About Agile, Scrum and teamwork. How are the processes of product development in the Alpha Laboratory

Inflexible "Enterprise" and flexible methodologies

There is a well-established opinion that an IT specialist in large companies is a small “cog” in a huge mechanism, designed to perform a specific function. And the mechanism, in turn, ruthlessly exploits the resource of its "cogs".

However, we (at Alfa-Bank in general and at Alfa-Laboratory in particular) take a different approach. An approach where the efforts of all participants in the process are aimed at creating value for the client, and the way in which they achieve this may contain very many degrees of freedom.


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I will tell you how work processes are arranged in our Laboratory. We rely on the concept of Agile. We chose Scrum as the main framework, the production-model is command-centric.

The composition of teams varies depending on the needs of the product being created, but almost always it is the “full stack” necessary for the refinement or development of the product. Most often, this is a Product Owner (PO), a scrum master, designer, systems analyst, several developers and a tester. Recruited 7 - 10 people. There are about 30 such teams in Laba.

Our principles

In our work, we try to adhere to a number of principles that help us achieve greater efficiency. I will tell about them in more detail.

Cross-functionality and mutual assistance

One of the most important things in teamwork is in-team interaction.

We do not set tasks in teams like “developer - writes code”, “analyst - prepares documentation”, etc.

The overall goal of the team is for the customer to receive value. And if, for example, we have accumulated a queue in testing, the rest of the guys help their tester to make the team fulfill the goals of the sprint and, according to its results, bring in the product increment.

In Scrum Guide, this is called a “cross-functional team.”

No customers or performers

Most teams sit together in groups in the same location, and product engineers are part of the team.

PO spends with the guys every day - from morning to evening, he knows what his team lives and breathes, what it does today and what it will do tomorrow.

Accordingly, the whole team is involved in the development of backlog. We do not have such that PO as a customer “loads” the requirements team and then just waits for the result.

Productologists come to the team with a client problem (sometimes it happens that immediately with a solution). Further, all team members are involved in working out the problem, forming hypotheses, searching for solutions — together they make a story map, create user stories, discuss scenarios, decide how the product will look.

At the same time, team members have the full right to discuss their ideas for improving the product.

For example, as a leader of analysts and scams, I never give them directives. The team determines what to do together with its PO.
The main value of all this is that all team members are involved in the product creation process and feel much more responsible for what they have done.

Iteration

As it should be, the work is constructed by iterations. Teams themselves determine the length of their sprint, but usually it is 1 or 2 weeks, because it is critically important for us to get feedback from the client as soon as possible and more often.

Transparency

We strive to be as transparent as possible - within teams, for a product specialist, for stakeholders.

As a “thermometer,” we use the burndown chart of the team’s sprints. Burndown quickly reflects the problems arising in the process of work (if the schedule is “flat”), and we can respond to these problems in a timely manner.

In addition, from the totality of schedules of several sprints, you can assess the overall situation in the team.

It is very convenient that all our teams use Jira as a task manager - using this, we set up a general dashboard, which shows all 30 burndown diagrams. We can say that this is our Flight Control Center :)

Do not be shy

In continuation of the theme of transparency, let's talk about an important event for us - a demonstration of the results.

At the end of the iteration (every one or two weeks) Sprint Review is held on each team - the guys show and tell what they did during the sprint.

The composition of those invited to the “demo” is determined at the discretion of the team - they can either invite real users, or restrict themselves to a demonstration to their colleagues and their PO.

In addition to the regular team sprint review, a monthly Demo Day is held once a month, on which all teams demonstrate the value they brought to customers over the past month.

On the Demo day, we also periodically invite “live” clients, stakeholders from the bank and in general all interested and caring people to get their feedback.

Reward system

In addition to a comfortable office, interesting tasks, a cool team and standard “white salary + VHI”, we have a system of employee motivation.



Motivation as financial - in the form of a bonus for those who show excellent results in work, is the leader of improvements and helps colleagues, and non-financial.

For example, the contest "The Best of the Best", which is held once a quarter.
Any employee of the Laboratory can note the success of his colleague and nominate for participation in the “Best of the Best”.

Winners of the competition, we award in front of the entire Laboratory. At the same time, we don’t give money, but try to find out about the hobbies of the winners and donate something truly valuable to them.

Who's new

We pay a lot of attention to the search and selection of people.

Of course, candidates should have a technical education, but no less important selection criteria for us are the ability to work in a team, enthusiasm for what you do, the desire to develop and improve.

The human qualities of the candidate, whether he suits us in spirit - these are the things we pay attention to during the interviews.

In order to rejoin our team of guys to get used to the new environment, in the new environment, we organized such a thing as a “mentoring institution”.

Its essence is that a mentor is assigned to a newcomer - this is not a leader, but a colleague who has enough experience for this. The task of the mentor is to help as quickly as possible to adapt in the team, to understand the device Laba, our rules and principles, as well as to solve all the technical and organizational issues.



Also on the shoulders of a mentor falls the task of introducing a person into the subject area.

The first 2-3 days this happens in the narrative mode of the tutor, and then the pair work begins. The newcomer joins one of the teams and continues his training already in practice, fulfilling real business tasks.

In general, we do everything so that the newly arrived guys as early as possible start bringing value to the team, customers and the bank.

At the beginning of the probationary period, the “recruit” and his mentor form a “100-day plan,” in which they jointly set goals for the next three months and agree on the metrics for the success of the probationary period.

Although in fact, usually after a month it becomes clear whether a person is suitable for us or not, since progress, willingness to change, engagement and desire for improvement manifest themselves quite quickly.

I think our special attention to these particular criteria helped us to put together such a great team, to work in which is always a joy and pleasure!

If you share a similar approach to work and would like to become part of the team - pay attention to our current vacancies - interface designer , Scrum master , iOS developer and many others .