Swisscom API Journey #3 - The API-Kitchen, Scaled & Agile!

About this book ...
Again – we do not want to provide a classical enterprise success story. We want you to join us on our stormy journey to API Nirvana. Treat it as an invitation to share non-competitive insights between enterprises. You’re very, very welcome! *
In contrast to #1 and #2, references to API's are somewhat rare in this issue. Most of our past problems were caused by the way we were organized, the way we shared responsibilities and the way we tried to be Agile. In this issue, we will show how we morphed from a scrumified-water- fall-factory into high performing Agile Squads.
Zurich, October ‘15 - Kay Lummitsch

Transcript

1. 1 The Swisscom API journey #3 The API-Kitchen, scaled and Agile!
2. 2 “We aim to be crazy technology- business-cowboys in a totally new role!” ~ Kay Lummitsch IT-Coach & API-Evangelist A short note … An amuse-bouche [1] en API “During two decades working in enterprise-soft- ware-development, I never saw teams so engaged, so happy and self-effective. This is perceivable at prod- uct-house level, team level and in the face of each in- dividual team member. That really rocks!”
3. 3 Content About this book … \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 3 What happened so far ... \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 5 Still en-route? \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 6 Sous-vide vs. Agile salad with lean dressing \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 8 Deep-frozen decisions \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 10 Chianina grilled indirectly \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\13 Recipe for two hungry PMs \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 14 APIs stir-fried! \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 17 Pizza, Pizza! \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 18 We changed the way we cook \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 20 Collaboration al dente \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 23 Healthy frozen faces \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 24 On brewing an API-IPA ! \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 26 About Swisscom \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 28 Credits \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 30 References \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 32
4. 4 About this book … Again – we do not want to provide a classical enter- prise success story. We want you to join us on our stormy journey to API Nirvana. Treat it as an invitation to share non-competitive insights between enterprises. You’re very, very welcome! * In contrast to #1 and #2, references to API's are somewhat rare in this issue. Most of our past problems were caused by the way we were organized, the way we shared respon- sibilities and the way we tried to be Agile. In this issue we will show how we morphed from a scrumified-water- fall-factory into high performing Agile Squads. Zurich, October ‘15 * Join the ‘API program exchange group’ on LinkedIn
5. 5 edible blossoms
6. 6 What happened so far … Since we wrote the 2nd edition we changed almost everything. It feels like we turned ourselves inside out. The way we think, the way we work, the way we engage and interact … Questions that seemed important before became irrelevant. New questions came up, needing answers that we had never thought of before. “We’ve got to rethink our Pret- zel!”* became an often heard sentence in our teams. We had great support from our Innovation team (special thanks to Ioannis Kalafatis), when jumping into the cold Agile water. For those left on the edge of the pool, * The Swisscom API journey #2 People may think: “We’re really about to change our enterprise DNA!” all of that was quite disruptive and some- what confusing. We’re about to convince them to jump into the water too – because it’s fun to swim. And in the Agile pool, every day is warm-water-day!
7. 7 Still en-route? Of course. We speeded up massively! Many, many thanks to Spotify for their awe- some groundwork on how to scale Agile * Lesson learned, challenge accepted! Danke! Obrigado! Namaste! Thank you guys! We created our first Squad seven sprints ago (it also reflects on our time-terminology!) The following chapters will try to make clear how changes in attitude, coupled with Squad set-up, changed almost everything beyond our wildest expectations! * Scaling Agile @ Spotify with Tribes, Squads, Chapters & Guilds ~ Henrik Kniberg & Anders Ivarsson Oct 2012, bit.ly/1L8CrgY
8. 8 © Andrew Mackinnon The perfect crew: Product Manager x 1 Technical Lead x 1 Engineers ≤ 4 Pizzas = 2 ~ Thanks to Mr. Bezos for this advice! + +
9. 9 Sous-vide [2] vs. Agile salad with lean dressing Before we split our API-Factory into Squads, it was easy to have a long-term road-map aligned to the expectations of an enterprise used to working with long-term plans. But that doesn't work for us any more. Our horizon has shrunk! Our Squads have a six to eight week outlook (2 to 4 Sprints). Everything beyond is somehow nebulous. So we decided to maintain a two-month roadmap towards a rather fluid vision. That works for now, but this is typically where slow-enterprise expectations clash with a full Agile approach. As our Squads develop their experience and groom their backlogs with the benefit of business context and customer-driven requirements we will be able to push back the horizon further. Consider the long-term plan sous-vide, com- pared to the freshness of the Agile salad ... How to leverage long term planning now?
10. 10 Honey, I shrunk the horizon … the Agile horizon is much closer than we thought!
11. 11 Deep-frozen decisions We’ve got the tendency, an urge rooted deep within our culture, to seek a consistent plan. We love to have con- trol. Long-term decisions give us a sense of control. But things change so fast – we constantly revisit decisions that seemed totally clear before. This requires enormous trust in the way we change. Once a decision is taken, it is vital that we stick to it until there is a compelling reason to review. Jeff said: “People who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds.” * He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy – encouraged, even – to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.” On the half-life period of decisions in a rapidly changing environment … * Quote taken from a blog of Jason Fried after a meeting with Jeff Bezos, bit.ly/1LLLbpE
12. 12 “The initial plan just gives us some factors, on how to re-plan!” ~ US Navy consultant on USS Independence
13. 13 coarse sea-salt
14. 14 Chianina [3] grilled indirectly Tuscany's white giant … A book on APIs with the word ‘Kitchen’ in it’s title wouldn’t be complete without a recipe. In the summer vacation 2015 I had the good fortune to join my colleague and friend An- drea Zulian in his house in Tuscany. Tuscany is about eating! Andrea and I had the best BBQ’s ever on his veranda. We want to let you participate in the experience. This recipe is based on best- case scenario. Agile Adaptations Always Welcome! See next page >>
15. 15 Buy two T-Bone steaks from the Chianina beef – 3 pounds each (YES – It’s not a typo!). You’ll need a BBQ that’s capable to handle indirect fire. Once this is in place, make fire from dried olive wood. Make sure the grill cabin is slightly below 170 F. Cut an arm-full of fresh rosemary from your rosemary hedge and place it neatly on the grill roast. Now put these beautiful steaks carefully onto the rosemary bed. Keep the fire and the temperature even for the next 4 to 5 hours. Turn the steaks regularly. Now pull the embers forwards so they are below the grill roast, and caramelize the surface of the meat – 2 minutes per side is enough! Showtime: Place the steaks on warm plates to rest, garnish with coarse sea-salt, cracked black pepper and extra-virgin olive oil, add a great red wine (Aged Chianti or Merlot). That’s it. Bon appetite! If anyone asks for salad, bread, or fries … the steaks weren’t big enough! NB - We will have our first PM-Weekend in Tuscany … guess what’s for dinner? Hardware BBQ dried olive wood Ingredients two T-Bone Chianina steaks fresh rosemary coarse sea-salt cracked black pepper extra-virgin olive oil Soulware red wine tuscan summer night wine suggestions see references [4] Recipe for two hungry PMs
16. 16 You shall not burn it! Start early! Do not overcook ‘em! Andrea Zuliam, PM
17. 17 We aim to deliver APIs en minute.
18. 18 >> APIs stir-fried! Light cuisine for health-conscious customers. The new Squad-setup gives us the freedom to make decisions based on full responsibility for the API Product. The great support and trust of the Product-House leader enables us to deliver an a la carte menu to the customer, instead of the huge pre-Squad fixed menu *. Seemingly overnight we’re able to deliver Products without the need to know every detail of the final solution in advance. We’ve introduced solution design on a nap- kin, as well as immediate alpha-exposure. A sandbox environment is close to ready and we’re about to start utilizing DevOps **. 4 months ago we would never have dreamed about it! * Pre-Squad lunches were huge, cold, and rarely satisfied our guests’ appetite. ** Thanks to the operations-engineers for their great engagement!
19. 19 Pizza, Pizza! Setting up our first Squad, we tried to follow Jeff Bezos’s Two Pizza rule. Ac- tually, I started with four engineers, my Technical Lead and myself in the role of the Product Manager. Being six was perfect, but the split of our former API-Factory in four Squads meant the team grew to ten. * hopefully – sometimes, somewhere. We’d love to! I feel lucky … I have experienced the ‘Two Pizza team’ before, so I know the difference very well. It’s not a lack of commitment and engagement, simply the fact that a bigger team re-layers itself automatically. It immediately feels and acts like a little factory again. The complexity of the team increases exponentially as you put more people into it. Having Mr. Bezos for lunch* …
20. 20 "Never have a meeting where two pizzas couldn't feed the entire group." ~ Jeff Bezos
21. 21 We changed the way we cook On kitchen culture. We realized that the API program / API-Factory approach was just the old world disguised in an Agile coat. In the end we saw that whatever we did, it had no im- pact on the quality of our APIs or – even more important – the satisfaction of our customers. When we introduced the Squad approach, it was a shock to realize that our individual positions in the team could be single-points-of-failure. That really hurt – but nevertheless, it is 100% true. The former layered approach, with its hierarchy of responsibilities, turned out to be dysfunctional relative to our goals. Now every Squad is a fully responsible unit on its own, and the peer-to-peer and inter-Squad relations are leading to more and more excellence in the whole system! We act as a group of friends, responsible for their API-Products. From the very first contact – until delivery to the customer. This idea is not new, and closely reflects Conway's law, which states: “organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations” ~ M. Conway 1968
22. 22 Once we saw this, the former approach became absurd! “For two software modules to interface cor- rectly, designers and implementers must communicate with each other. Therefore, the structure of software systems will re- flect the social structure of the organization that produced it. Or, put simply, a layered hierarchical organisation will produce a lay- ered hierarchical system, whilst lean efficient Squads will produce lean efficient APIs. EUREKA!!” ~ M. Chalmers 2015
24. 24 Collaboration al dente On finding the right kitchen-ware In a layered world of silos, it’s un- derstandable that every silo and every layer uses its own tools. So did we!! Every de- partement used its own tool, best fitted to his world. We had long discussions about which tool to use … which tool best fitted all the needs of every stakeholder. Finally we decided to use JIRA, configured such that every party can be part of the game. Now, we’re REALLY happy to have it. Thanks to our JIRA experts!
25. 25 Healthy frozen faces What happens if you are responsible for the costs of an API? An enterprise delivery unit is used to follow processes regarding development, testing, documentation, tools and so on. Following all these cumbersome, prede- fined, policy driven rules is quite costly. Doing it this way, you do not really appre- ciate the costs. But this changed completely when we switched to the Squad approach. In the daily standup meeting, I often raise the question: “Would we decide it that way, if we had to pay it from our own money?” After careful pondering – the answer is of- ten: “No, we would do it differently!” That’s how we find new ways to get things done more effectively and less costly – and therefore – much quicker.
26. 26 german ice cream menu 1970's
27. 27 On brewing an API-IPA [5]! about really cool stuff ... Tom Weeks (VP, Customer Success at Apigee) and I met in June in Switzerland for a handful of meetings. Waiting in the sun we started to talk about the stunning fact that we both are passioned in APIs and IPAs. So what could be closer than bring these passions together. The first API-IPA was born! As soon as Tom came home he started to brew and me and my designers started to sketch the label. Cheers fellas!
28. 28 taken at: The Rock, Cambridge
29. 29 About Swisscom Swisscom is Switzerland’s leading telecom provider with its headquar- ters in Worblaufen, close to the capital city, Berne. With over 20,000 employees it generated turnover of CHF 2.82 billion in the first quarter of 2014. Swisscom is one of the most sustainable companies in Switzerland and Europe. What we stand for As a trustworthy companion in the digital world, we want to win peo- ple’s hearts, make things simple and shape the future so our customers feel safe and at ease. Products and services Swisscom offers mobile communications, fixed networks, Internet and digital TV to corporate and residential customers. We are also one of Switzer- land’s largest providers of IT services. We build and maintain the mobile and fixed-network infrastructure, transmit broadcast signals and own shares in media companies.
30. 30 Our employees Swisscom employs more than 17,000 staff at locations throughout Switzerland, around 1,000 of whom are apprentices. Around one in three have direct daily contact with customers, either in sales or customer service departments. Swisscom offers its staff excellent working conditions within the framework of a collective labour agreement. Who we work for The Swiss telecommunications market has an estimated annual turno- ver of around CHF 17 billion. Our market share varies between one- and three- fifths, depending on the field. Swisscom has decided to focus on residential customers, small and medium-sized enterprises and large corporations.
31. 31 Credits Author: Kay Lummitsch Passionate change maker | IT-Coach | Catalyst API-Evangelist, Swisscom Zurich – Switzerland mail: kay.lummitsch@swisscom.com mobile: +41 79 154 47 81 linkedIn: Kay Lummitsch Co-Author: Matt Chalmers Apigee – Customer Success, Cambridge – Great Britain mail: mchalmers@apigee.com mobile: +44 7812 995958 linkedIn: Matt Chalmers Design: Maude von Giese Graphic Designer, Basel – Switzerland mail: maude.vongiese@gmail.com mobile: +41 79 269 94 50 linkedIn: Maude von Giese
32. 32 Webversions: Edition #3 bit.ly/1L8PNd9 Edition #2 bit.ly/1DnIETv Edition #1 bit.ly/1basqBk Links: swisscom.ch developer.swisscom.com @swisscom_api Special thanks to: The whole API product house team and all supporting units Christin Schmidt (Business-Coach) 3nd edition, October 2015
33. 33 [1] An amuse-bouche [a‚myz‘buſ] (plural amuse-bouches) or amuse-gueule [a‚myz‘gœl] is a single, bite-sized hors d’œuvre. ~ Wikipedia [2] Sous-vide (/suː‘viːd/; French for "under vacuum") is a method of cooking in which food is sealed in airtight plastic bags then placed in a water bath or in a temperature-controlled steam environ- ment for longer than normal cooking times. ~ Wikipedia. [3] The Chianina (Italian pronunciation: [kja‘niːna]) is an Italian breed of cattle, formerly princi- pally a draught breed, now raised mainly for beef. It is the largest and one of the oldest cattle breeds in the world. The famous bistecca alla fiorentina is produced from its meat. ~ Wikipedia [4] The wine Merlot: bit.ly/1KQFgls Chianti: bit.ly/1FMtLfN Alternatively: bit.ly/1FMtQ34 ... and of course: bit.ly/1VsogKv [5] India pale ale (IPA) is a hoppy beer style within the broader category of pale ale. ~ Wikipedia References