Challenge:

I been the team lead of the project in organization always annually propose process improvement for  our project. We were facing a lot of delay in delivering change Requests (CR) in our project, not due to  development but due to the testing at different levels by different stake holders. Stake holders were  from different vendors and also some were on client payroll. It had become a difficult task to provide  justifications and there would be a blame game which was not healthy for the overall deliverables. We  then proposed the client to use agile model instead of currently used waterfall model.

Selection:

Our team went through several brain storming session as agile was not suitable for SAP projects. SAP  has a clear demarcation of job responsibilities between functional and technical people and as per agile  principles every member of the team should know every tasks.In waterfall model, set of specialists work  together to deliver SAP software applications or components according to well-defined end-user  requirements. But we really found some interesting methodologies of agile and want to adapt those in  our way of working. We thought even if we cannot adhere to all agile practices but we can certainly  bring more visibility and progress of our daily activities and the progress will be clearly visible to all stake  holders which meant less difference of opinion at the end.   Now, to take another step forward towards their vision of digitalization and agility, our client has  decided to pilot SAP developments with Agile methodology.  So we were ready to try the learning launch tool. Learning launch was an experiment meant to quickly  test an idea and prototype.       Application:  We started will a small team to just prototype the idea of agile. We had formed a eRoom  of 10  members which included 2 technical consultants,2 functional consultant, 1 scrum master, 3 Solution  owners who would do the final testing and interact with end user customers. Firstly we began with daily  stand up calls and sprint of 1 month. In sprint plan we agreed with definition of done and priotise the  stories so that each of the stakeholder had a clear picture of what will be completed at the end of the  sprint. We did this pilot for 6 months and we got a progress in the speed of deliverable. The client  further took the decision to fully agile.   Now we have formed 4 scrum teams based on business processes with 4 different scrum masters and 4  product owners. We perform scrum of scrum meets to synchronize all 4 scrum teams with key stake  holders.  This has significantly increase the number of CR’s delivered every sprint.    Insight:   By applying the learning launch tool, our team coordination has increased, all stake holders know each  other improving our relationship. Using this tool we do retrospective to further improve the process of  our day to day activities. This learning experience help to respect each other opinion, visualize the idea  put forth in meetings, remove impediments, share learning and challenges and create a positive  atmosphere.    Approach:

We find the learning launch as the appropriate tool as in we have some mandatory courses to be  complete by all the members so that the entire team has same agile maturity and are on the same page.  Future launch designs is focused on automating some tasks and tract the progress made, and come  closer to a compelling solution ready for future rollout.

