Implementation Planning

SITUATION

Although Digital Foundry had worked with Time Warner Cable for five years, we’d always developed projects using the traditional “waterfall” implementation model, an approach the company was comfortable with.

Under this method, all features, requirements, and functionality are defined in advance before any technology is actually developed. But this rigid “define before develop” framework can lead to extended project schedules – and long delays if requirements change.

During a meeting with Time Warner Cable executives on improving the efficiency of implementing new website releases, we introduced the idea of using an agile development methodology. We presented a scenario of how this process would work – explaining why it could be far more flexible and much faster than the waterfall process.

Although company executives were initially hesitant, they realized that they could introduce new functionality on an accelerated, iterative schedule – and have the flexibility to decide which features would be introduced in a series of more tightly scheduled releases. Given these benefits, the Time Warner Cable team agreed to implement the next release using an agile methodology.

SOLUTION

The hallmark of the agile methodology is to promote transparency and to speed up release times through more frequent project iterations – allowing our clients to be more responsive to changes in business needs and consumer demands.

With extensive experience in agile methodology, Digital Foundry was asked to help Time Warner Cable plan for a transition to an iterative release model. Before we could put a fundamentally different process into play, we needed to educate the team on the founding priciples of agile development along with its merits and pitfalls.

Once the team felt comfortable with their level of understanding, the team set forth to prove the notion that agile development was the right methodology for Time Warner. In concert with the Time Warner team, we put together a comprehensive sprint plan and established a product backlog of discrete features to be developed in upcoming development iterations (sprints). An internal product owner that could effectivley prioritize new features was identified and coached on their responsibilites in this new work flow.

Using tight development windows, features were deployed in a fraction of the time that it was taking using the waterfall method with fewer change requests.

RESULTS

By incrementally building new features in tight two-week iterations, Digital Foundry helped Time Warner Cable:

• Reduce development time for new releases from months to just a handful of weeks, delivering rapid progress and highly visible results.
• Accelerate time to market for implementing new strategies that might require new technologies.
• Understand and embrace a methodology that’s highly suitable for ongoing website improvements, offering more efficiency and greater visibility for monitoring progress.