25

26. State of Confusion: Delivery Teams
Education – Agile Manifesto
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right,
we value the items on the left more.
26

27. State of Confusion: Delivery Teams
Education - Key Agile Principles
• Satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of
valuable software
• Business people and developers must work together daily
throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the
environment and support they need, and trust them to get the
job done.
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information
to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
• Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not
done--is essential.
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from
self-organizing teams.
27

28. State of Confusion: Delivery Teams
Team Formation & Engineering Practices
• Started with two Scrum Teams with Cross Function Skills
(Business Analyst, Development, Quality Assurance, UI)
• Make them Sit together
• Help them to understand each ceremony in Scrum
Framework
• Explained Engineering Practices from XP
• Test Driven Development
• Pair Programming
• Refactoring
• Collective code ownership
• Continuous Integration
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29. Scrum Framework
Daily Scrum Meeting
Vision & Release • Done since last meeting
Plan • Will do for next meeting
• Impediments
1 Day
2 weeks
Product Backlog Sprint Planning Sprint Product Backlog Potentially Sprint Review
(prioritized by PO) Meeting Backlog Refinement Shippable Product & Retrospective
(5-10% of Sprint) Increment Meeting
Sprint Planning Meeting
• Review Product Backlog
• Estimate Sprint Backlog Retrospective Meeting
• Define Sprint Goals • Inspect & Adapt
• Commit • Continuous Improvement
29

30. Was it Smooth?
NO
But it gave us a good head start
and to move to next step.
30

31. Transformation: State of Exploration
How can we
Can we go How can
help?
live so often? we involve
Can we still
deliver more?
everything on
time?
Project vs
Product
Can we
scale using
this model?
Quality vs
Productivity
?
How to address
change
requests? How to be
more
cross-
functional?
Should we Lets explore
align Sales Lets Explore Continuous
strategy with Behaviour Delivery
Delivery Driven
Feature
Strategy? Development
Teams

32. Transformation: State of Exploration
Management
• Can we still deliver everything On time and Budget?
• Can we scale with Agile?
• Product vs Project approach
• How to address Change Requests?
• Should align Sales strategy with development.
32

33. Transformation: State of Exploration
Management
• Focus on Delivering what customer wants i.e. Delighting Our
Customer
• Create environment to promote bi-directional transparency
• Promote environment where we focus on Quality and
protecting team from external pressure
• Focus on Intent
• See with your Feet
• Scale using same model (Scrum Teams) at distributed
locations
• Work on Product Development approaching by keeping eye on
projects.
• Exchange Requests rather than Change Requests, wherever
possible and feasible.
33

34. Transformation: State of Exploration
Customer
• How can we help (more)?
• How can we involve more (collaboration)?
• Can we go live so often?
34

35. Transformation: State of Exploration
Customer
• Work closely with Delivery team to explain business
reasons of your requirements.
• Provide early feedback to ensure that it can implemented
early.
• Can go live with features whenever you want considering
• You are ready to receive software.
• End User trainings are met
• Anything else they need to complete at their end
• Use Exchange Request, wherever possible.
35

36. Transformation: State of Exploration
Delivery Teams
• Show empathy to Customer needs
• Focus on Quality and ensure Customer Delight
• Cross Functional, what does it means?
• Stop developing, Start Delivering
• Explore Behaviour Driven Development
• Always remind yourself, we are protecting Borders so
Quality is not negotiable and We have a Social
Responsibility
36

37. Transformation: State of Commitment
Feature
Collaborate, coll Teams
aborate, collabor
Keep
ate
Customer
Satisfaction
at the heart?
Communicate, C
ommunicate
Communicate
Social
Responsibility
Pull the cord Continuous
Improvement
One Button
Deployment

38. Award
• Frost & Sullivan award top honour for border
management delivery to SITA
• 2011 Global Customer Value Enhancement Award in border
control
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39. Questions?
39