Hello folks,

Has anyone else setup their TBM Office in a SCRUM setup? 

When looking at the proposed roles from Apptio, they are very traditional where I believe there is a great opportunity to re-develop an operational model using SCRUM.  The feature development and sprint based way of working fits very well with the built in processes needed for a successful TBM Office.

If the implementation of TBM/Apptio was also an Agile or SCRUM based implementation this also eases the transition to an operational department as you take the same staff and way of working in the project to the ongoing situation.

At this moment Apptio recommends the following roles:

• Executive Sponsor
• Functional Analysts & Specialists
• TBM Program Director
• TBMA

Under a SCRUM structure you can simplify the roles into:

• Product Owner  - link to Executive sponsor and performs role of TBM Program Director
• Scrum-master - can be a rotating role in the delivery team
• TBMA's (delivery team) - this can be a multi-skilled team with T-shaped profile people who have skills in the following areas
  • Business knowledge
  • Finance
  • Tooling experts

You move from 4 role definitions to 3 types of roles with a focus on cross-skilling people in terms of Scrummaster and delivery team skills.

Very interesting @Sandor Welfing. I've tagged this so it will show up in the news feed of anyone who has identified as a head of TBMO in profile settings. 

You're right!!! in my opinion the approach you present is more realistic than the original one.

We started with a reduced TBM office team, and as we approach the moment to expand dedicated resources the SCRUM approach makes a lot of sense.

One of the barriers to team expansion is the political background of headcount allocations. Proposing a flexible approach to where those TBMA resources may reside makes the decision a little easier, and the SCRUM approach helps explain the functional dynamics to make it work.

Thanks

Our TBM team delivers using a "SCRUM-Ban" approach.  (Hybrid of SCRUM and Kanban) We use a backlog and prioritization process and deliver in increments, but we do not use the time-boxed sprints to deliver.  Instead, we use Kanban's continuous flow/pull process to pull the work in in.   Either approach requires someone to play the role of a product owner to help prioritize the features/user story prioritization. 

Love this idea - the TBMO at RBS are starting to working in a more Agile way and there may be the option to move to more of a SCRUM based way of working. We're starting with getting a kanban set up and just introducing sprints. 

Exciting times & can't wait to hear how others are working

Perhaps we can make this a topic at one of the London Financial Services User groups - share best practices on how to self-organise.

Like the sound of that Sandor, adding @Sasha Dunford in for reference

Adding it to the agenda now  @Julie Batty, @Sandor Welfing

Keen to hear how Scrum/ Agile works for those that operate this way within TBMO.

We are implementing Apptio using Scrum framework and it works very well with the entire project from contract sign off to Bill of IT taking only 1 year (Global Implement across 20 countries).

Interesting Concept, we recently proposed agile transition from moving Apptio implemenation to operations.Haven't yet started but working out on nitty gritty of the same. Anybody did this before? would love to hear from you guys?

Interesting...  Since our world revolves around the GL, we still tend to function as a waterfall operation.  Especially since the date we receive the GL can fluctuate, we produce prioritized work until the GL comes in, then, all focus is on the GL and QC until production release.

This is pretty cool @Sandor Welfing! At Aflac, we used a scrum-based approach to operate our TBM office. We did have some challenges with adapting the routine, recurring operational activities, but we worked through it. @Ronny Hucke, who currently heads the TBMO at Aflac, can give you more information on this and is a wealth of information!