SDG began by assessing how the Star Tribune digital organization planned and delivered software. The goal: to better understand their agile maturity and improve their product planning and delivery processes. Through close collaboration with Star Tribune’s leadership and operational staff, SDG identified opportunities to improve and partnered to implement agile process that aligned with Star Tribune’s organizational goals.

They implemented the Scrum framework, working with Star Tribune leadership on foundational tenets. As a part of this implementation, Star Tribune introduced roles of product owners and Scrum master and defined products and aligned them to the newly established roles and cross-functional teams.

SDG coached the employees of Star Tribune during this transformation. Workshops included an overview of agile, Scrum basics, agile estimation techniques, story creation, and story mapping. They paired this work on agile with the continual maturation of Star Tribune’s DevOps processes.

To ensure alignment and focus on technical excellence, SDG’s agile coach worked closely with the teams to establish agile ceremonies, including weekly planning sessions, two-week sprints, and reviews and retrospectives. The retrospectives proved especially valuable, serving as a forum for the team to share feedback and strenghten their working relationships — and ultimately the quality of their products. Many people in the organization had not worked together closely before, so this was a significant shift in how Star Tribune’s software was built.

After the initial project, SDG remained engaged with Star Tribune to support a successful transition and ensure they’re meeting their product goals and fulfilling their important mission. SDG continues to consult with Star Tribune leadership on their agile transformation, and the organization’s advertisers and audience are seeing the results.