There’s a lot left unsaid about achieving and maintaining “enterprise” agility for large MNCs. For geo-distributed teams that are in the “Forming”, and even, “Norming” stages, there is perceived chaos while envisioning and building v1 products. Unlike teams that are already “norming” or “performing”, and have then adopted Agile, these “v1 teams” have a steeper trek to agility. Often, Agile process gives way to tactical execution. This session deals talks about dealing with this situation and maintaining business agility.

1. Managing for Agility and Outcomes
Avinash Rao

3. Wait, didn’t we just finish lunch?

4. How we have trained our customers
• FP
• T&M
• CR

5. How we have trained our customers
• FP
• T&M
• CR
… and our managers (not necessarily our project managers)
Our client IT departments and Procurements are also fully trained …

6. What the boss really wants – ‘Agility’
• “I want us to be Agile! I want Agility!”
– Faster time to market
– Continuous incremental value delivery
– Ability to respond quickly

7. So, on a sales call …
• “We need Agility”
• “Boss says we need Agility”
• “All our competitors are doing Agile”
• “We are too slow, we need to break down barriers”
• “Consultants told us we need Agile / DevOps / Scrum / Kanban”

8. So, on a sales call …
• Agile karna hai? No problem …
• Scrum
• Kanban
• SAFe
• DevOps
• “Bouquet of offerings”, all “on tap”, and all “Scaled”

9. So we kick off …
• A Scrum project
• A Kanban project
• A DevOps project

10. First, Scrum

11. Scrum (done properly)
• Coaching team behavior
• Team forming
• Stories, PO
“Bro, where is the PO?”

12. Scrum
• Invest in a part time coach
• PM = SM
• SO many antipatterns … but not for
today

13. After a couple of sprints …
• Code is not in production
• Demo attendance is thin
• “Proxy PO”

14. After a couple of sprints …
• “We want more velocity”
• “Why are there so many defects?”

15. “So, what do you really want?”
• “De-risk the project – I don’t want to find out later that nothing has been delivered”
• So while there is value from the cadence of Sprints, the rest of the value is ignored (or irrelevant?)
• So when leaders look at what Agile has accomplished …

16. Kanban

17. Typically, a very different scenario
• Kanban is often used for support
• Value from Visualization
• On track, on SLA …

18. Now …
• “Where is the innovation?”

19. “So, what do you really want?”
• “I need to showcase something new to my boss every quarter!”
• “Another manager has developed really cool dashboard”

20. Dashboard, really?

21. DevOps

22. Now, DevOps is the flavor of the moment
• You have a AD and an AM team, we want DevOps!
• So we got in coaches, did a Phased approach
• Automation, throughput

23. Now, DevOps is the flavor of the moment
• You have a AD and an AM team, we want DevOps!
• So we got in coaches, did a Phased approach
• Automation, throughput
“Where are the efficiencies?”
“Where are the reports?”

24. “So, what do you really want?”
• “I have improved the process by using DevOps and given x% efficiencies!”
Why DevOps?

25. But, I can’t challenge the system!

26. Before we start …
• What do you really want to achieve?
• What can’t you lose?
• How will you measure these, as opposed to project parameters?
• Make the choice explicit!
• Each of these techniques deliver value – but is it aligned? What needs to be measured?

27. Making choices explicit

28. India | USA | UK | Germany | Sweden | Belgium | France | Switzerland | UAE | Singapore | Australia | Japan | China