Sapient is a global consulting firm that helps clients innovate their businesses in the areas of marketing, business operations, and technology. Consultants around the world use the Sapient|Approach methodology for all software development projects, regardless of the location(s) of the team members. Approximately 60 percent of Sapient's 4,000 consultants work in its India (Delhi and Bangalore) offices - and they, too, follow the distributed Agile methodology.  Sapient has even begun using Sapient|Approach for some non-development projects, including IT planning and strategy and some marketing programs.

With over 200 distributed Agile projects under its belt, Sapient has demonstrated the ability to run complex, large-scale distributed projects and

• Work in a single consultant culture. All staff in India, as well as Sapient's US and European offices, are full-time Sapient employees and participate in the same hiring and training processes.
  
  
• Consider an office to be an office. Delhi and Bangalore, or any other international location, are not considered offshore locations but rather they are considered to be just another Sapient office.
  
  
• Use the team room concept everywhere. This is a company-wide concept, implemented not only for development teams but for internal teams such as HR and finance. From developer to CEO, everyone works out in the open.

The industry continues to debate whether or not Agile processes are appropriate for distributed teams, let alone large and offshore distributed teams. How do Sapient consultants do this? As usual, it's a mixed focus on people, process, and tools that makes the difference. Let's look at each area, but in the reverse order.

Agile Tools
Given that close to 80 percent of Sapient's projects are distributed, project teams must have access to reliable and scalable tools from anywhere in the world. Using a mix of open source and commercial tools, Sapient has developed an internal "Agile application lifecycle management (Agile ALM)" environment to support its projects.

Rather than eschew tools for Agile projects, Sapient considers them to be necessary components. Sapient's platform includes:

• Integrated, full-lifecycle management tools. Sapient's vision of an "Agile ALM" suite of tools is not yet commercially available. Therefore, Sapient staff build, integrate, and support a wide range of integrated tools including: project management, software configuration management, issue/risk/defect tracking, Wiki support, online discussions and conferences, instant messaging, email, continuous integration, build and release management, unit testing, automated functional testing, and developer IDEs.
  
  
• A common tool platform for every project, worldwide. From the moment that a consultant joins the company, he is trained in the common set of tools that he'll use on every project. For every project, the toolset must provide a single integrated view of any project to all team members, including clients.
  
  
• Customization for client needs. Of course, some clients require specific tools or metrics, and so the Sapient platform is tailored to meet a client's needs. This could relate to a client's specific compliance requirements, desire for shorter iteration length, or other user-specific factors.

Sapient has reviewed commercial tools in the past and continues to look at best-of-breed solution. However, Senior Manager Erik Gottesman notes that the importance of integration keeps Sapient from turning to many commercial tools. Sapient consultants will continue to maintain tool integrations and custom features to ensure this seamless integration and usability.

Agile Processes
Even before adopting Agile processes, Sapient's distributed project teams used standard processes to facilitate team collaboration, distributed development and delivery, and management reporting. For example, every offshore team staffed a liaison or "client proxy" to work at the client location. This person was able to reach out to the client staff and resolve issues in a timely manner, and maintain productivity despite any time differences.

So what's different on an offshore Agile project? Sapient Vice President Brian Carter calls this role the "client proxy on steroids." The liaison role is the same, but the pace and intensity are notably different. The client proxy must coordinate with other sites multiple times during the day, to maximize the communication among sites, and drive the sense of urgency in resolving issues on a daily basis.

In addition, Sapient has some twists to its offshore Agile approach: 

• Direct client access. Staff in India (or at any location) are free to reach out to the client directly to expedite issue resolution. This is notably different from most offshore projects, where the consulting firm typically tries to shield the offshore staff from the client. Staff are free to use the phone - without fear of chargeback fees to the project.
  
  
• Sub-teams or "tracks" to facilitate self-managed teams. Teams are broken into tracks of five to 10 people, ideally at a single location, and conduct daily standup meetings. Track leaders coordinate amongst themselves and, rather than every team member, they bear the brunt of the distributed Agile communication challenges. Sapient draws on concepts from lean manufacturing, trying to minimize dependencies and reduce cycle time for each activity.
  
  
• Empowered teams. In addition to having direct access to the client or other team members, individual tracks are free to make changes to best improve their productivity. For example, a track may decide to shift its working hours to increase overlap with other locations.
  
  
• Emphasis on relationships. The importance of building and maintaining relationships among team member is paramount. Consultants and client staff travel between on- and offshore teams. It's especially effective for the client to travel to a remote location and see firsthand how the collaboration and distributed tools can work.

Agile People
Sapient's culture and value align with general Agile development values. Openness among team members is one of the most important factors - you have to be able to give and receive constructive feedback and hold fellow teammates accountable for the overall effort.

Specifically, Sapient management has invested in:

• Standard interviewing processes. Sapient requires consultants to have a mix of technical/domain skills, consulting skills, and values consistent with the overall company. This makes hiring in countries such as India more of a challenge. It's easy to find deep technical experts but much more challenging to find consultants comfortable working in the Sapient culture.
  
  
• Worldwide training. Agile processes continue to evolve, as do the integrated tools. Sapient offers standard training classes, distance learning, online training, and different types of mentoring. Managers are responsible for "growing" their staff in all dimensions.
  
  
• Flexible working environments. Face-to-face relationships are important but "facetime" in the offices isn't. In addition to working at different Sapient or client locations, staff may also telecommute or work from other locations. You don't have to be seen in the office to prove your worth.

Agile Processes Beyond IT
Sapient is expanding the use of Sapient|Approach and its Agile processes beyond IT. For example, in 2006 Sapient acquired interactive agency Planning Group International (PGI) and expanded its practices to include experience marketing and creative design. Sapient's Chief Creative Officer is considering applying Agile practices to these types of client marketing engagements. Really any project that seeks to improve value and quality while reducing risk can benefit from some Agile practices.

About the Author
Liz Barnett is the Editor in Chief of the Agile Journal and Principal Analyst at EZ Insight Inc. Previously Liz spent 10 years as a Vice President and Research Analyst at Forrester Research, joining Forrester as a result of its acquisition of Giga Information Group. Liz held management positions at Accenture, PepsiCo, and Atelier Research. She also was the Research Director for the advanced software development and advanced network computing research services at New Science Associates, prior to its acquisition by Gartner Group. Liz holds a patent for developing a distributed application development/CASE tool. Liz earned her B.S. in operations research and industrial engineering at Cornell University.

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Comments (3)

Anonymous, redux: ... I agree with the first commentor: the bit about the tools being internal and not ready for release seems a bit like marketing spin. 1 October 30, 2007 Anonymous: ... Good article but how do i know that Sapient does this the way it is presented. At some places it looks like pure marketing than genuine insights. Did the author get to look at the Sapient process closely? 2 May 04, 2007 Andy Murphy: ... I am happy that the article didn't just mention the important buzz-words (empowered teams etc) but also spoke of the important of face-to-face contact. Being responsible for the offshore outsourcing component of our team, I am happy that we employ most of the techniques listed in the article and continually look to see how we can improve the performance of our offshore teams. 3 February 15, 2007

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