The document summarizes Yahoo's agile transformation journey over 10 years from its early pilots in 2007 to becoming fully agile organization-wide by 2012. It outlines 10 lessons learned from an early rollout and how Yahoo applied those. Recommendations encourage thinking globally and acting locally, scaling virtually, and focusing on agile principles. The conclusion reflects on creating space for teams, keeping their shape, and fostering a style of play based on transparency, trust and flow. Yahoo's agile story shows that organizational transformation takes time, risks, and persistence through failures to fully realize the benefits of agility.

1. The Continuing Adventures of
li
Yahoo’s Agile Transformation

2. Introduction

3. Keith

4. Yahoo!
Yahoo’s Agile Story
10 Lessons Learned,
Applied
Recommendations
Today & Tomorrow
Takeaways

5. Yahoo!

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#1 globally
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monthly24 asunique visitors
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#1 in 11 unique the
globally categories
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of
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categories globally.
Yahoo! News
competitor.
homepages
unique visitors.
day.
(comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide, October 2011)
(comScore Media Metrix, U.S., October 2011 2011)
(Yahoo! internal data, August 2011) October 2011)
(comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide, Ocrtober
U.S., October 2011)

7. Scale

8. Distributed

9. Open

10. Yahoo’s
Agile Story

11. In the Beginning…
From Gabrielle Benefield’s “Rolling out Agile in a Large Enterprise”
http://assets.scrumfoundation.com/downloads/6/YahooAgileRollout.pdf?1286089611

12. the ebb and flow

13. Yahoo! Video

14. 2007 Agile Conference

15. Yahoo! Finance
Swim Lanes
added Lower priority High priority
Sprint 82 Bugle project
Ongoing release
Site Up
projects
identified
The board makes
readily visible the
variety and amount
of work the team is
doing and shows
where this work is
in the software
pipeline. Now we
start measuring…

16. Yahoo! Sports

17. Yet Another Pilot

18. •Sponsorship
•Funding
•Socializing
Q1 2011

19. •Commitment
•Communication
•Charter Community
Q2 2011

20. Yahoo! Homepage

21. •Executive Training
•Team Workshops
•Seeding Teams
Q3 2011

22. •Visits
•Growing
•Community
Q4 2011

23. •Adoption Steady State
•Local Communities
•Outside Product
Q1 2012

24. 10 Lessons
Learned, Applied
For this section we compared the 10 Lessons Learned from
Gabrielle Benefield’s “Rolling out Agile in a Large Enterprise”
with what we are doing now 4 years later.
http://assets.scrumfoundation.com/downloads/6/YahooAgileRollout.pdf?1286089611

25. Implement Solid Engineering
Practices

26. Align with Management

27. Design:
Find Common Ground

28. Align with
Project Management

29. Coach. Don’t Dictate.

30. Privacy is Important

31. Don’t Expect
Everybody to Like It

32. Fund the Coaching Team
Adequately

33. Coach Deep, Not Broad

34. The Organization Must
Also Adapt

35. Recommendations

36. Seek Expert Help

37. Think Globally, Act Locally

38. Scale Virtually

39. Focus on Principles

40. Where Yahoo is today…

41. …and where we are going tomorrow

42. Organizational
Transformation

43. Experiment with Kanban

44. Lean Everything

45. Takeaways
(If I knew then, what I know now)

46. Create Space

47. 1. Stand-ups
2. Retrospectives
3. Time boxes

48. Keep Shape

49. 1. Automation
2. Visibility
3. Cadence

50. Style of Play

51. 1. Transparency
2. Trust
3. Flow

52. You have to take risks. You have to venture beyond
your comfort zone. If something does not work the
first time, you have to try again. If one thing does not
work, you have to try something else. You have to let
them feel pain. You have to keep it fun. And you
have to keep giving energy and love, because falling
down hurts, but learning to run is freedom.

54. Questions?

55. To learn more contact keithn@yahoo-inc.com