Agile Adoption

Agile Adoption at Comcast Interactive Media — The Top 10 Things We Did Wrong (and lived to tell about)

Comcast Interactive Media (CIM) is a new division of Comcast focused on the digital distribution of media and rich-media websites. Our video-centric properties include the comcast.net ( www.comcast.net) portal for Comcast high-speed data subscribers, the Ziddio user-generated video site (www.ziddio.com ) and the Game Invasion gaming site (www.gameinvasion.net). While developing these and other soon to be released web sites, we have spent the last year moving our software development teams to an agile methodology. While the transition is nowhere near complete, we'll discuss the good, the bad, and (of course) the ugly of that transition. At CIM, we've adopted a new motto when it comes to agile, "you can do just about anything for 30 days", and we have put it to good use experimenting with all sorts of permutations on traditional agile principles and most importantly having the courage to change those things that aren't working at the end of an iteration. We don't pretend to have all the answers (we don't) but we are hoping to host an interactive session and share our lessons learned and perhaps learn a few new lessons ourselves.

Scrum at Comcast Interactive Media – Lessons Learned during Agile Adoption

Presentation in pdf Presented by Matthew Zelesko (VP Engineering)
Notes from the Meeting of August 7th, 2007


Description: : Started 18 months ago, with 1 scrum team having just 4 developers, Scrum has now expanded to Product Design, IA, QA, and Operations, having 40+ people on 7 Scrum Teams, 2 Scrum of Scrums (S2). 80% of the design is enough to start a Sprint and the Backlog is only about 2 Sprints deep, with coarse estimates in the Backlog derived by many team members, not just expert developers.


Managed by a mixture of Scrum Masters – some are dedicated Scrum Masters and some are also developers/tech leads sharing their time. Pair Programming is not being done.


As is typical, “Targets” are seen as “Commitments”, while completed and successful sprints are soiled by “Uncertainty” from missed tasks in the past. The occasional “Black Hole” / “Down the Rabbit Hole” stories impinge Sprints, so 8 hour stories are the norm to prevent this.


The most interesting points gleaned were:

1. The reason why Comcast first began looking at Agile was that a new acquisition had success with it, and had been happiest with scrum.
2. Relative Priority different than Relative Value. When estimating, attach the Relative Usefulness to even menial tasks (like creating the Logon page).
3. Gantt chart of Confidence Level for Planning by Story and Individual. A Capacity Chart of Confidence Value showing where User Stories are distributed between developers can help predict where an overage will occur at the end of the Sprint.
4. Trying to reserve 20% of a Sprint for maintenance was not useful. So a Deployment/Maintenance Team was created to run 7 day sprints. Team members came from Architecture, QA, & Operations. The Developers on the team were rotated in and out, and when the backlog was exhausted, Forward Looking Tasks were investigated. This deployment team was not isolated like most of the Development teams, and this team was running 7 day sprints - which still fell within an end-of-sprint cadence matching the 15 day and 30 day Sprint teams.
5. Cross-Team Blockers often figured out who they were by themselves, and came up with methods to unblock themselves. Employees who were weak links were moved, or often moved themselves.
6. Scaling up Scrum was not easy; As project teams got larger than 8 people, the morning meetings were harder to keep within 15 minutes, and shy team members would not speak. Large teams have a negative team dynamic, so breaking them into smaller teams of 4 members boosted productivity.
7. Scrum does not turn bad programmers good, and it does not automatically make you plan better nor improve quality. What it does is to increase the visibility of the progress and the weaknesses of the people involved.
8. Memorable Quote: "Delivering 100% every time means the team probably isn't taking on enough"

Directions: Comcast 1500 Market Street Centre Square Building Philadelphia, PA 19102

Directions to our Center City Offices:

From North: Take NJ Tpke. to Exit 4. Take Rt. 73 North to Rt. 38. Take Rt. 38 west to US 30. Take US 30 west over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge to I-676. Go South on 6th Street to Walnut Street. Go west on Walnut Street and turn right onto 16th Street. Follow 16th Street to Market. (See Parking)

From East: Take I-76 over Walt Whitman Bridge. Go west on I-76 (Schuylkill Expressway) to exit 39 (30th Street Station). Go one block to Market Street. Turn right. Go east on Market Street to 15th Street. (See Parking)

From South: Take I-95 North. Follow signs for Central Phila./I-76 over George Platt Bridge to I-76 West. Then take 76 West to Exit 39 (30th Street Station). Go one block to Market Street and turn right. Travel east on Market Street to 15th Street. (See Parking)

From West: Take I-76 (PA Turnpike) east to Exit 24 (Schuylkill Expressway). Follow the Schuylkill (I-76) east to Central Philadelphia, I-676 exit. Take I-676 to 15th Street and turn right. Take 15th Street south to Market Street. (See Parking) Our building will be on your right side immediately following the intersection of 15th and Market Street.

Parking: You can park directly beneath Centre Square if you wish. Enter the garage from 16th Street, which is one-way northbound. If you are traveling east on Market Street (Centre Square on your right), enter the garage as follows: Turn right on 15th Street and then another quick right on Ranstead Street, which is immediately after the Centre Square Building. When you reach 16th Street, turn right again and proceed into the garage. Other parking areas are available at 16th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

From Amtrak's 30th Street Station: Exit the station from the Market Street side and take a cab to 15th and Market. The fare will cost approximately $10. You can also walk up the ramp to the "Suburban Trains" and take any local train that is traveling east (inbound) to Suburban Station.



From Suburban Station: When you exit the train, you will be underneath JFK Boulevard between 16th and 17th Street. This is called the Pedestrian Concourse. Follow signs to exit at 16th and Market. When you come up to street level, cross Market Street and enter the Centre Square Building which will be on your left side. Or you may stay underground and follow the concourse to 15th Street. Turn right at the post office and continue walking straight until you hit a dead end. An entrance to Centre Square will be to your right immediately past the Dunkin Donuts. As you walk through the doors, you’ll see escalators that lead up to the main lobby. For more information visit the following sites: www.amtrak.com or www.septa.org. You can also call Amtrak (215-824-1600) or SEPTA (215-580-7800).

Upon arrival at 1500 Market Street: Please proceed to the West Tower security desk located in the main lobby of the Centre Square building. After you sign in, the security guard will issue you a visitor pass for your appointment.

We look forward to seeing you soon!