Microsoft Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Turns to Rally to Seamlessly Manage Offshore Development Efforts
Driven by a need to simplify what were becoming mammoth development projects with thousands of pages of related documentation, the development teams and executives at Microsoft Advertiser and Publisher Solutions eagerly transitioned from waterfall methodology and embraced Agile principles a few years ago. Although they were much more productive than when using waterfall, they found themselves running each sprint as a mini waterfall project. They then incorporated XP as a way to have a set of development practices which all reinforced each other. Where they once had one massive project, Microsoft Advertiser and Publishing Solutions now has 11 separate teams, releasing incrementally across the year.
For the search development team, getting their solution to market fast and with as few communication snags as possible is a critical part of their release process. They had used Agile practices for several years, but with homegrown spreadsheets to track and manage iterations and planning. Although spreadsheets worked well when the team was relatively small and contained, the process became increasingly unwieldy and unmanageable as the team grew. An offshore team only added to the complexity of a process that that was beginning to block effective development management. They knew there had to be a better way.
