Vijay’s Guide to Agility

Embarking on an agile transformation? Here’s what you need to know.

Agile methodology has the power to transform a business. When I assumed the CIO role at TD Ameritrade, one of the first things I did was to set into motion our shift to Agile development processes. Having seen before what Agile can do to help companies more quickly and efficiently deliver better products and customer experiences, I knew it would have a profound impact on TD Ameritrade.

I was right. After starting with a handful of pilot applications in 2016, today, our organization is over 80% Agile across all lines of business, and our business “go-lives” have tripled compared to our 2016 baseline.

I recently had the opportunity to present at Pivotal’s Spring One conference on the subject of fostering agility at TD Ameritrade. It’s a subject I’ve discussed publicly before, but this was the first time I presented what I see as our roadmap to agile success, identifying a few key elements that can make or break any agile transformation, and I’d like to now share them with you.

 So, without further ado, here it is—my guide to a successful Agile transformation:

1.)   Adopt a Microservices Culture.

Why work twice as hard to maintain something big and clunky when you can achieve the same goals with a dynamic array of smaller, easier-to-work-with pieces? Of course, a big part of the challenge with an Agile transformation, particularly at the beginning, is overcoming a resistance to change. People are attached to the software behemoth, and dismantling it can be a lot of work. But as they gain exposure the power and ease of microservices, you’ll see how quickly attitudes can change.

2.)   Embrace Automation.

Automation as part of this journey is absolutely key. When engineers first get to push an app, it’s exciting. After that, it quickly gets onerous. If the back-end build and release automation isn’t done and you’re still going through a manual release process, over time, that can be problematic. A good general rule of thumb: If you can, automate it.

3.)   Align with DevOps.

At the end of the day, you want to make sure that what you’re building really works for and protects your client. Whatever their needs, you need to make sure that what you’re offering is up to the task. Infrastructure teams like to engineer things, but to be successful, they must be aligned with your DevOps group. This will ensure they really understand elasticity, are building resilience on the platform, and really put together necessary things like your disaster recovery runbook.

4.)   Bring Clarity to PaaS vs. CaaS.

In the next phase, you’ll need to determine the right balance between our use of Platform-as-a-Service and Container-as-a-service. This is something my team is actively engaged in now. What’s going to be a containerized Kubernetes app vs. what will be part of a platform? A decision matrix can help guide the process of determining what approach is right for your team.

5.)   Find the Right Balance for your Hardware/Software Stack.

Another balance you’ll need to strike is with your hardware and software stack. Do you want to be in the business of engineering value for our customers, or in the business of engineering lots of widgets on your infrastructure? Adopting the right tools and selecting the right partners will be key to your success.

Embarking on an Agile journey is a bold step, but I believe strongly that it’s a step in the right direction. At first, dismantling your old processes can be painful, and you may be met with some resistance. But the results speak for themselves. Today, most of us find ourselves in competitive environments where the speed of change is nothing short of breakneck. To keep up with—or ideally, stay ahead of—the pace of change, Agile is an absolute must.