| S.No | Project Details | Challenges | Possible Solution | Results |
| 1 | Development of new range of product functionalities for international market in the area of voice service and alternate channels Team size: 90+ across the globe (20+ from organization). Technology: ASP.net, Voice XML, C++, MFC | Earlier release had the following issues that need to be addressed: § Delay in schedule as testing took more than the planned time. § Too many defects during the testing phase § High requirements volatility CTQ for current release: § Time to market § Frequent deliverables and early releases § Handling requirements volatility | § Distribution of work done functionality wise with minimum interdependencies § Followed best practices like Test Driven Development, Continuous Integration and Simple Design § 3-4 week iterations (12 Iterations) § Testing team worked in close collaboration of the development team for all iterations. § Rigorous Test automation | § Release done on time (as planned) – early time to market § Prevented effort overrun (which was 50% in previous release) – this resulted in equivalent cost saving § 3 times improvement in elapse time for test case automation § Improvement in productivity by 10-30% in different sub subsystems § C-sat received 5/5 as compared to 4/5 for previous release |
| 2 | Development of an interface layer to support XPS driver for an already existing framework; early delivery of a fully functioning prototype for PlugFest Team Size: 11 (1 onsite, 10 offshore) Technology: C, C++ | § § Restricted support from Microsoft on § Early delivery of fully functioning prototype for the customer for a demo § Limited technical knowledge in the team | § Detailed Iteration planning helped risks to surface earlier § Daily Standup meetings were used for tracking and early identification of issues § Continuous build (hourly) using Cruise control and focused testcase automation (PTConfirm, DTM, Prefast) § Pair programming followed for all critical tasks | § Delivered the full functioning prototype for the PlugFest § Pair programming helped in the juniors coming to speed early even with limited competence in vista § Due to Pair programming, the team did not have any problems when the senior members had to travel onsite for the PlugFest § Handled 50% requirements volatility § Productivity improvement of 40% over established goal § CSAT of 5/% |
| 3 | Enhancement and bug-fixing for the Yellow Book - maintain list of companies, addresses, phone numbers, products etc. in an online system Team Size: 5 Technology: JAVA/J2EE | § High Requirements Volatility (frequent changes in priority) § Need to improve productivity with no compromise on quality | § Detailed iteration planning and daily standup meetings § Reduced Documentation: Design decisions and scenario diagrams were captured in 2 pages § Daily Reviews § Test Driven Development using JUnit § Continuous Integration using ANT Scripts | § Productivity improved from 2.05 enhancements / person-week to 3.75 enhancements / person-week § No Post Delivery Defects § Improvement in Estimations § Ease of project tracking § Appreciation from customer |
| 4 | Web deployment of features that delivers a full proposition insurance scheme with level and decreasing Term options, with and without tax relief feature for single and joint cases. The features should be deployable in multiple channels like consumers, call centers, partners etc Team Size: 11 (1 onsite, 12 offshore) Technology: XML/XSLT/VB in OWL framework | § Time critical project § Unclear requirements (were evolving over time) § Design done at onsite (were provided in drips) § SIT and UAT will be done by another vendor § Majority of team (8 members) had limited technical experience § Several CRs were expected during the System Testing phase – when the system is tested in totality by another Vendor. | § Weekly iterations - tracked on a daily basis § UTC included Integration testing (in development environment) § Coding and test-cases developed by 2 different developers – brought in redundancy in the system and a healthy competition § Daily reviews (by Tech Leads) § Frequent integration (almost on a daily basis) § Any bug/scope for improvement found in the previous iteration items were actioned immediately. | § Achieved the planned time to market (Tasks completed within the given timeframe) § Handled 49% Requirements Volatility § Reduction in SIT and UAT defects by 53% (when compared to Org Norms). § 34% improvement in CUT productivity (when compared to Org Norms). § Client appreciated the team performance (via emails) |
| 5 | Development of new functionalities and enhance existing functionalities to the fault management system Team Size: 2 Teams from organization of size 12 and 14 (10 teams across the globe) Technology: Java, J2EE, C++ | § Earlier release had o No regular communication between the teams on dependencies/ implementation changes – resulted in a lot of incorrect implementation o Problems with late integration – defects detected much later in the life-cycle o Low levels of automation o Delays in intermediate milestones and the final go-live | § Daily Scrum Meetings within the project teams. In case of dependencies between teams, technical Scrum was conducted immediately; Program level tracking (Scrum of Scrums) – conducted twice a week § Demo at the end of every iteration at program level; Client feedback was recorded and acted upon in next iterations § Daily program-level Builds and smoke tests using Cruise Control. Build failures were highlighted in program level meetings § Increased test automation levels and code coverage thorough effective usage of tools like C++ Test, JTest | § Reduction of Post Delivery Defects to 0.11 defects/KLOC (from 0.3 def/KLOC) § Increased rigour in identifying defects early (fault finding capacity increased from 57% to 89%) § Productivity increased from 1.78 CFFP/PM to 2.22 CFFP/PM § Improved automation rate, build participation and success rates § Delighted Customer – shared organization’s success criteria to the rest of the program. Received a CSAT of 4/5 for this release |