Agile product development at ABB
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The way we develop our products and collaborate together is based on the , be it with some adaptations to better match our ABB Digiteam way of doing things and the number of people in our team.
Big challenges are broken down in smaller, manageable parts. In doing so a constant flow emerges and as a team we can see our solutions grow.
Transparent overview on the work done and to be done
Divide our work in manageable parts
Plan enough and plan in a flexible way
Getting the responsabilities in the right place
Our Rolling Wave based roadmap looks ahead for at least one year.
The Groeispurts of ten weeks systematically end with a Centrale Planningsdag.
Every Groeispurt consists out of four sprints and one IPI.
We use a comprehensive roadmap. We find it important to define for who a specific functionality will provide value. This roadmap can be found in our which is linked to JIRA. JIRA is used by the productteams to plan and follow-up sprints and spurts.
Creating and adjusting the roadmap is a continuous process: this is adjusted every spurt in function of the results and experiences of the past spurt and any additional goals or changed priorities.
A 'groeispurt' has a duration of ten weeks. It contains four development sprints and one Innovation and Planning Iteration. During the last week of a groeispurt a Centrale Planningsdag (CPD) is held where the goals for the next groeispurt are being determined and feature planning for the products are made and agreed upon.
Because we all work in periods of ten weeks, we keep sufficient focus on setting the necessary steps in the development of our products and at the same time we remain agile to cope with ever changing contexts. In doing so the scrum teams have a clear focus on the spurt and sprint goals for the upcoming ten weeks, leaving room for focus shift in the next Groeispurt in case priorities within ABB are all of a sudden changing.
A sprint is well defined period of two weeks in which the product team starts working together to achieve a clear sprint goal. Sprints are following each other immediately and have fixed elements/ rituals:
Sprint Planning
Standup
Sprint demo
Sprint Retrospective
Backlog refinement
Next to the development of features, which is a core focus for every product scrum team, there is a need as well for other activities that make product teams grow. For that reason every last two weeks of a Groeispurt are atypical because it explicitly makes room for …
Innovation and experiments
Training
Planning activities for the next Groeispurt
When? The Innovation and Planning (IPI) iteration is organized at the end of a Groeispurt.
To organize the activities that are typically done in the IPI we made a calendar and plotted the must-have activities on that calendar. In plotting the activities we took into account some preferences of the team regarding meeting days and tried to group the innovation activities as one block to prevent focus drift between innovation and planning meetings. This calendar is being used as well to put placeholders for certain IPI activities in the personal calendars of people who need to attend.
Typical IPI-activities are: testing new technologies, sharing newly developped functionalities with other teams, knowledge transfer, scoping sessions & brainstorms, retrospectives, …
Our IPI calendar at ABB currently looks like:
WEEK 1 IPI: FOCUS on sprintplanning IPI - Innovation - Inspect and adapt
Day/Part
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
AM
Sprintplanning IPI
AM
PM
PM
WEEK 2 IPI: Focus on Groeispurtplanning (CPD and prep) - Retrospective and Sprintdemo IPI
AM
AM
PM
Sprintdemo IPI
PM
Prepare backlog for sprint 1
The capacity of an IPI can not be used to reach the Groeispurt targets and thus may not be considered as an extra sprint to build product features. The sprint should be used to give the teams time to work on innovation for future purposes, to document what was built, to prepare and plan the next Groeispurt and to look back on how the team performed in the Groeispurt that is approaching its end.
The central planning day is a crucial moment to look back at the Groeispurt that is ending and to look ahead and plan for the next Groeispurt. Therefore it is situated inbetween two Groeispurts.
It provides time for all actors involved in our agile product development to …
show wat has been realised in a series of plenary product demo's.
plan the next Groeispurt using the preparation that has been made in the days proceeding the CPD. Ultimately epics (product features) will be planned for execution. Their execution will contribute to the oplossingen they are linked to.
align with other product teams to realise shared solutions.
Het programma van een CPD is gebaseerd op de onderdelen van het standaardprogramma dat binnen het Scaled Agile Framework wordt beschreven maar de activiteiten worden doorheen de volledige IPI verspreid. De belangrijkste finale afstemming gebeurt op een één dag.
In advance (before the CPD)
Impact mapping for every value stream
Overview of possible deliverables
PM's & PO's,
Solution level
Designers
Business Analists
Business-reps
In advance
Retrospective for every product team
Look back and learn from experiences in the previous groeispurt
Every team member of a product team
In advance
Preparation CPD with the product team
What is to be done next, in the upcoming groeispurt. - Storymapping - Planning on CPD-canvas
PM en PO
Development leads
In advance
Capacitycheck - sync with dev's and designers
Matching demand and supply of developers and designers for the upcoming groeispurt
RedPencil
Hannes
Veronique
In advance
Capacitycheck - sync with PO's and PM's
Feedback to PM's and PO's on the availability + capacity of developers and designers to PM's and PO's.
PO's
PM's
Veronique
9h00 - 9h15
Introduction to the CPD (IT-director + Manager Digital Solutions)
Introduction, setting the stage
PM's & PO's
Product teams
Business-reps
Solution level
9h15 - 10h30
(product)demo's for every value stream on achievements previous Groeispurt
Show what has been delivered by the product teams for all relevant value streams
PM's & PO's
Product teams
Business-reps
Solution level
10h30 - 15h00
Break-outsessions per value stream
Final rundown of the planning for the various product teams collaborating in value streams
PM's & PO's
Relevant product teams
Business-reps
15h00 - 15h30
Finalizing groeispurt planning per product
Moment for PM's and PO's to finalize the product planning before presenting it on the plenairy session.
PM's & PO's
15h30-16h30
Presentation of sprint planning and sprint goals per product
Presentation of the planning per product team. The presentation implies an implicit confidence vote by the teams involved.
PM's & PO's
Productteams
Business-reps
Solution level
When? The central planning day (CPD) is organised every second Thursday of the IPI.
()
DEV + Design
()
PM's ifv planning
