A First-Hand Experience in Converting to Agile: Lessons from BlackLine

Agile is often talked about as a methodology, but for BlackLine it became a way to preserve the best parts of a fast-moving startup culture while growing into a large, distributed organisation. In the early years, every developer spoke directly with customers. Feedback was immediate, and changes happened quickly. As teams expanded, it became harder to keep that closeness and visibility. Agile provided the structure to keep both.

Meet the Experts Behind the TransforMeet the Experts Behind the Transformation

Greg Burns: Steering Innovation at BlackLine

Greg Burns has been with BlackLine since its early days, joining as the company’s third employee in 2001. As Director of Software Development, he has overseen the evolution of BlackLine’s SaaS application and managed the company’s growth from a few people to hundreds. His experience scaling technology and processes across international teams provides a clear view of the agility needed in today’s competitive software market.

Ron Ben Yosef: Mastering Agile at Every Turn

Ron Ben Yosef brings more than a decade of IT experience, from Quality Assurance Engineer to Project Manager, and holds certifications including PMP, Certified Agile Team Facilitator, and IC Agile Certified Agile Coach. As a Senior Scrum Master at BlackLine, his focus on team performance and process improvement has been central to the company’s Agile success.ation

Why BlackLine Chose Agile

When Greg Burns and Ron Ben Yosef began steering the transition, their goals were clear. They wanted to keep customer feedback central to decision-making, improve visibility across multiple teams, and ensure each group had a strong sense of ownership over its work. Scaling had introduced new challenges: information was scattered, priorities were harder to track, and developers no longer had daily contact with the people using the software. Agile offered a framework for solving these problems without losing speed.

Building the Right Team Structure

The first step was reorganising from skill-based departments into small cross-functional teams, each with the skills needed to take a feature from concept to release. This meant that backend developers, frontend developers, QA engineers, and UX specialists worked side by side. Each team had a dedicated product owner to manage the backlog and keep priorities aligned with business needs, a scrum master to coach the team and remove blockers, and an engineering manager focused on people’s growth and engagement. With these roles clearly defined, teams could make their own decisions while staying aligned with the company’s broader goals.

Adapting Agile to Fit the Work

BlackLine used Scrum for most feature teams, but the production support team worked in Kanban to respond quickly to incoming issues. Some teams blended the two approaches when priorities shifted often. Sprint goals became a fixture, giving stakeholders a clear picture of what to expect. Every sprint ended with a live demo, which allowed for feedback before work was finalised. Retrospectives focused on concrete action items with named owners so that improvements carried forward.

Changing How QA Worked

At the start, QA often lagged behind development, which created delays and reduced predictability. Over time, testing became embedded within the sprint. QA engineers joined in design discussions, planned test coverage in parallel with development, and built automation alongside new features. This integration made releases more reliable and reduced the number of defects that reached production.

Managing Growth and Change

The transition required patience and consistent reinforcement. New hires, including offshore members, joined established high-functioning teams before moving into their permanent squads. Offshore teams worked closely with dedicated points of contact to keep communication clear. Leaders in product, DevOps, and other business areas received Agile training so they understood their part in the process and worked with product owners instead of bypassing them.

Lessons Learned

Looking back, Greg and Ron highlight the same points. Teams succeed when they have the right structure, clearly defined roles, and the freedom to own their work. QA must be part of the process from the very beginning, and stakeholders need to understand how Agile works in practice. For BlackLine, these decisions turned Agile from a concept into a working system that delivers software quickly, consistently, and with the quality customers expect.