Energy industry – Agile offshore project

"Successfully coaching a team consisting of five companies and three nationalities over a distance of 7,000 kilometers and a time difference of several hours was almost impossible in the past. Digital communication technologies such as Skype for Business and Atlassian JIRA combined with agile values such as trust, transparency, empowerment and openness make it possible today. Agile teams can communicate successfully with each other around the clock and across continents and achieve goals together."

SAP implementation - Success with agile offshore teams

Assignment

consistency was commissioned by an international energy group to enable a frictionless transition of a business customer segment (small to medium-sized customers) by introducing and supporting a scaled scrum approach. With the help of agile software development and following the “lean” principles, the customer migration to the new target landscape (SAP) was carried out with only minor system adjustments. For cost reasons, the technical implementation was carried out by offshore teams. The Scrum framework allowed the teams to maintain close contact with the customer and the onshore department.

Implementation

The initial team structure within the scaled scrum approach was based on the roughly known need for customization in the existing SAP CRM and IS-U systems. From this, three Scrum teams working in parallel were formed – customer acquisition and management in SAP CRM, measurement data processing and device management, and billing and receivables management in SAP IS-U. At the start of the project, a three-week “Sprint 0” served to sharpen the project vision, detail the rough adaptation requirements in the form of user stories and define a “minimum viable product” (MVP). The development of a common understanding took place jointly onshore. The on-site project visits by the central offshore teams enabled us to get to know each other. During the nine-month implementation phase, the main challenge was to maintain communication and collaboration between onshore and offshore project members. The Scrum method also promoted a noticeable improvement in the quality of communication and the sense of community. All Scrum events (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review & Retrospective) were conducted via video conferencing. This enabled the teams in India and England to coordinate regularly across time zones and receive continuous feedback from the customer. In each of the three SAP Scrum teams, the product owner, stakeholders and acceptance testers worked in the onshore implementation team. The remaining implementation team members, including unit testers, worked offshore. By installing one Scrum Master onshore and one offshore, short coordination paths were achieved and impediments were resolved quickly.

Result

The quality and speed of the implementation of SAP changes and the cost efficiency of the project have had a lasting positive impact on the perception of agile methods within the company. A significant expansion of agile projects is being sought and a company-wide transformation is being prepared.

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