Case Study | Agile Software Development for Cybersecurity Company

The Setup

A newly established Infrastructure and Network Security company leveraged an initial prototype to gain funding and grow the company quickly. With their rapid growth and focus on time to market, they stacked up a lot of tech debt. On the recommendation of one of their developers, they engaged Sketch to help introduce more agile development practices so they could develop at a sustainable pace and improve predictability.

The Challenge

Growing pains are the best problems a company can have, but only until growing pains become systemic pitfalls. Our client had many challenges in their way:

The team did not understand the application to a degree that they needed to.
The Product Owner’s priorities were continuously shifting.
Only 55% of planned stories were being completed.
They had 6 developers working on different parts of the application at various times, which led to a lack of testability and feedback.
The team was getting work done, but the software was rarely in a shippable state.

They needed to upgrade their automated testing strategy in a way that would be scalable, and to make sure that everyone would be able to work within their system in the future.

The Solution

Sketch started by delivering a 2-day Agile Bootcamp, followed by a high-touch coaching engagement that would help them improve their ceremonies, finalize team roles and responsibilities, and measure goals to establish a predictable level of scope churn. During this time, Sketch focused on:

Pairing and internal team coaching to set goals
Facilitating productive communication to keep executives caught up with team updates
Outcome-focused story mapping
Capacity planning and prioritization to understand the applications
Keeping product owner priorities consistent and protecting the sprint to manage change effectively

Implementing these new plans would benefit the team in both the short and long term.

The Results

Once the team was able to spend more time in their codebase, rather than scrambling around and attending meetings, light bulbs went off. The team began to focus on the value of their stories. Learning how to slice vertically resulted in more consistent story sizes and realistic estimations. Roles became more defined, which allowed everyone to act more decisively and collaborate without endless meetings.

The product owner began to rely on their team to carry out the plans of each sprint with less micromanagement. They finally took an honest look at how much tech debt they had accrued, too, and took intentional steps to reduce it instead of simply hoping for the best. An agile framework and reworked team structure increased the success rate of new projects.

Feedback from the client

“Our coach from Sketch did a great job bringing our team up to speed on the tactics, techniques, and processes necessary to make an agile transformation. He was a personal confidant during this time and helped coach us through a typically difficult transition. I would highly recommend not only him, but Sketch in an agile transformation.””

–Chief of Staff

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