Agile Transformation in the Spotlight

A boom for agility…

Companies going under agile transformations…

And what for? Or rather: how?

The time had come that our organization had to answer the “if”, the “why” and the “how” questions. The “if” is done… We decided to go agile… what about the rest?

                      Talking to Piotr our Head of Agile Development who has shed some light on our status-quo and what’s yet to come.

1.      THE “WHY”

MD: I assume that if you are one of the responsible people for agility at KMD you must believe in its usability. Why agility and not anything else?

PM: I worked for a long time on projects in Waterfall. The problem with non-agile frameworks is that they lead to waste of money, people’s energy and motivation. Imagine that after a year of working on a product, it turns out that it is not needed anymore. The reality around has changed so much that all that was planned has lost relevancy. It is like working on a recruitment project for a year, having talked and met hundreds of candidates just to hear that the guy is not needed anymore.

Here comes agility. It concentrates to deliver value to the client and saves people from frustration on both sides (developers & customers). Of course, this way of building software does not apply to all situations and scenarios, but as KMD is concentrated on it’s own IP and building products, we believe that this is the way to go.

2.      THE “WHY” @KMD

MD: In many companies, when people asked, “Why are you going agile?”, they say: “Because it is popular, it attracts better people, because everyone else is doing it…”So I wonder… Do we really know why agility @KMD?

PM: The decision to transform R&D @KMD into an agile organization came from Chief of R&D at the beginning of 2017, after R&D division had been created. It seemed that there was no better way to develop products, and R&D is focused around building products. There is a need for a constant dialogue with the customers. The market is changing rapidly, in terms of technologies, legislation and end-users’ expectations. The competition does not sleep.

We need to react quickly, be able to verify if our assumptions are correct and the way we want to build the product still makes sense for the client and still makes us an attractive partner/vendor.

Moreover, there was a need to create a specific way of work – working closely together, with no divisions into IT and business, building common understanding of goals. The more we work together, the more we talk. The more we talk, the quicker we solve the problems. This broadens the perspective on the both ends (customers & developers) and aligns the technology to the extent it supports the business to its best.

3.       THE “NOW”

MD: It all started at R&D… but where is agility @KMD now? Would you say it is coming out of R&D cave?

PM: It is slowly coming out. People from outside of R&D are getting more and more interested in agile initiatives. We are now working on so called business agility. It means more focus on building an organization that can deliver what the customer needs at the right quality, an organization able to react to changes and in which people thrive and shine, teams are empowered to be self-organized and make the best use of their skills. We want to create an organizational culture in which people are appreciated for their work, feel that they can make a mistake and are encouraged to experiment. The extent on how mature agility is depends of course on the parts of the organization. There are businesses which are very transparent, open to dialogue with developers and there are places that need some improvements. We will get there…

4.      THE “WHO”

MD: Who in an organization should support agile transformation?

PM: Everyone! ?? Well… Experience shows that it is good when such changes start from the bottom, people decide that they want and need to work in a different way. However, to succeed in such a transformation, we need to make agility an important part of the management agenda. Then the process is faster and more efficient. The people who need changes would be the DRIVERS and the management – ENABLERS.

All the support functions (HR, Finances, Administration) don’t have to work agile, but they should understand this approach. This will create a common understanding and will result in a better cooperation. Implementing agile values (e.g. commitment, focus, openness, respect, courage) would not hurt either.

And! This works both ways… development and product teams should understand the specific (what may be seen as) limits of support functions that should be respected.

As a rule, when one part of organization is going under agile transformation, the organizational culture should be consistent with that change to the level that is possible.

5.      THE “HOW”

MD: Ok, to be honest, it all sounds good but kind of aloof… give me something more tangible, what do you do to transform KMD to an agile organization?

PM: Sure… Besides implementing usually SCRUM framework in our teams, which means understanding rules, roles, responsibilities etc. and working on improving that… I can give you some examples how we support agile transformation:

·        Building awareness of our clients’ business models (bringing IT and business closer)

·        Building Scrum Masters Community that is open locally at KMD Poland, there is also community in Denmark, we are planning to make this a cross-boarder initiative

·        Scrum (with Agile) Intro for people joining KMD Poland as a part of onboarding; led by Scrum Masters; it creates the understanding of agility & its values from day 1, no matter which part of organization you are joining

·        Soft skills workshops (led by Ma?gorzata B?ach, Marcin Zió?ek, Marcin Konkel)

·        Scrum Masters shadowing each other, sharing observations, best practices, knowledge

·        Management 3.0 workshops led by Marcin Zió?ek

·        Open Reviews for all organization, building transparency among teams & products; and awareness of current team/product issues

·        Shadowing (= observing during work) SMs by non-dev colleagues to understand Scrum better (for example for HR ??, and anyone else who would be interested)

·        Agile HR meetup open to KMD community and people from outside the organization Marcin Konkel and Igor Szwedziński

·        Hosting agile events (we had a pleasure to host e.g. Management 3.0, Scrumvival, Lego Serious Play)

·        Book club for agile enthusiasts

·        Metrics Webinar – on how to use metrics led by Marcin Konkel

6.      THE SUCCESS

MD: How will you know that we, as an organization, are making any “agile progress”?

PM: There is an approach that agility can be measured in an organization as 1 divided by the time needed to get help.

But…Agility as such should not be measured. We should define the goals of the business units and company, and the ways that agility can help to achieve them. There are many metrics that can be applied but ultimately agility works only if it helps the organization to work better.

MD: So… “The world is changed… Can you smell it in the air?”

PM: Haha… Not yet… This is a process. We are somewhere in the middle and we will appreciate any tips or best practices to support our agile transformation.