International Game Technology (IGT)

Firm Improves Collaboration, Delivers Products Faster with Software Development System

International Game Technology (IGT) is a global designer and manufacturer of computerized gaming machines and systems for casinos. The company’s software developers work from three office sites, which made project collaboration a challenge. The company also lacked a unified system for source-code control, which meant that IGT had challenges delivering high-quality products on schedule. With the assistance of Microsoft® Services, IGT implemented a solution that combines Microsoft Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Suite with new engineering processes and management practices. Now, IGT has a more streamlined development approach and developers can collaborate much easier. The development process is more visible for developers, and the company can produce and deliver new products faster. IGT also expects to gain efficiencies with development resources, including reduced licensing costs.

Situation

International Game Technology (IGT), based in Reno, Nevada, specializes in the design, manufacturing, and sales of computerized gaming machines and gaming system products for casinos all over the world. IGT delivers software business solutions and services that help accelerate business innovation and growth for its customers. Best known for innovative products such as Table ID, NexGen Player interactive devices, the Advantage gaming management system, and the EZ Pay ticketing system, IGT continues to deliver new solutions like its server-based line of products—including sbX Floor Manager™ and Media Manager™—that provide casino managers with the tools necessary to manage the gaming floor and the player experience through use of advanced software.

Our solution uses proven methodologies, along with the integrated development and collaboration tools in Visual Studio Team System. That means we can deliver higher-quality products to our customers.  Surinder Singh Vice President of Enterprise Gaming Systems IGT

IGT has close to 5,000 employees, who work in the Reno headquarters as well as in offices in Las Vegas and other branch offices around the globe. The organization’s 300 software developers primarily work in offices in Las Vegas, Reno, and Corvallis, Oregon. In spite of their geographic disparity, these developers need to regularly collaborate on development projects.

“Each of our product lines has its own separate team, with developers spread across all three different offices,” says Surinder Singh, Vice President of Enterprise Gaming Systems, IGT. “Working together on a particular development project was quite challenging. We had 300 developers working in different locations and using their own development processes without formal and standard engineering practices in place.”

Another major challenge was a lack of standardized source-code control for IGT developers. Source-code control typically gives developers the ability to check a project’s source code in or out of a central repository. With that capability, developers can collaborate on the same project without fear of deleting another developer’s code or overwriting another’s code changes. However, as IGT acquired new products and development teams through mergers and acquisitions, it also acquired separate source-code management systems. Without a system in place that standardized the control of source code, IGT developers had difficulty managing their files throughout the development life cycle.

“The products we were developing were supposed to have strong dependencies on each other, but there were many different methodologies in place and separate repositories for source code,” Singh says. “The code for any given team’s product was not visible to another team.”

Also, IGT developers lacked tools that could give them the ability to build quality control into the early stages of the application development life cycle. Without such tools, identifying performance issues or code defects in early stages of development was a difficult process. That meant that teams could collaborate only near the end of a production cycle, when all the different product components were combined. Often it was only then that major bugs were discovered in the code. As a result, the effort to develop new products was hindered.

“The product interface dependencies that needed to be in place between teams were not synchronized. During development, the interfaces would change, and when the team released the software to our quality assurance group, the integrated set of products would not work,” Singh remarks. “This affected our effort to deliver a good product on time to our customers.”

At the same time, IGT was being asked by management to deliver more new products. “Our developers had to collaborate across teams much more, so there was an urgent need for us to have an integrated and cohesive engineering team and standardized source-control system,” says Singh.

In January 2008, IGT started looking for a new technology solution to help solve those critical issues.

Solution

As it began searching for a development solution, IGT became interested in Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Suite, which provides an integrated tool set for design, architecture, development, and testing of applications. Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite contains source code control, work item tracking, bug management, and other features as well as tools for analysis, code metrics, and testing. Team Suite also includes performance tools that can help developers identify issues and optimize code.

Working together on a particular development project was quite challenging. We had 300 developers working in different locations and using their own development processes without formal and standard engineering practices in place.  Surinder Singh Vice President of Enterprise Gaming Systems IGT

IGT was also interested in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server, a unified server for source-code control, process guidance, and project tracking. Team Foundation Server provides integrated software change management with reporting capabilities. Working with Team Foundation Server, developers can share source code and easily track all changes in a central repository.

The sbX development team at IGT, after a brief consulting engagement with Microsoft in late 2006, had already been using Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server for source-code control, iterative development, and project management using the Microsoft Agile-based process template. “It made sense that all of our product teams should use the same technology,” Singh says.

However, IGT needed more than new technology—it needed enhanced and improved engineering processes. Singh and another IGT manager contacted the Team Foundation Server product team at Microsoft and learned that Microsoft Services could help with a complete end-to-end application life-cycle management (ALM) solution based on proven practices and knowledge.

Beginning in January 2008, a team of Microsoft Services consultants came to IGT and began interviewing the different development teams and analyzing the source-control systems in place. The Microsoft Services team then offered to provide IGT with a complete solution known as the Microsoft ALM Framework, which would include assessment, road map, deployment of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite and Team Foundation Server, build-management customization, and coaching in live product-development projects.

Following an initial comprehensive assessment and road map of the IGT development processes, Microsoft Services recommended that IGT form two engineering teams to go through a pilot production implementation of Team Suite and Team Foundation Server. “During the pilot, we consolidated all the different IGT development teams on a single source-code control system using Team Foundation Server version control,” says James Pickell, Senior Consultant, Application Lifecycle Management Global Practice, Microsoft Services. “We also helped them standardize their file-versioning process and consolidate branch management, which is how they produce service packs for different product components.”

Most importantly, Microsoft Services assisted IGT in managing the product life cycle, including planning, implementation, configuration, and management. “During that process, we sat down with developers every day and helped them manage the development teams, we helped them prioritize bugs in the code, and we helped them manage the entire process through to a product release,” Pickell says. As part of its assistance, Microsoft Services educated IGT developers in development methodologies and tools.

Benefits

Adopting its new development tools and processes quickly and with no risks, IGT has been able to streamline every aspect of the product development life cycle. And with standardized source-code control, IGT developers on different teams can collaborate much better and have more visibility into the entire development process. The organization is now able to deliver products to market as planned and can meet the needs of customers more effectively.

Streamlines the Development Process

With its new combination of technology and software development life-cycle processes, IGT has a single development environment in which to perform project management, source-code control management, and testing. IGT can now use standardized methodologies and technology across all of its development teams, which helps streamline the overall process of developing software products.

IGT also has a better ability to manage its development processes because Microsoft Services provided the education and management coaching that IGT was looking to use along with established prepackaged services. “The knowledge and the new methodology we now have in place are more important than just the technology itself,” Singh says. “There was a lot of education that had to take place so our development teams could fully understand how to manage the development process, along with how to use the source-code control system. Microsoft Services worked closely with us to make sure that happened.”

The integrated technology and methodologies that Microsoft Services helped us implement have contributed to IGT being able to deliver our products on time.  Surinder Singh Vice President of Enterprise Gaming Systems IGT

Gives Developers the Ability to Collaborate Better

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite and Team Foundation Server give IGT a consolidated development environment for its three primary development teams. IGT developers no longer need to use multiple source-code systems to manage files and version control. As a result, IGT developers can collaborate much more easily than before.

“By using the single source-code system in Team Foundation Server, along with our new development processes, our developers can work as one integrated team, because they all use the same source for file versions,” says Singh. “And with our new software development management practices, we have a better understanding of how to work together through all phases of the development cycle.”

Previously, because they had to use various source-code control systems, IGT developers were able to truly collaborate only at the very end of a product production cycle. “Even though a product’s components had worked fine in isolation, a team would find major defects when all the components were combined,” says Pickell. “Now, using the new development tools in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite, IGT developers can find defects right from their desktops. They have the ability to collaborate right during the development process.”

Improves Visibility into Projects

Developers at IGT have much better visibility into the development process overall because Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite contains built-in source code control, work item tracking, bug management, and testing and analysis tools. Developers can now see what changes are being made to a product during the development process itself. “Before we had this solution, if our developers needed to debug code, they could not see the entire set of source code,” says Singh. “However, with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite, they can easily inspect or walk through the code developed by other teams and determine where the problem is, as opposed to speculating where it might be.”

Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server contains reporting features that help IGT developers easily create a range of reports for analyzing work items, bug rates, and other critical data. “As our developers move forward in developing new products, we will be able to use the reporting and analysis features in Team Foundation Server to further improve visibility into our product development process,” Singh says.

Helps IGT Deliver New Products Faster

Having new tools and processes in place has helped IGT address its primary business challenge: giving customers new software products on schedule. “The integrated technology and methodologies in the Microsoft Services portfolio that consultants helped us implement have contributed to IGT being able to deliver our products on time,” confirms Singh. “Because of the dependency planning we now have, we no longer have to spend time reacting to defects at the end of the development cycle. We can develop products effectively and efficiently, and deliver them to market faster than we could before.”

Ultimately, IGT will be able to develop better products as the result of its new solution, which uses best practices and tools to make sure software is consistent throughout all stages of product development. “Our solution uses proven methodologies, along with the integrated development and collaboration tools in Visual Studio Team System,” says Singh. “That means we can deliver higher-quality products to our customers.”

Helps IGT Save Resources

With an enhanced software development system that standardizes source-code control and improves developer collaboration, IGT will likely be able to conserve budget for its development teams. Licensing costs may be lower because different IGT development teams are now sharing tools. Previously, for example, one team purchased a license for an installer while another team purchased a license for a separate product. “Instead of having to buy multiple licenses for support products, they can just buy one,” Pickell says.

Singh adds that the larger benefit is the work that development teams at IGT can now share. “There will be cost savings, but above everything else is the new consistency we now have in relation to product development,” he says. “Whether it’s the standardized source code or the way in which development teams are learning from each other, the new processes we have and our Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite solution are transforming our entire development practice.”

For More Information

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For more information about International Game Technology products and services, visit the Web site at:
www.igt.com

For more information about Microsoft Services, go to:
www.microsoft.com/services

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is the world's most popular development environment for designing, developing, and testing next-generation Windows®-based solutions and Web applications and services. By improving the development experience for Windows, the Web, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office, Visual Studio 2008 helps organizations deliver a variety of solutions more productively than ever before. Visual Studio Team System expands the product line with new software tools that enable greater communication and collaboration throughout the development life cycle. Interaction between developers and designers is enhanced through the use of Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Expression® Studio. With Visual Studio 2008, businesses can deliver modern service-oriented solutions more efficiently.

For more information about Visual Studio 2008, go to:
www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published May 2009