First experiences on doing the SAP Scrum

In my blog on doing the SAP Scrum I described that we wanted to follow the Scrum approach for the second phase of the project. In the first phase we lived according to the traditional waterfall method and experienced the traditional issues.

Now we are three weeks on route and this week we started our first realization iteration, our first sprint. The past three weeks we focused on delivering the product backlog, the scope in deliverables so to say. Scope that is to be realized with SAP BPM, SAP XI, SAP CRM, ABAP and some minor (*) web development. Now I would like to share some experiences that we gathered over the past three weeks.

(*) Main focus is to realize backend components for an administrative process.

The traditional process of writing all relevant documentation first is taking too much time. Writing business requirements – evaluate. Writing functional specifications – evaluate. Writing technical specifications – evaluate. Realize / Build. Test, if there is still time left ;-)

So we decided to go for a Scrum, an agile approach that does not foresee in documentation templates. We had a scenario document that described the desired processes. On base of that we created sequence diagrams and with our agile coach Sander Hoogendoorn we decided to use Smart use cases to model our deliverables. With a training for the team we got up to speed and on the same knowledge level.

And then … modeling our first SAP Smart use cases:


After modeling it was time for estimating the use cases. Not in a traditional way of thinking how much time was required to realize, but with points. These points identify the complexity. As a team we decided per use case how many points were to be assigned: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 or 10 points. Ten points for either very complex stuff or for use cases with still some unclearness in it that has to be resolved before assigning the real points.


As a result:

284 points in total. With six iterations of 2 weeks and an estimation of 50 (best guess) points per sprint, it looks that we are able to manage. At least theoretically. In two weeks (after the first iteration) we get a better picture how realistic this is. We then know how many points we have realized in the first iteration. Keep you posted in two weeks ;-)

Recap up till now:

Plusses

• Whole team (IA, CRM, BPM, XI, ABAP, Test, Web) working collaboratively on the use cases and everyone is on the same knowledge level
• Flaws in specifications early identified
• Flaws in solution early identified
• Involvement of all parties (business representatives) concerned in daily scrum meetings

Points of attention

• Availability of key players
• Involve all content specialists (business and IT) while designing the product backlog
• Implement team availability rules: Plan individual meetings after 15:00; After the daily scrum max 15 minutes extension have discussions outside of the team; Make sure that you do not hold the rest of the team; Focus on project activities only

And interesting to see that team enthusiasm goes up and down, it is new to every member of the team. Within the SAP world agile is not wide spread (yet). So it is understandable to hang on to processes and approaches that someone is used to. However with the time we have left to our final delivery mid June, I still believe this agile approach is our only option.

SOA, after the hype

Oscar Mulders, a colleague, posted an article in Computable, a Dutch IT magazine.

"Customers do not ask for SOA, they long for the expected business advantages"

"Service orientation combined with BPM means shortening the throughput time and less effort required"

You can read the whole article at the Computable site (In Dutch).

Interesting Twitter discussion

After my last post on doing the SAP Scrum at my current project an interesting discussion evolved on Twitter:

Well I am a bit flattered that @yojibee thought that I was an SAP employee ;-) With "Doing the SAP Scrum" I was only looking for a catching title.

Doing the SAP Scrum

Today I finally finished my blog on the SAP Scrum. We started the second phase of the project by doing things differently, not the traditional waterfall but doing a Scrum.

In this blog you can read about some thoughts that kept me awake:

Why is it so hard to deal with changing requirements? Why is time pressure in a project forwarded to teams that are last in line, like developers and testers?

Read more in SAP Scrum: An agile approach to deliver what is really required.

SAP NetWeaver CE Install party

On January 13th we gathered for our TopForce Knowledge Night: SAP NetWeaver CE 7.1 EHP1 install party. Goal was to get the CE installed and running on the participants (16) laptops. After installation we planned to build the demo scenario as described in my SDN blog Easy process implementation with SAP NetWeaver BPM. Quite a full program, and we almost made it to the end. As we had to leave the office at 21:30 sharp we ran out of time and could not deploy and test run the application. Despite that we had a great evening with a lot of fun, strange issues (with 16 laptops you can get 16 different error messages) and new SAP NetWeaver BPM enthusiasts.

Temperature is rising, will it work or not?

See Tim looking really seriously to his process composer "Great stuff".

Conclusions of the evening:

• Without the install manual it is very hard, installing CE is not plug and play
• Installing the downloaded SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio is even more complicated. Lucky for us that is described very well in the manual as well. But it is still strange that after installing you immediately have to update the installation.
• Great fun, we can plan a second handson session on BPM

Tutorial on BPM / BRM

It took some time to get the movie recorded and uploaded to the internet. Finally my demo scenario of the last two posts is visible available in a tutorial movie on BPM/BRM.



I hope it will help you explore things in the new SAP NetWeaver BPM world, despite the fuzziness of the movie.

I have added it to the SDN blog, Easy process implementation with SAP NetWeaver BPM / the BRM sequel.

BRM troubles resolved

Pff, thanks to Arti from SAP Product Management BRM I found out that my BRM troubles were caused by my download release of SAP NetWeaver CE 7.1.

I was using: Build id: 200809132152, downloaded in October 2008. After a fresh download and a complete re-install of CE, I am now using Build id: 200811082206.

Installation of both CE and the IDE is still nog plug and play. But fortunately a very well written manual is delivered with the download: Install&Configure_CE_Preview71EHP1-Dec2008.pdf.

When you experience an error during the CE installation, just click 'Retry' somewhere around step 20. And do that again when the same error pops up. That did the trick during my installation.

I started the installation at 11:06 and it was finished at 12:42, including starting up the CE environment. A new record, 1,5 hour!

The new installation resolved my BRM issues and you can read more about this in my SDN blog: Easy process implementation with SAP NetWeaver BPM / the BRM sequel.

BRM troubles

During SAP TechEd08 I really got enthusiastic on SAP NetWeaver BPM, formerly known as Galaxy and in 2008 again branded as Galaxy. Especially the integration of the Business Rules engine made me want to try this at home. Personally I feel that BRM is not optional within BPM, it is not a feature, it belongs to the total concept of process orchestration. Without it, BPM is not complete.
So I built a BPM demo for the TopForce Learning Day. A recap of this demo can be found in my SDN blog Easy process implementation with SAP NetWeaver BPM. A simple process but effective enough to show the power of the concept.

I updated this process to implement BRM:

Now I want to implement a business rule with BRM. But unfortunately I can’t get this to work. What I want to do is extend the process with a mapping step in which the rule get called. Within this rule the expense amount gets checked: Under €25 the expense gets validated automatically and above that the manager needs to approve or reject. In BRM this looks like:

In the mapping of the mapping step (strange line ;-) the rule gets called:

On base of a tip given by Arti from SAP on my forum question: Integration of BRM within BPM doesn’t work, I even created a new context in stead of re-using the Web Dynpro context:

Creating a new context is a bit strange, re-using is better/easier. But anyway I tried as I can no longer think of any other options myself.

Unfortunately I can’t get it to work. The process will start but the rule does not behave as expected. Every expense statement gets rejected.

The one thing that is different compared to what I heard during TechEd08 and what I read on SDN, is that I implemented the rule directly in BPM. I did not create a stand alone BRM application that contains the rules and gets called via Java code in a Web Dynpro application. Maybe it will work that way, but that is not how the targeted users of BRM want to implement business rules. They, the BPX-ers, don’t read or write Java code. They orchestrate the business process and rules should be directly implemented while modeling the process.

Who has the answer or solution? I personally think that the integration of BRM within SAP NetWeaver BPM is not finished completely.