Expert Panel on Agile Development (4th)

Overview

For an overview of this panel, please refer to Expert Panel on Agile Development .

Event Information

Date and Time:: Monday, December 8, 2025, from 14:00 to 16:00
Location:: Online (Microsoft Teams)
Committee members present:: Chair: Mr. Kano, Member: Mr. Sugii, Member: Mr. Okashima, Member: Mr. Sano, Advisor: Mr.

Agenda

Opening
Message from the Chairman
Agenda
- Review of the Previous Expert Panel
- Sharing and discussion of issues and hypotheses
- Upcoming Schedule
Closing and Communication

Material

Summary of the proceedings

The Secretariat explained the review of the previous Study Group and the issues and hypotheses of the current Study Group, followed by discussion. The main opinions of the committee members were as follows.

Product Owner Selection Criteria and Training Measures

As the size of the organization increased, the cost of coordination and coordination with other departments increased, and it sometimes took time to make decisions. Therefore, instead of having one Product Owner (PO) in the Scrum Team, a PO team is formed and operated by dividing roles in the team.
Regarding the role of the PO team, there are two patterns. One pattern is that the PO team coordinates with other departments such as the marketing department and the design department. The other pattern is that one person acts as a hub and coordinates with each department.
The "POA (Product Owner Advisor, which shall be referred to as" PO Assistant "in this Expert Panel)" described in the "agile type Development Playbook (hereinafter referred to as the" Playbook ")" of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is responsible for the detailed examination of the product backlog, etc., and is assumed to be assigned by the vendor. In addition, if a PO Assistant is similarly established in Digital Agency, it is considered that not a vendor but a person from Digital Agency should be assigned to the coordination of other departments.
In the case of an organization to which I belonged in the past, there were many cases where the PO (human resources in the organization) reviewed the situation with his / her superior and obtained his / her approval. I recognize that such organizational coordination is also the role of the PO.
It is assumed that vendors will be asked to serve as assistants to PO at the time of procurement. On the other hand, since it is assumed that PO will determine specifications, coordinate stakeholders, etc., it is considered necessary to clarify whether the PO team in Digital Agency will include a department that plays a role such as overall supervision (described in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Playbook).
In some projects, the Project Management Office (PMO) manages costs, schedules, and reports to the Steering Committee. However, since each Scrum Team lacks the capacity to autonomously determine costs and schedules, the PMO cannot just gather information from each Scrum Team, and as a result, when the PMO formulates budgets, etc., and reports to the upper management, there are cases where there is a gap with the actual feeling of the Scrum Team. I think that the overall control can be established on the premise that there is a Scrum Team under it that is progressing well.
For PO, I think it is appropriate to spend half of the time working with the team and the other half of the time listening to users, etc. If it is a project of a government agency, isn't it appropriate to spend 50% of the time on cooperation with other ministries and agencies and 50% of the time on the direction of the product? In addition, I think it is desirable for PO assistants to spend 50% of the time working with the team and 50% of the time examining the direction with PO in Scrum.
When the operation rate of PO is calculated from the time required for the scrum event, the minimum operation rate is about 20%, but the operation rate must be especially high in the initial stage of the project.
The idea that a minimum of 20% utilization is necessary is based on the assumption that the person is highly qualified, so it is not appropriate to base the checklist on this criterion.
I think that the learning effect is higher if training is received after 1-2 months of practical experience on agile development. It is important to accumulate experience as PO, even if it is a very small area such as taking charge of a part of the product function for release.
At his former organization, an assistant PO explained agile development and the role of POs and provided guidance while accompanying them, and one or two of them received external training from POs.

Capability and experience required for vendors

There are many companies that create a vendor pool, which is a database of vendors in the Digital Agency that have a track record of agile development, and that can do agile development as a necessary point of view when selecting vendors. However, it is better to use the ability to be an agile coach as a criteria as well as whether or not they have a track record.
In my previous organization, I focused on companies with active and motivated members of the Agile community.
When sourcing in Digital Agency, it may be useful to add the requirement of having an experienced agile coach.
I think it is important that the vendor has a strong Agile culture, frequent external presentations, and good communication within the Agile community.
Consideration should be given to whether or not it is appropriate to create a vendor pool from the perspective of public procurement, and what requirements should be set within the scope of not impairing fairness in the bidding system.
In general, it is effective to create a vendor pool when selecting vendors. However, since it is important to ensure fairness in the case of government offices, it is necessary to review the pool on a regular basis. I think it would be good to make the positioning a list of candidates for the call.
You need 1-2 people with agile coaching skills, but if you have a lot of people with software engineering skills on top of that, you can lower your overall risk.
It is desirable to adopt a comprehensive evaluation system in which the ordering party can evaluate the vendor's skills, although it imposes a heavy burden on the ordering party.
People who can create things that are easy to change are preferred, so it is better to create a checking perspective with different wording and not use the word agile so much.

Measures to Stabilize Scrum Teams

The first point is that, even in the case of single-year procurement, it is desirable to clearly state in contracts (specifications) at the time of procurement that information will be handed over for a certain period of time after the annual renewal. The second point is that, although this is not an example of an administrative organ, there were cases in which, when proceeding with development using a development environment contracted by an outsourcing vendor, when the outsourcing vendor is changed in the middle of the development process or the development is suspended, the outsourcing vendor has not appropriately handed over information or handed over intermediate products (date, etc.). If the development environment itself is set with a license on the Digital Agency side, it is not necessary to hand over information or intermediate products (date, etc.) from the outsourcing vendor. Therefore, this problem does not occur. Therefore, in cases where long-term development is assumed, it may be better to set the development environment on the Digital Agency side. However, in the case of development in a proprietary environment, costs on the vendor side may increase. Therefore, it is necessary to appropriately consider the necessity depending on the development target.
In the case of an organization that used to belong to the same organization, the ordering party tried to have a development environment as much as possible. Since the ordering party owns the source code and materials, it is possible to transfer them to another vendor. It is important to prepare an environment in which the parties concerned can perform the transfer by themselves, depending on the subject matter.
Neither the PO nor the ScrumMaster should change at the same time.
In order to reduce the risk, isn't it effective to create a multi-vendor state?
Regarding the multi-vendor situation, there is a proposal to adopt a consortium format at the stage of procurement. However, procurement will be conducted as one entity, and there is a problem of whether only part of it will be continued. In the case of large-scale procurement, it is possible to partially change the supplier, but there are not many cases.
In most cases in which vendors are replaced in the private sector (unlike in the public sector, where procurement is carried out in a single fiscal year in principle and vendors may be replaced each time), the pattern is one of capability incompatibilities. Under this pattern, there is no problem if the ordering party terminates the contract because the ordering party has control over it.
If the ordering party decides that there is a capability mismatch and terminates the contract with the vendor, the vendor will have to start from scratch with another vendor, and the vendor will not take over what has been developed to date.
What often happens in a mature product is that an excellent and busy person takes the leadership and divides the roles among the people around him / her, proceeds with the PO duties, transfers the duties to his / her subordinates step by step, and is promoted and transferred to another mission. In this way, it is useful to prepare on a regular basis so that the handover can be carried out smoothly when there is a transfer, such as by having the subordinates of the PO take charge of practical responses.
It is necessary to share issues and knowledge with other members in anticipation of the transfer of PO.
The appropriate handover period should be about three months to build relationships with stakeholders and external parties such as those outside the team.
In past cases, the assistant PO did not have a title, but was recognized as someone who was effectively in command.
I think it is important for the Agile CoE to provide guidance to the transferred POs and to stay with and support them until agile development gets on track. It is also important to organize the plans and milestones for the current year.
In my previous organization, the Agile CoE was not an explicit organization, but it consisted of several experts in agile development, and I made a function as a consultation window to ask questions about agile development. There was a system to receive technical support and know-how support from the beginning, and I was consulted through that system.
The support varied depending on the requirements and availability of supporters, but included teaching them how to write a product backlog and the concept of agile development.
When the Scrum Master is replaced, velocity is different for each team, so it is better to hand over the velocity measurement method, error rate, etc. as reference information instead of handing over the index figures.

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