The Symptoms of Successful Agile Enterprise

Anand Murthy Raj

Who am I?

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1. 20+ years of Industry experience 2. One of the first to be nominated for SPCT in Asia3. 6 years of experience in Agile Transformation 4. Work for Blinklane Consulting NV

(http://www.blinklane.com/)5. Clients worked – Hewlett Packard, Symantec, SKF,

Healtyhways and Philips6. Currently part of the Global Agile Transformation Program - Coach @ Philips7. Part of a NGO www.nisvartha.org helping 700 rural talented students to see

and realize their dreams by providing “Education”

The Twin Transformation Challenges

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Transforming the Organization Transforming the People

Agile – Transformation Journey

Sep 20164

LargeSlow Bureaucratic

More ProductiveMore Adaptive Response-ability

UnpredictableUnreliableUnableTransformation Outcome

Great!!

Oh! My God

Successful Agile Organizations patterns

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FlowSolution AlignmentDesign FailuresCritical defectsIntegrationUnknown-unknowns

MindsetSilver BulletSuperficial AdoptionLocal vs Global OptimizationUnrealistic Promises

KaizenInability to learnPractices over PrinciplesUnscientific Learning approaches

VisionVision propagationGlobal thinkingOutcome over outputVision validation Measuring Success

Learning

Systems thinkingPersonal MasteryMental ModelShared VisionTeam Learning

Learning Disabilities

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Peter Senge in the book “The Fifth Discipline“ talk about the 7 Learning disabilities

1. I am my position2. The enemy is out there 3. The Illusion of “Taking Charge”4. The “fixation of events”5. The parable of “Boiled Frog”6. The delusion of “Learning with Experience”7. The Myth of “Management team”

Learning Disabilities

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I am my position

1. Lack of “system thinking”2. Silo mentality3. Auto Industry: Japan engg vs American engg4. America vs Argnetina Soccer match5. “Some one else screwed it up”

Learning Disabilities

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The Enemy is out there 1. By-product of I am my position2. Passing on the blame 3. Non systemic view of the world 4. Lack of accountability5. Manufacturing Engg Marketing Sales6. American companies who lost their share to foreign competitors

1. Blamed the cheap foreign wages2. Labor union3. Government regulations4. Customers betrayed

Learning Disabilities

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The illusion of taking charge1. Proactive Antidote of being reactive 2. Face difficult issues, solve problems before it gets into crisis3. Crisis and Chaos teaches us great lessons4. Mistakes make us hard 5. Pro-activeness is reactiveness in disguise 6. True proactive comes from seeing how we contribute to our own

problems (Bangalore steel flyover)7. It’s a product of our way of thinking, not our emotional state

Learning Disabilities

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The fixation of events1. Conversations are dominated by events2. In org : Sales, Promotion, fire, new product3. Focusing into such events leads to “Event

explanations”4. Distract from seeing long term pattern for change,

underlying causes5. Focus on real issues like

Employee attrition, Technology updates, Customers’ business dynamics, Employee happiness, Pollution and issues like why are insane humans getting into such barbaric acts

Learning Disabilities

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The parable of a boiled frogYear Japanese

Share

1960 0%

1962 < 4%

1967 10%

1974 15%

1982 21.3%

1990 25%

2005 40%

1. Learning to see slow, gradual requires us to keep off the pace

2. Look for gradual processes that define fate of the frog

3. Look for folks going back to waterfall model way of thinking (metrics, plans, documentation)

4. Pay attention to human side of development

Learning Disabilities

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The delusion of Learning with experience 1. Walking, Eating and , crawling and communicating

– Trial and Error2. Observe the consequences of our actions3. Learning Horizon 4. Now being perfect, being predictable, reliable

estimates5. No scope for error6. “We learn best from experience but never

experience the consequences of some of our important decisions”

Learning Disabilities

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The Myth of Management team1. Can the mgmt. teams can surmount these learning

disabilities ?2. Maintaining the appearance of a cohesive team3. Most management teams break down under pressure4. Schools trains us never to admit that we do not know the

answer, Corporations reinforce that lesson by rewarding the people who excel in advocating their views

5. No one dares inquiring into complex issues6. Skilled incompetence’—teams full of people who are

incredibly proficient at keeping themselves from learning

Dealing with People Challenges

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The working model

Mary Poppendieck – The friction

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The Communication model

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The Thinking Model

The Communication Language

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1. Out of 24 words in English that expresses emotion only 6 of them are positive !!!

2. A phycologist analyzed 558 words in English language only to find 38% words positive and 62 % negative

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SOULSOLE

SelfishOutdatedUnderperformingLethargic

SelfOrganizedLearningEnvironment

The first step..

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The right step..Practical WisdomThe moral will to do the right thing and the moral skill to figure out what the right thing is – Aristotle

Wisdom makes a transition from Efficiency to effectiveness

1. An ounce of information is worth a pound of data

2. An ounce of knowledge is worth a pound of information

3. An ounce of understanding is worth a pound of knowledge

4. An ounce of wisdom is worth a pound of understanding

Questions

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References: The fifth Discipline - Peter SengeSwitch – Dan Heath and Chip HeathVimeo.com – Mary Poppendieck- The FrictionAgile Adrea - Mary Poppendieck- The Scaling DilemaThe Paradox of Choice – Bary SchwartzSystems thinking by Dr. Russell Ackoff – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbLh7rZ3rhU