A Product Manager's Guide to Surviving the Big Bang Approach to Agile Transitions

In 2006, Salesforce.com took a big bang approach to implementing the Adaptive Development Methodology (ADM): a unique blend of Scrum-style project management and the agile software development framework. The result was a huge success. In just three months, an R&D department consisting of 200 employees and 30 teams transitioned from a traditional waterfall-style approach to ADM. Less than sixteen months later, the company had realized a 37% increase in productivity.The rapid transition of ADM precipitated massive changes in how product managers work, interact with members of others departments, and manage dependencies between teams. This report details some of the challenges they faced, how they handled them, and how ADM has helped Product Managers become more effective.