Transition to Scrum Midway through a AAA Development Cycle: Lessons Learned

1. Transition to Scrum Midway through a AAA Development Cycle: Lessons Learned Asbjoern Malte Soendergaard Development Manager Crytek GmbH

2. Taking advantage of agile in a non-agile environment

3. Agenda • Why agile this late • Our Process • Next steps (for us)

4. Agile worked for us • Shiped Crysis 12 months after implementing Scrum • 80 developers (7-12 Scrum teams) • 2/3 of the game was redeveloped • Meta Critic Score of 91

5. Why agile this late in the production? • Feature creep • Unable to measure progress • We needed to reduce scope • Vision blurred by a huge project schedule

6. Minimize Waste • Crysis strategy • Cross disciplinary teams when possible • Teams should always sit together • Always solve tasks sequeltially, not simultanously • Two things can ever be equally important – force creative priorities • Progress only counts if it works in the build

7. Initial Product Backlog • Figure out what features need to be done • A feature means something you need at least two different skillsets to complete • Make one big list in excel and try to group these in related areas • Prioritize list • Start with the featuregroup which is most important

8. Setting up the first Scrum Team • Take the people you need out of the waterfall production team • Seat them together away from the rest of the team • Focus on getting this ONE team sprinting

9. Don't panic ! • You have just started chaos • People in the matrix structure will be frustrated • Shelter your sprint team • 80/20 Support Rule

10. Repeat the process • Figure out what is the second most important feature group on your backlog • Create a team based on who is left in the waterfall project plan • Iterate these simple steps until everybody is sprinting • Make sure leads are not Scrum Masters • First team is the hardest

19. Scrum Structure at Crysis • Product Owner • Customer (Lead) • Scrum Master • Team Members

20. Product Backlog • Managing expectations NOT schedules • Creating Product Backlog Items is a process of negotiating with the team what you expect • You define what you want, they go do it • Tell people what is expected not how to achieve it

21. Product Backlog - First Iteration

22. Product Backlog Grooming – Second iteration

23. Product Backlog Grooming – Second iteration

24. Product Backlog Grooming – Second iteration

25. Product Backlog • This is what we would like to improve • Estimation process • Valuation process • Need a process to encourage people to prioritize

26. Current Product Backlog ..\..\Desktop\GDC-Presentation.jpg

27. Current Product Backlog

28. Current Product Backlog

29. Current Product Backlog

30. Current Product Backlog

31. Current Product Backlog

32. Final thougths • Common sense works, you just need a framework to scale it • The product backlog helps you manage expectations and guide the team • Don’t be affraid to go down the agile path, but don’t think you are agile just because you call it a sprint plan • Always fall back to lean principles and continue to identify areas you can reduce waste

33. Questions? Asbjoern Malte Soendergaardasbjoern@crytek.de