Case 15-1 (Static) Introducing Scrum at P2P PARTA Kendra Hus worked for six years as a software engineer in the IT Department at Point 2 Point (P2P), a large freight moving company She liked her job and the people she worked with. While she did some maintenance work, she worked primarily on projects, usually full time. Her work covered a wide range of projects, including system upgrades, inventory control GPS tracking, billing and customer databases. These projects were typically able to meet project requirements but were consistently late. Within the IT Department it was common practice for a betting pool to emerge regarding completion dates. The rule of thumb was to take the original schedule, multiply it by 1.5, and start guessing from then on Management decided to try to turn things around by changing the way P2P completed IT projects. Instead of the traditional waterfall approach in which all the requirements were defined up front the IT Department was to start using Agile Project Management and more specifically Scrum, to complete their projects Kendra had just been assigned to the Big Foot project, which involved developing a system for monitoring P2P's carbon footprint. To prepare for this project. Kendra and her entire team of software engineers would attend two day Scrum workshop Everyone was given a book on Scrum to prepare for the workshop. At first Kendra was overwhelmed by terminology-Scrum master, Sprints, product manager sprint logs, and so forth. She questioned the rugby metaphor, since the only thing she knew about the sport was that one of her ex-boyfriends in college would come back to the dorm inebrated and bloodied after a match. And why was the project manager called a master? It seemed demeaning to her Still, she had heard some good things about Scruns from a friend who was using it in another company. He claimed it gave programmers more freedom to do their work and to work at a finster pace. So she approached the two day workshop with an open mind The workshop was facilitated by a trainer who was well versed in the world of software development. Participants included her other flwe team members as well as Prem Gupta, a veteran project manager who would now assume the role of Scrum Master and Isaac Smith, who would act as the product manager representing the interests of the customers. At first everyone gave Prem a hard time by I him indammarter "Tharu hennart thanh hthalter Proy 1 of 1 Novi estimated to be completed after five sprints, with each speintlasting four weeks THE FIRST SPRINT The first stint planning meeting went pretty much by the book. Isaac, the product owner, had done his homework and came to the meeting with a comprehensive list of features the software needed to provide. There was healthy discussion, and Isaac amended the ilt to include some features that the team feit was necessary. The afternoon session featured Isaac prioritizing the features in the product backlog with feedback from the team. The final segment was devoted to the team deciding among themselves which high priority features they would commit to build within the four week sprint Prem did a good job of reminding the team that they were expected to build a fully functional feature. This tempered the team's enthuslasin, and in the end a challenging but doable set of features was assigned to the sprint backlog for the first sprint The first couple of daily Scrum meetings were a bit awkward as members were careful not to stop on each other's toes. One of the first impediments identified was not having a shared understanding of how a self-organizing team worked, Prem Kept emphasizing that it was up to the team to decide who does what and when Then one morning it just suddenly clicked and members came forward claiming work they felt needed to be done. After that the daily Scrums took on a life of their own, interrupted only when a member had to do five push ups for every minute late. The pace of work picked up, and there was a shared enthusiasm as tasks and ultimately functional features were completed in rapid fashion, Kendra worked side by side with the other software engineers to solve problems and share what they had learned. Occasionally Isaac was called into the project room to answer questions about specific features and be shown work in progress By the time of the first sprint review meeting, the team was able to demonstrate al but one of the designated features to Isaac and even the more that were not on the initial hits. The team got some useful feedback not only from Isaac but also from a couple of the end users he brought with him. Eighty percent of the features were proclaimed done by Isaac, while the others needed only slight modifications. Everyone agreed that the next Sprint review would be even more successful The sprint retrospective meeting was refreshing, as members spoke candidly about both the good and the bad. Everyone agreed that the team needed to do a better job at documentation Issues regarding folress and spreading both the fun work and the tough work mong the entire team were brought to the surface Kendra was impressed by how everyone focused on what was best for the project not just himself or herself THE SECOND SPRINT The second sprint meeting went well. The features that needed rework after the first sprint review meeting were at the top of the backlog. Isanc made appropriate adjustments in priorities, and a couple of new features that were discovered during the sprint review meeting were added. The meeting convened with the team confident that they would be able to complete the work they had committed to Project work progressed quickly over the next week. Kendra felt pressure to accomplish what she had said she would at the daily Scrum. At the same time she felt a tremendous amount of satisfaction reporting work done. The entire team seemed energired. Then One day everything came to a standstill over a sticky Integration problem. The team struggled over the next three days trying to solve the problem, until, at the next Scrum, Prom stepped forward, saying, "I think you should do this. He then proceeded to outline a specific method for solving the problem, even assigning specific tasks to each team member. During the next two days Prem went aack and forth between team members, coordinating their work and solving problems. While there was some grumbling within the am his solution worked, and Kendra was grateful to get back on track rom then on, Prem took a more active role in dolly Scrum meetings, often having the final say as to the work agenda for that day. The eetings took on a different tone as members waited for Prem to speak first. Isaac was absent from the project room during this time. she was visiting sites that would be using the new software. Still features were being completed and Kendra was happy with the ogress. Then one day Isaac showed up at the morning Scrum meeting. He had just gotten back and had fresh information he wanted Introduce into the project. He had rewritten the product log and added several new high priority features and eliminated a few of e features that the team had been working on. He wanted the team to shift their efforts and complete the new features by the end of e team was shocked because one of the principles they had been taught is that you don't change course midway through a sprint om did his best to explain this to Isaac, but he was insistent. He kept saying that these changes had to be made, otherwise, much of sprint output would be a waste of time. He kept repeating that the team needed to be flexible. After all, isn't that what the Agile proach is all about?" The meeting came to an impasse until Prem came forward with a compromise. The team would agree to do the w work, but the sprint needed to be extended by two weeks. Everyone agreed and Kendra went back to work urto the end of the second sprint. Prem continued to direct project work. When it came for the sprint review meeting, four of the 2. What are the issues confronting the Big Foot project? BE 3. Assume you are Kendra. What would you want to say at the retrospective? How would you say it? 4. What improvements or changes need to be made