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“Running an Agile Fortune 500 Company”
Aditya Yadav, aditya.yadav@gmail.com
in.linkedin.com/in/adityayadav76

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* A Typical Global Company
* Fortune 500/1000
* 200 Divisions
* 40 Countries
* 25000 Employees
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@ Acme Inc.

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* Original Question “Steve Jobs is a legend and
everyone is talking about Design being of
utmost importance. How do we approach this?”
* The Correct Question - “People confuse Design
with Innovation. People confuse Design
Thinking with Innovators Mindset and conclude
they are the same. Lets study these afresh and
exploit the benefits of each.”
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And The Philosophy Behind The Answer

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Design is usually very short in terms of Time… Innovation is usually more long drawn 215 years is easily possible… but they are essentially so intertwined that its easy to
confuse between the two
Design normally has a Top-Down Authorization… Innovation is mostly Bottom-Up unless
Invented in an R&D Lab
Design is normally very narrowly focused on one or two specific Product‟s/Service‟s
etc. while Innovation has a much broader scope and impact.
One might consider Design Thinking to be Innovation but Design is much more tactical
and Innovation is much more strategic
Design has a much more predictable and better guarantee of outcome when compared
to Innovation… [When seen in comparison]
Its far easier to put some sort of Process around Design that works most of the time
than to put one around Innovation and succeed also.
A Design has to absolutely work Today, Innovation can be much more forward looking…
Design is focused while Innovation has a high probability of going haywire without any
bounds and needs to be bounded with a direction
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People- Desirable, Experience
Business - Economics, Costs, Viable
Technology - Feasible
Define - Bound, Unbound
Expectations
Explore
Converge/Diverge
Multiplicity
Speculate
Project
Prototype
Measure
Evaluate
Validate - & Verify
Create
Implement
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Learn, Unlearn, Relearn
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Timebox - Decide under uncertainity
Iterative & Incremental
Ideate - Generate lots and lots of ideas
Choice - Decide/Choose
Question the Status Quo - Improve the Status Quo
Effectiveness
Challenges & Blockers
Reinvent
Tradeoffs
Detail - Get details right
No Heavy Upfront Effort on One Idea - Until Final
Convergence
Parallelize
Test
Prioritize
Critical Reasoning

8.
* So What‟s the Design Process?
* Ref: Golden Rule: We use Heavy Processes or even not so
Heavy Follow The Process Processes ONLY WHEN the source
of production is external.
* When the source of production is in the Human Head we
either don‟t use Processes at all or we just use extremely
light Rough Outline Processes
* Doesn‟t that make this non-Systematic Design Method
unreliable? Absolutely not! If the values, principles and
practices are followed then it is perhaps one of the most
Stable Designing methods possible.
* So there‟s no Process? Almost no. Unless you want to create a
wireframe lightweight process just to streamline things in
your organization and reduce chaos.
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Question: This is a bit difficult to grasp. Can you help us with an Analogy?
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Question: Isn‟t that statement Derogative to Designers? No it shouldn‟t be taken that way. The
statement covers 90+% of categories of Design though it does say that the backbone of Benefit Creation
are already in place.
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No Doubt! The Design Activity is very Valuable Activity but in the journey of creating and delivering
value to the customer. Design by itself is not the root source of creation or invention of Benefits. It is a
process of Quality->Benefits Orchestration and Optimization
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Question: So should it be done along with Research or Engineering or after it?
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The Rule is if (i) creates a broad base with divergent multiple options later then it works very well with
(ii) Design (with Final Stage Convergence) Later.
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If Engineering converges restrictively a lot then (ii) Design should be done along with (i)
Engineering, such that the Design Optimization is done before the Final Stage Convergence.
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The exact methodology of (i) Engineering, and (ii) Design interplay doesn‟t worry me as a strategist that
much, as long as the Design values, principles and practices are not compromised. Without
uncompromised Design we will end up with an unoptimized set of Benefits projected from Quality(s)
Yes. Lets say Innovation is about The Entire Journey of Creating and Delivering Value to The Customer.
Design is about taking a multitude of Quality(s) and creating the most optimum Set Of Benefits.
You are not creating the Core Value per se w/ Design you are basically doing Operations Research
Multidimensional Quality->To->Benefits Optimization with a projected Value in the ValueNet in mind
There is no one absolute answer. But the analogy there is whether we should do the Activities of
Quality->Benefits (i) Creation/Invention/Research together at the same time with (ii) Multi-Dimensional
Quality->Benefits Optimization
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So What is Product Management?
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If the Optimization function overwhelms engineering the latter falls back to just implementation of the
optimizations rather than the dual function of that and Innovating also.
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Ask the Product Manager – Where is your innovation coming from?
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Question: Doesn‟t all this conflict with Agile? Which says KISS – Keep it simple silly, YAGNI – You ain‟t gonna need
it, and to build just what‟s required today and not build ivory towers?
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Colloquially! Yes! on the first look it seems to conflict but in reality it doesn‟t. Agile simple says that Once
Identified just “implement” exactly what's needed today. It doesn‟t say anything about how to decide whats
needed today, and it implies if you need something tomorrow the security net would allow you to make changes
and quickly implement that.
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Agile isn‟t against innovation or creation of alternate Q-B‟s at all. Actually the broader the base of Q-B‟s you have
to choose from the better it is. That‟s the Idea Engineering creates a broad base of Q-B‟s to choose from, once the
Product Design chooses the optimum one‟s Engineering implements Just That. There could be other Proof of
Concepts or Spikes or Experimentation, but that‟s exactly the interplay between Product Management and
Engineering.
Lets see!!! There is some element of managing something or the illusion thereof –J
But its nothing more than Product Design and all assertions of Design apply to it.
While Product Management is Multi-Dimensional Optimization in the context of Customer Segment(s) Engineering is
the function that creates and implements Quality(s) and Benefit(s)
Product Management is Top Down while Engineering Innovation is Bottom Up or maybe R&D is Top Down Innovation
The biggest problem is when Product Management Controls Engineering… that works very well perhaps to
streamline Delivery of Q-B but kills the Q-B creation/innovation
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* E.g. Service Management, Operations Management…
* Yes! Those are Design too Service Design and
Operations Design coupled with Service Engineering
and Operations Engineering respectively…
* And all that we have discussed about Product
Management and Engineering in the previous slide
and all the Assentation's about Design apply to them
too.
* And it all starts from understanding the interplay
between Design and Innovation.
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* OK! You Don‟t Prescribe a Process, but how does designing feel?
* It is not an art or creative expression but rather a general approach
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to solving challenges
Everything is directed to achieve a purpose or goal
It is a very human centered process. Its about the experience, of the
user not the designer
It‟s a balance of analytical and creative
Abductive reasoning – inference from the best available
experience, heuristics
Design can‟t be reduced to a formula or algorithm
There is some data, some guess but not wild speculation rather based
on a foundation
Iterative creation and play testing
Nobody should expect to be right the first time
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Rule: Don‟t put in heavy upfront effort on One Choice or else it will become difficult to
Change and consider other choices
Rule: Nothing is absolutely ruled out until the final stage convergence.
Question: You have always stressed on the need for a Coach? Does Design Thinking need
a coach? Yes! Since there is little or no process, it is necessary that a Coach reinforces
the Design Thinking - Values, Principles and Practices… but the Coach doesn‟t interfere
with the actual Work of Designing itself.
Hint: some sort of stage pipelining or a process outline might help streamlining
things, but the moment you overdo it you will destroy Designing.
The Firm will probably create many tools and techniques for each of the
Values, Principles, Practices of Design aka Toolkits. R‟ber you are only as good as your
tools and sooner or later they will „bound‟ what you can achieve.
Question: Is this on par with the Systematic Design from MIT, Stanford or Design
Thinking Toolkit from IDEO? Well! This is not a ready to use toolkit but it definitely can
form the foundational basis of Design Thinking and Design on par or better than those
mentioned above. And provide a very strong foundation for implementing the interplay
between Design and other functions.
Conclusion: The Values, Principles and Practices are more important than some fixed
method of Design…
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This Deck is complicated… and the subject is inherently complex…here is a summary to wrapup the
deck
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People confuse Design with Innovation. People confuse Design Thinking with Innovators Mindset and conclude
they are the same. Also organizations try systematic design using heavy processes especially MIT and
Stanford. The former is known for engineering management and is process inclined. While Stanford is known
for entrepreneurship which also in a way converts engineers into Designers and Entrepreneurs.
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In slide #6 we compare Innovation with Design. And say they are not the same.
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In slide #8 we address the Systematization of Design and processes
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In slide #10 we take the case of Product Management and its interplay with engineering. And state that
Product Management is nothing but Product Design and Engineering is responsible for Creating & Delivering
Value i.e. Innovation
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In Slide #11 we extend the last argument about Product Management to managing other services... all this
while using the analogy from slide #9
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In slide #13 we conclude by saying that most Design companies have some sort of processes or toolkits for
design. While we state that the Design Thinking outlined in slide #7 together with the Analogy and Interplay
outlined in slides #10 & 11 form a stronger foundation of Design than the methods taught by Stanford, MIT, or
even IDEO.
In slide #7 we outline the dimensions of Design Thinking without specifying a Design "process" just the
attributes
In slide #9 we create an Analogy. We say Innovation is about Creation and Delivery of Value. While
somewhere in between that journey Design is the multidimensional optimization of Value considering that
Innovation deals with a huge number of dimensions that need to be dealt with.
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15.
Aditya!!!
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