My keynote a #TAFAC2019 on lessons learnt from #scaling #agile from a team to an organization and what are the factors behind a successful agile transformation

1. Agile “1” to “N”Tathagat Varma
Country Manager, NerdWallet
Pic: https://joshfechter.com/viral-marketing-what-is-it/

2. Personal views

3. Topics
•Agile “0” to “1”
•Agile “1” to “N”
•Considerations

4. Context
“Organizational Agility is the
ability to quickly reconfigure
strategy, structure, processes,
people, and technology toward
value-creating and value-
protecting opportunities”
- McKinsey

5. Agile “0” to “1”
•Adopt agile methods and practices in intact
s/w teams
•Typically entails:
•Creating agile teams
•Training on Scrum / Kanban
•Coaching on XP eng practices
•Developing tech infrastructure
•Implementing support tools

6. Advantages
•Quick start agile
•Start where you are
•Deliver quick-wins

7. Limitations
•Team level issues
•Org structure
•Policies & processes
•Tech/Product impact

8. Agile “1” to “N”
•Scale-up
•Scale-out
•True agility!

9. Scale-up
•Fractal units
•Tech & Arch
•Program mgmt
•Product Integration

10. Scale-out
•Systems eng
•Entire value chain
•Support functions

11. Systems eng
•First Principles
•Laws of Physics!
•Rate-limiting factor

12. True agility
Processes
Culture
Results
Innovation
Purpose Talent

13. Purpose
•Mission: why?
•Vision : where?
•Values: how?
•Goals: what?

14. Culture
•People
•Teams
•Leaders
•Society

15. Talent
•Agile mindset
•T-shaped
•Collaborative

16. Processes
•Second-order function of
people!
•Flexible and adaptable
•Scaleable
•Sustainable
•Forever improving…

17. Innovation
•Scientific mindset
•Systemic capability
•Melioristic culture

18. Results
•Employee-facing!
•Customer-facing
•Market-facing
•Business-facing

19. Considerations
•Manager’s role
•More agile!
•Org policies
•Org structure
•Leadership
•Business

20. Manager’s role
•No one-size!
•S/he who is accountable,
gets to define process,
make plans and take
decisions!

21. “More Agile”
•Invariably leads to “less
agility!”
•Optimize for customer
value!
•Team defines and own its
process

22. Org policies
•Involve people!
•Remove friction
•Align policies to
required behaviors

23. Org structure
•Flex structure
•Leverage agency
•Complex Adaptive
System

24. Leadership
•Context setting
•Exec support
•Establish culture

25. Business
•What biz problem are
we solving?
•Why is it important?
•How do we know when
we are done?

26. Recap