Improving Agile coaching with amazing insights from Indian Mythology

1. Improving Agile coaching with
amazing insights from Indian
Mythology
NAME ANAND MURTHY RAJ
EMAIL anandmurthy.raj@gmail.com
PHONE +91 9845707457
LINKEDIN https://in.linkedin.com/in/anand-murthy-raj-0a84a62

2. Dedication This presentation has been greatly influenced by the
work of Mr. Devdutt Pattanaik in the form of these
three books and his multiple videos in youtube

3. Who am I ?
1. 20+ years of experience , 18+ in IT and 2 years in
manufacturing
2. 6 years of experience in Agile Transformation
3. Work for Blinklane Consulting NV
(http://www.blinklane.com/)
4. Clients worked – Hewlett Packard, Symantec, SKF,
Healtyhways and Philips
5. Currently part of the Global Agile Transformation Program - Coach @
Philips
6. Part of a NGO www.nisvartha.org helping 500 rural talented students to
see and realize their dreams by providing Education Support

4. What is Mythology?
1. Old Indian scriptures written thousands of years ago
2. Written in the form of stories
3. Communication of ideas through forms, stories and scriptures
4. Ideas that people respected are shared from generations to
generations
5. How you interpret is left to individual– its reflective and not
prescriptive

5. What is Enterprise Agile transformation
• Systemic behavior Change
• Mindset Change
• Shift My success to Our success
• Enhanced Trust and Ownership
• Art of Living Art of Leaving
• Managing by Enabling
• Future-ist Now-ist
• Feature delivery Problem solving
• My work, my customer and me are all the same

6. Who is a true Agile leader?
Rana Bhoomi Ranga Bhoomi
My hunger
matters most
I have outgrown
hunger
Your hunger matters
most.

7. Mindset Addressing models
Leadership/Business
Employees

8. Organization Transformation
Organization
Employees
Leadership
Agile
Transformation
Process and Tools

9. Poeple creation - Karya Kartha vs Kartha

10. Poeple creation - Karya Kartha vs Kartha
People can grow only when they are
1. Empowered to think of solutions
2. Given autonomy to decide the right things for the customer
3. Given the the Power to think out of the box
4. Given the platform to think and come prepared
Vishnu (Leader) has four hands
1. Eyes are always open – Constant Engagement
2. Conch Shell – Communication
3. Sudarshana Chakra – Understand and control the business
4. Club – To induce discipline
5. Lotus – Rewards and Recognition

11. Coaching Focus - People
Tara = Stars= Talent whose
individual personalities does not
impact the organization
Graha = Planets= Talent
whose individual
personalities impact the
organization
Rashi/Nakshatra = Teams or groups or departments where collective performance matters
most than individual performance
Yagman - The leader

12. Behavior - People
Graha Behavior
Ravi Sun, radiant and attract attention everywhere
Soma Moon, emotional and moody
Mangal Mars, aggressive go getter
Budha Mercury, excellent communicator, silver tongued
Guru Jupiter, Bruhaspathi, rational relies on data
Shukra Venus, intuitive, relies on gut feeling
Shani Saturn, Procrastinates and obstructs
Rahu Eclipse causer, secretive, hates being transparent
Kethu Comet, resettles and spreads anxiety

13. Coaching needs hindsight and foresight
1. Values case study
2. Focuses on the past
3. Learning and Improving
4. Looking past for the future
1. Values creative visualization
2. Focuses on the future
3. Takes risk and moves forward
4. Looking ahead of the future
Force Counter Force
Strategy Tactic
Creativity Process
Ambition Contentment
Hindsight Foresight

14. Organisation needs to value people separately
1. Collaborative skills and reward in public
2. Differentiate the contribution and recognize in private
3. Build the character, focus on the process and results will follow
4. The reverse order of focus will lead to disaster
5. Always focus on the effort of acquired skills
6. Focus and appreciate .. What?
7. Environment matters a lot to define the behavior of the teams and individuals

15. Coaching the Leadership in Transformation
1. Coaching the Leadership to punish (take hard decisions)
2. Coaching the Leadership to liberate people
3. Bend the rules to liberate and protect the people
4. Teach, Mentor, Coach and watch
5. Enable leaders to make mistakes and if the mistake is costly, alert them
6. Allow the teams/Leaders to take their decisions (Yagna and Yagman)

16. Coaching rules for Transformation
Exploitation
Empathy
Dharma – Right
direction
Adharma – Wrong
direction
1. Rules/Policies are made to have harmonious system
2. Rules are valid in a context
3. Rules are valid only of they benefit people and customers
4. Bend the rules to upload the spirit of Agile Principles

17. Select the right Coach
1. Imposters know to walk the walk and talk the talk but they
simply don’t know what the talk is all about.
2. They know how to dress, how to carry their laptops and
their BlackBerrys, what cars to drive, which clubs to join,
where to be seen and with whom.
3. They use words like ‘value enhancement’ and ‘on the same
page’ and ‘synergy’ and ‘win-win’.
4. In other words, they know the behavior that projects them
as ‘Coaches’, but they have no clue as to what coaching
actually means.

18. Develop Coaching Competency
1. Be ready to take orthodox forms
2. Expect that the transformation will
pose huge challenges
3. Think out of the box
4. Hypothesis based approach
5. Move from “Design to Test”
mindset to “Learn then design
Mindset”*
6. Take different forms with different
customers
*Ref : The Lean Machine

19. Evolution of a Coach
Parashurama -
Discipline
Rama – Rules
and Principles
Krishna – Bend
rules Budda –
Detach
Kalki -
Destroy

20. Coaching Challenges
Letter of Dharma
SpiritofDharma
Ravan Duryodhana
RamKrishna
Letter of Transformat
SpiritofTransformation,
Principles
Letter of Dharma
Letter of Transformation,
Practices

21. Q&A