My presentation at 6th Annual Conference of Bangalore Software Process Improvement Network (BSPIN) on 9 Oct. The theme was 'CraftDucing' and we had an interesting perspective on striking the balance between people centric vs. production centric view.

1. “People over processes”
Tathagat Varma
Sr. Director Business Operations
Yahoo! India R&D

2. Let’s understand the
‘craft’ first…
• Sheer joy of making things
• Pleasure of things that are useful to other people
• Fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like
objects of interlocking moving parts and watching
them work in subtle cycles
• Joys of always learning, which sprints from the
non-repeating nature of the task
• Delight of working in such a tractable medium
The Mythical Man Month – Fred Brooks, 1975

3. Pace of innovation is
accelerating…
2011 -
• Instagram
2000-2010
• 2010: Pinterest, SnapDeal,
• 2009: Square, Quora, Sina Weibo
1975-2000 • 2008: Groupon, AirBnB, GoGo
• 2000: Baidu
• 2007: Dropbox, Zynga, Flipkart, InMobi,
• 1997: Yandex
• 1994: Yahoo!, Amazon, NetScape, Hulu, Tumblr,
• 1986: Pixar • 2006: Twitter, SlideShare, Badoo Spotify
• 1984: Sybase • 2005: YouTube, Renren
• 1983: Intuit, Borland,
• 1982: Sun, Symantec, Adobe, EA
• 2004: Facebook
• 1980: Informix • 2003: Myspace, Skype, Rovio,
• 1979: EMC Gameforge,
• 1977: Oracle
• 2002: LinkedIn
• 1976: CA, Apple
• 1975: Microsoft • 2001: StumbleUpon, Mail.ru

4. Sadly…None of this
came from…
Frameworks, Standards and Certifications

5. Agile Manifesto brought people
back into the equation…

6. But…Did that solve the
problem?
• “…In looking back, [Kent] Beck finds that while each
segment of the Manifesto was a giant leap forward in
2001, the language no longer reflects the challenge of
launching successful innovation in the marketplace
of 2011.”
• Beck’s Beyond Agile Manifesto -
• Team Vision and Discipline over Individuals and Interactions
• Validated Learning over Working Software
• Customer Discovery over Customer Collaboration
• Initiating Change over Responding to Change
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/05/04/innovation-applying-inspect-adapt-to-the-agile-manifesto/

7. What is the most important
part in these two machines?
The Brakes…They let you go faster!
And…The Man!!

8. So, what are we
learning?
• Innovation is the game
• More of same is not enough!
• ‘Startups’ breed innovation
• No risk, no reward!
• Invest on smart people
• Let them break stuff !
• Don’t impose a process
• Let them self-organize!
• Don’t confuse means with ends
• It’s not about the tool!

9. It’s not about
the tool!
A photographer went to a
socialite party in New York. As
he entered the front door, the
host said ‘I love your pictures
– they’re wonderful; you must
have a fantastic camera.’
He said nothing until dinner
was finished, then: ‘That was
a wonderful dinner; you must
have a terrific stove.’
– Sam Haskins
http://www.haskins.com/ImageShop/Image_Shop_60s/60s_Books_A.Image_01.html