1. Agile transformation – a journey…
Brian Boyle
Director, Quality Assurance and Control
May 2012

2. • Riverdeep acquired Houghton Mifflin (2006) and then Harcourt (2007)
• One of the world’s largest providers of pre-Kindergarten–Grade 12 education
solutions
• We deliver interactive, results-driven education solutions to 60 million students
in 120 countries
• Publishing since 1832- novels, non-fiction, children's books and reference works
• Dublin – 250 employees: QA – ENG – BA – PM - Creative Design – Learning Design
• QA – 30 employees in Dublin; ca. 200-300 offshore (India, Argentina, South
Africa)

5. Agile
Transformation
The Journey…
5

6. The Journey – why?
Why do we need to change
what we’re doing?
What is the problem we are trying to fix?
The Business’ Perception of the Dev Team
Problem statement…

7. SLOW:
• 18 months to build a
solution from POC to
customer delivery

8. EXPENSIVE:
• “Of course we can build
that new feature. That
will be $500K and 6
months please…”

9. OPERATE IN THE DARK:
• Product owners/stakeholders get to see the
product on the day of release!
• That’s not what I ordered!

10. QUALITY:
• The quality is not good. Too
many known issues and
customer reported issues
• Testing activities continually
get squeezed as the
development dates slide
• Our release dates DON’T
slide – kids go back to
school at the same time
every year…

11. EXAMPLE – ‘Project TEXAS’ :
• Waterfall (iterative)
• 2 Year Project - $20M
• Heavy BA docs (1000 pages)
• Constantly changing
requirements – Online only
‘09, mobile devices ’11..
• 3 months between official
builds to QA
• Iteration 15 (June) – 10
builds
• Iteration 16 (August) – 16
Builds

12. How do we fix this?
•Agile/Scrum
• It’s the ‘Silver
Bullet!’

13. Challenges with Agile/Scrum Development at HMH:
• Teams are not co-
located
• Leadership for QA/ENG/
BA/PM based in Dublin
• Developers in Delhi
• QA in Chennai
• Product Mgmt in US

14. Communication:
• Culture/Hierarchy –
All scrum members
expected to contribute,
not just Leads
• Getting the full picture?
• Not all QA or ENG have
IM or telephone
• Time zones
• Competing vendors

15. Quick wins - collaboration:
• Deep collaboration between
QA and ENG
• Sharing QA Selenium Web
Driver auto scripts/perf
Loadrunner scripts with
ENG
• Early testing on Dev env
• More robust builds
• Early Prod Owner feedback
• Flexibility to react to that
feedback

16. Initial results:
• 10 successful ‘mini-
releases’ Q1 and Q2
• Higher quality product
• Internal teams bonding
• Positive feedback from
Product Mgmt; Sales;
Teachers and Students…
• For us, it’s all about the
children…

17. Lessons learned:
• The Journey continues
• You must adapt Agile/Scrum to suit your business
• Is Agile/Scrum the Silver Bullet?
• NO! It’s a Brass Bullet..

18. Top Tip:
• Communication is vital to make it work
• You need to see the full picture before you can
provide enough data to allow The Business to make
an informed decision
• The following video is a good example of where not
having all the pertinent information leads to wrong
decisions…
Catchphrase - Say what you See!

19. Thank you!
Questions?