A story of reducing technical debt

1. A story of reducing technical debt
Founder + Digital Craftsman
Markus Kobler
Avoiding Technical Bankruptcy

2. Overview
The technical debt build up
Five Techniques that Worked
1) Getting a Canary
2) Rejecting Scrum for Kanban
3) Planning Poker
4) Automating Deployments with ‘Munge’
5) Sharing Ownership with Fez & Pirate Hats!
Dealing with Collapse : A Success Story

3. Taglab did a bit of everything web related...
Strategy
Transactional Sites
Design
Email
(Even built/hosted our own campaign system!?!)
Banners
Micro-Sites
Brochure-ware
Social Media
Hosting
Ad Campaigns
24/7/365 SupportJ2EE Web Apps
Messaging Middleware
Workflow Systems

4. Notable Clients Included
Betfair
Times Online
Starbucks
The Economist
Disney Channel
Turner
Global Switch
Channel Five
NBC Universal
Skandia
STA Travel
Yell Online
The Spectator
British Gas
Avis
One Water
Liverpool Victoria

5. My First three years at Taglab had been exciting
- Six fold growth
- Wide range of big and small projects
- Rounded skillset from architectural & development to
system administration
However after the initial exciting growth the company
started to hit a celling
- Common in small business, 80% fail in their first 5 years*
- J2EE was loosing its perceived competitive advantage
*The E-Myth 2001

6. Over time technical debt started to build up
Its around this time Taglab asked me to rejoin the company as CTO...

7. Supporting 40-50 live production web apps
- 100+ Environments in total (UAT, Integration, etc)
- Key required 24/7/365 SLA’s
Hosted Apps had 45+ external integration points
- RESTful & SOAP API’s
- But many XML(sometimes)/RPC
Designed by Architects with Capital A...
...but built by developers (with a lowercase d)
Pain stemmed from multiple points

8. Pain stemmed from multiple points
Legacy and modern Codebase
- 7+ year old code, Singleton galore with poor test coverage
- Some code even needing decompiling from bytecode...
- To modern lightweight clean GWT, Hibernate, Spring
Hosting Mix
- Mix of our own rack in Docklands to clients hardware and
the cloud
- Although our rack provided many benefits some hardware
dated back 5-7 years

9. Projects were increasingly Death Marches

10. Death March TypesHappiness
Chances of Success
Kamikaze Mission Impossible
UglySuicide
Team are sacrificial
lambs at the slaughter
for successful delivery
Team dreams of fame,
glory and riches ‘if’
they succeed
Projects and Team are doomed.
Only alternative is to be fired
Projects are doomed, but
everyone agrees it will be
glorious failure!
Death March - EdwardYourdon

11. At its core this is a story aboutHappiness
Chances of Success
Positively and creatively changing
peoples perspective to improve
delivery

12. Problem 1 : Notification Hell
Nagios monitoring was already in place
- but needed updating
Were getting 4-5 alerts a day!
- Regular Database/Hardware failures
- Deployment, Code Quality problems
- Subtle networking issues (ISP or self inflicted)
You dreaded your phone
Make things worse, we needed more checks!
- CI still needed + much better test coverage

13. Getting a Canary (or Nabaztag)
Flickr: julianbleecker

14. Flickr: krissatmontreal
Could differentiate personal
from work txt messages
Problems started feeling a
little less ‘catastrophic’
The office knew when was not
right time ask for a quote on
‘one more copy change...’
Over time major alerts
dropped to 1 every few weeks
Getting a Canary (or Nabaztag)

15. Problem 2 : Juggling Delivery + Support
We where hungry for work, so new projects varied
wildly in size and complexity
- Some were multi year builds
- Others ‘OMG we need it done by the weekend’
Support’s unpredictability impacted new build work
- More common in-practice with teams impacted by 2nd/3rd line
support issues
Mixing both functions can be efficient and satisfying

16. 'Known Knowns' - requirements captured in the specification
'Known Unknowns' - requirements flagged as ‘assumptions’
'Unknown Knowns' - requirements the client had not yet told you about
'Unknowns Unknowns' - requirements neither you or client knew about
Successful Delivery is about Accepting Uncertainty
Flickr : ooocha

17. Sounds like Agile Right?
Many competitors and clients were touting SCRUM
“Don’t you know the difference between the Chicken and Pig!”
But clients still found it hard to sign off budgets
“Need to know what is being delivered before I signing off costs!”
Work/Budget would often not fit neatly into an iteration(s)
How would unpredictable support be incorporated?
- Having a ‘batman’ would have been wasteful or not enough
We needed something less rigid

18. Rejecting Scrum for Kanban
To-Do Doing Done
Task Task
Task Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
TaskTask
Task
So we started simply

19. Rejecting Scrum for Kanban
To-Do Doing
Task Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Added columns that made sense to us
UAT CAT Live
Task
Task
Task
TaskTask

20. Rejecting Scrum for Kanban
Backlog In Progress
Task Task Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Added columns that matched our internal processes
UAT CAT Live
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Planned Dev
Internal
Test
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task

21. Rejecting Scrum for Kanban
Backlog In Progress
Task Task
Task
Task
Task Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Added swim lanes
UAT CAT Live
Task
Task
Task
Task
Planned Dev
Internal
Test
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
TaskTask
M
ajorProject1
M
ajorProject2
OtherProjects
Internal
Task
Task
Task
Task

22. Rejecting Scrum for Kanban
Backlog In Progress
Task Task
Task
Task
Task Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Introduced Work In Progress (WIP) limits and SLA’s
UAT CAT Live
Task
Task
Task
Task
Planned Dev Internal
Test
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
TaskTask
M
ajorProject1
M
ajorProject2
OtherProjects
Internal
Task
Task
Task
Task
5 Day SLA
15 4 12

23. Issue
Improv-
ement
Improv-
ement
Rejecting Scrum for Kanban
Backlog In Progress
Task Task
Task
Task
Task Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
Visually distinguish types of tasks
UAT CAT Live
Task
Task
Task
Task
Planned Dev Internal
Test
Task
Task
Task
Task
Task
TaskTask
M
ajorProject1
M
ajorProject2
OtherProjects
Internal
Task
Task
Task
Task
5 Day SLA
15 4 12
Improv-
ement
Improv-
ement
Issue
Issue

24. Rejecting Scrum for Kanban
Work is continuously pulled through system
Visually provides a Micro & Macro view of work
Support issues easily absorbed
WIP and SLA’s provided key indicators of
quality and resource planning

25. Problem 3 : Estimation + Tracking Velocity
Flickr : kozumel

26. Planning Poker
Cards going up in value
User Story discussed
Once happy, everyone
estimates in private
Reveal at same time
Hi & Lo estimates
discuss differences
Repeat estimate again if
no consensus
Flickr: lejoe

27. Shared ownership of projects problem solving
Could start analytically looking back at projects
past progress
Enabled plotting projects into future based on
previous tasks/estimates
As a PM you can often get team to develop
simplest solution and feel good about it!
Planning Poker

28. Problem 4 : Deployment
Deployment should be the last problem
developers need to worry about
- Needed to re-instil confidence back in the team
Had to work well with Designers and Developers
Needed to adapt to different environments
- Our Rack, Client’s hardware, The cloud
Reducing time to deploy would reduce our costs
- Worst cases deployments took 5 hours!

29. Designers Needed Something Simple
Flickr : thunderchild5

30. Developers Demanded More Rigour
Flickr : shutupyourface

31. Automating Deployments with ‘Munge’
Mix of automation and strict project conventions
- Minor changes could be released in seconds
- Major releases, tested and deployed in 5-20mins (depending
on changes)
Clean build environment and version controlled
released meant predictable builds and rollbacks
Used live environment metrics to determine
deployed hosts

32. Problem 5 : Shared Ownership of Prod Issues
Whole team needed to share ownership of
dealing with production issues
Most problems only needed one person
looking at it to begin with
Ideally ownership should be visual to rest of
team

33. So we got some hats of responsibility
Flickr : doctorow

34. So we got some hats of responsibility
Flickr : c_r_i_s

35. So we got some hats of responsibility
Flickr : striatic

36. So we got some hats of responsibility
Flickr : blackcountrymuseums

37. So we got some hats of responsibility

38. Finally a Success Story
Flickr : dybarber

39. Finally a success story
2009, Setanta Sports was on verge of collapse
- A key client dependant on their sports coverage
- Unsure if someone would step in with finance
- Or someone else would buy the rights
Particularly complex CRM/Sales intergration
- Estimated >5 weeks worth of effort
- Failure to deliver by immovable deadline was to be very
damaging for all parties involved
Sign off received 3 days before changes were
required

40. Success Story
Work broken into 5 interleaved dev streams
Hit first key 3 day deadline
- 4 major releases followed over next 7 days
- More followed in the subsequent weeks/months
Sales in the days that followed dwarfed
anything that came before with 0 downtime
One of the most satisfying projects have been
lucky enough to be involved in
All thanks to hard prior work put in by the team

41. Final Thoughts
Our biggest challenge was turning bleak
situation into positive opportunities
- Some times you need a creative solution
- Continuously take educated technical risks
Software delivery is an art-form
- but backed by scientific approaches
Embrace change and unpredictability
- but always keep a clear guiding vision
An informative workspace is key
- Although is largely about ‘Psychological Manipulation’

42. Credits
Death March (Yourdon Press Series) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-March-Yourdon-Press-Edward/dp/
013143635X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290856412&sr=8-1
Nabaztag - julianbleecker - http://www.flickr.com/photos/julianbleecker/156303245/
Nabaztag - krissatmontreal - http://www.flickr.com/photos/krissatmontreal/3027612184/
061108-F-5586B-137 - ooocha - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ooocha/3051551020/
Poker Phase - kozumel - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kozumel/4063207100/
Planning poker! I've a straight flush! - lejoe - http://www.flickr.com/photos/lejoe/4553607341/
The Big Easy - thunderchild5 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/thunderchild5/2397161370/
Factory - Robotic Arms - shutupyourface - http://www.flickr.com/photos/shutupyourface/105779625/
Me in Ada's pirate hat, monorail queue, Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida - doctorow - http://www.flickr.com/
photos/doctorow/2137686/
Fez / 87.365 - c_r_i_s - http://www.flickr.com/photos/c_r_i_s/2852508138/
past tense - striatic - http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/2418853122/
1940s flying helmet , LC1995_15_1 - blackcountrymuseums - http://www.flickr.com/photos/
blackcountrymuseums/4970602229/
Fremantle Bridge Collapse, 22 July 1926 - dybarber - http://www.flickr.com/photos/dybarber/3461384691/

43. Thank you.
distinctive.co
@markuskobler