Scaling Agile: Going from 0 to 1000

In late 2004, BMC was the antithesis of agile. Teams created detailed requirement specs, large functional specs and huge design specs. Releases were lengthy, often late and typically had less than originally promised. Then a perfect storm of events came along: a project was created to move a large customer base to the next generation product, huge expense pressures resulted in a shrinking workforce and a new VP (Israel Gat) joined with the idea of taking a different approach. By 2008, BMC had over 1000 people doing agile. Releases were quicker, of higher value and quality and were done with fewer resources. This is their story.

In this session, we'll cover what went right, what went wrong and the lessons learned. Some areas of discussion will include product management, infrastructure, quality, distributed teams and large scale development. We'll also talk about organizations, politics and the people aspects of transitioning to agility.

Walter Bodwell first did agile in 1999 at a small startup called Evity. Evity was acquired by BMC in April 2000 and gradually converted to the standard waterfall processes of the larger corporate culture. Walter was the director of engineering for the first teams to start using agile at BMC. He later was senior director in charge of a different product line where he replicated the success with agile. He is now the founder of Planigle, a local company that provides consulting, tools and training to help teams get the most out of agile.
Cost: Free
Contact: www.AgileAustin.org or info@AgileAustin.org
Proof of Attendance forms will be provided for PMI (PDU), ASQ (RU) and NPDM (PDH) re-certifications