Agile Transformation White Paper
- 1. Agile TRANSFORMATION How are we tracking?
- 2. Agile Transformation INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OUR PANELLISTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHAT DOES AGILE TRANSFORMATION MEAN TO YOU?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHAT DOES GOOD SPONSORSHIP FOR AGILE TRANSFORMATION LOOK LIKE?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM WHAT LEADING EDGE COMPANIES ARE DOING?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 01 03 04 05 06 HOW CAN WE GET THE MOST OUT OF THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH AGILE COACHES?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHAT ARE THE KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD AGILE TALENT?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET ACCEPTANCE FOR AN AGILE APPROACH IN A TRADITIONAL CORPORATE SETTING? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONTENTS 07 08 09
- 3. Agile Transformation 01 01 Agile transformation is at the very top of every business agenda in Australia right now. Organisations have recognised that in a rapidly changing, digitally-driven climate, standing still is not an option. Success – indeed survival – depends on them becoming more innovative in the way they react to evolving customer and shareholder needs and more agile in their response to constant disruptions in the markets they serve. The current impetus has been partly driven by the Government, which has made working towards a more agile Australia one of the bedrocks of its economic strategy. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, recently urged companies to recognise that disruption and change “is our friend, if we are agile and smart enough to take advantage of it”. This pressing need to become more fleet of foot is also graphically illustrated by the statistics on company survival rates. The average lifespan of a company listed on the US S&P 500 index is now just 15 years. It is estimated that by 2020, more than three quarters of those featured in the index will be companies we have not yet heard of. Organisations are working hard to rise to the challenge of an agile Australia. Expenditure on transformation initiatives has increased and there has been an explosion of interest in the processes and techniques that can support companies in their attempts to scale up and make rapid change. Forward-looking businesses are also looking to take lessons from the start-up sector, where agility is typically ingrained in the culture and curiosity and experimentation are hallmarks of the way people work. Alongside this growing interest, we have seen significant growth in the agile community, with specialist roles in this field increasing over the past two years. INTRODUCTION
- 4. Agile Transformation 02 02 The transition to agile however, is not always easy, and organisations who embark on this journey are faced with numerous challenges along the way. For many, becoming a truly agile organisation is nothing short of a major cultural change, requiring buy- in from the very top of the organisation as well as significant shifts in mindset and approaches at all management levels. Morgan McKinley has been hosting a regular breakfast briefing series and for its most recent, we brought together a panel of Australia’s leading experts in agile transformation. In an engaging and interactive session attended by more than 180 delegates, they discussed what progress has been made in the past two years and what still needs to be done, sharing their personal experiences and advice as both individuals and business leaders. Their answers to some of the most pressing questions in the agile transformation space are outlined throughout this white paper.
- 5. Agile Transformation 03 03 OUR PANELLISTS JODY WEIR Head of Agility at AMP Jody joined AMP in 2015 as the Head of Agility and has more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry in both Australia and the USA. With a passion for Agile, innovation and new ways of working, Jody has enjoyed senior leadership roles across both business and IT. ROB MARCOLINA Group Executive - Strategy, Transformation and IT at Qantas Rob Marcolina joined Qantas in October 2012 as Executive Manager Strategy and has expanded his role over the past few years to now having responsibility for driving the overall strategy of the Qantas Group, leading the group wide transformation program and day-to-day responsibility for Qantas’ IT systems. TZIPI AVIOZ IT Director, Customer Solutions and New Zealand at AMP Tzipi Avioz joined AMP in April 2016. She is a highly experienced with over 20 years of experience in technology and business leadership. She is experienced in delivering large transformation programs using both traditional and agile delivery methodologies and is passionate in the area of digital commerce, Data & Analytics and Customer Interactions. DENNISE OPENSHAW Digital Delivery and Agile Transformation Executive Consultant - Independent Dennise is a senior technology leader with over 35 years of experience in the IT industry. She has spent the last 10 years leading Agile engineering teams, Agile professional services teams, and organizational change programs in Australia and internationally. SARAH ATKINSON Founder/Principal Consultant - Digital Transformation, Enterprise Agile at Pragmateam Sarah co-founded Agile Delivery Consultancy, Pragmateam. Now two years on, she and her colleagues at Pragmateam work with a diverse range of clients enabling transformation through delivery. Her hands on experience and passion are backed by over 15 years of successfully building and leadership of teams through to working with senior executives. TONY NGUYEN Enterprise Agile and Innovation Lead at CBA Tony currently heads up the Agile practice across CBAs Retail portfolio. Tony’s agile journey began at a software start-up called Altiris where he helped grow the team from 10 in Sydney to 600 worldwide at the time of acquisition by Symantec in 2007. He spent 6 years working and traveling in the US with Symantec, running program management and engineering divisions across a myriad of locations.
- 6. Agile Transformation 04 Agile transformation has its roots in software development – but panellists agreed that it has now evolved to be about much more than IT. For several of the organisations represented, it is a much broader concept, which involves empowering employees to try new approaches, encouraging collaboration between cross-functional teams and building a culture of continuous learning and improvement. One organisation that has been on an agile journey for several years has now embedded the approach into the business, making it the responsibility of every manager to think and act differently. Panellists warned of the danger of adopting agile processes to tackle specific issues without looking at the wider picture. To make any kind of transformation sustainable, organisations need to take a joined-up approach, bringing an agile perspective to every aspect of the way they work, from leadership style and structure through to governance and funding models. 04 WHAT DOES AGILE TRANSFORMATION MEAN TO YOU?
- 7. Agile Transformation Support from the top is vital if agile transformation projects are to have any chance of success. The starting point for many organisations has been to provide training for senior teams, to ensure they fully understand the concept of agile and the value it can bring. Once the senior team are engaged with the process, training can be cascaded throughout the business, to ensure the approach is embraced by all rather than just existing in isolated pockets. Getting leaders immersed in projects – either through study tours or invitations to take part in team huddles – is another initiative that has proved successful. If leaders fully appreciate the challenges ‘agilists’ are facing and understand the barriers they are up against, they will be better equipped to remove road blocks and accelerate progress. Panellists also highlighted the importance of creating an environment of transparency and open communication. This can help to avoid the situation of the ‘frozen middle’, where there is a groundswell of action at team level and enthusiastic support at the top, but a risk that projects will stall in the middle because managers at this level have not been informed or involved. Sponsors have a pro-active role to play in creating a safe environment where managers can ‘walk towards the tension’ that is stopping them embracing agile working. 05 05 WHAT DOES GOOD SPONSORSHIP FOR AGILE TRANSFORMATION LOOK LIKE? There was consensus that perhaps the most important quality of a sponsor was a willingness to ‘hold the line’ when projects didn’t go according to plan. “When things go poorly or projects are delayed, it’s really easy to revert to old behaviours, but we need sponsors to demonstrate trust and hold onto agile behaviours when the chips are down,” said one panellist. “There’s a view that ‘agile’ is a silver bullet that will solve all your problems, but actually it’s going to make some of your problems a lot more visible. Leaders need to be comfortable with that and have the resilience to hold the line and say let’s address these problems we previously didn’t know we had together.”
- 8. Agile Transformation 06 06 Making a clear link between agile working and innovation has proved successful in a number of leading edge companies. Qantas, for example, has recently run a highly successful project to reduce turnaround times for aircraft. A cross-functional team was put together with a brief to break out of the mould, ignore organisational ‘norms’ and find innovative ways of tackling the issue. The project wasn’t labelled as ‘agile’, but the process of empowering people to think differently resulted in a successful solution. Qantas is now developing tools and frameworks around the approach that was taken, so that it can be applied in other areas of the business. In a similar vein, AMP has introduced innovation days (known as Push IT days) to help the business make progress on some of the 200 business ‘problems’ it has identified. Team members are encouraged to work with colleagues from across disciplines on the problems that particularly interest them and to come up with creative solutions. Successes are shared and celebrated, but teams are also encouraged to share initiatives that haven’t worked so well, so that everyone can build on the learning. To date, the organisation has managed to fix 70 of the original 200 problems using this approach. WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM WHAT LEADING EDGE COMPANIES ARE DOING? Panellists also agreed it is important to look outside of the software development arena for inspiration on agile transformation. The manufacturing industry, the military, and the tertiary sector are all areas where agile working is being used to great effect and there are lessons to be learned.
- 9. Agile Transformation Agile coaches are often perceived as expensive, but panellists agreed that used in the right way, they can add enormous value to the transformation process. The focus should be less on the ‘day rate’ and more on the return on investment the coach can bring in terms of increased team capability and output. The key to success is finding a coach whose style matches that of the organisation and who can both a breadth and depth of experience. The best coaches are able to kick-start projects, ignite the energy of the team and make sure the right processes are brought into play. They are not wedded to any particular process, but are able to look at the problem in context, then based on their knowledge, recommend the best way forward. “It’s not about following a recipe book, it’s about finding the right method for a particular situation and it takes a number of years of experience and involvement in different problems before you can get to that stage,” said one panellist. 07 07 HOW CAN WE GET THE MOST OUT OF THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH AGILE COACHES? There was also a view that the role of an agile coach is ultimately to make themselves redundant by finding the right people in the team to take the baton forward. Often, success depends less on the coach themselves and more on their ability to seed the team with players who can collaborate effectively, share their learning and accelerate progress towards the end goal.
- 10. Agile Transformation EMPATHY: Empathy is a key skill for those working in agile environments. Recruiters look out for those who have well-developed ‘empathy muscles’ – in other words, people who excel at getting close to the customer and understanding their needs. SERVANT LEADERS: The best agile workers see themselves in an enabling role. Their focus is on helping to create the vision and making it easier for the team to work together by identifying and overcoming road blocks. 08 08 WHAT ARE THE KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD AGILE TALENT? COLLABORATION: The best ‘agilists’ recognise that to do a good job, they have to focus less on themselves as an individual and more on how they can work effectively with others in the team. They need to bring their deep specialist expertise to bear, but also need the breadth of experience that leads to effective collective working and understanding of others roles. CURIOSITY: A continuous desire to do better is a hallmark of the successful agile worker. The best candidates are curious about the product or process they are working on and the people they are doing it for and will never settle for ‘good enough’. COMFORTABLE WITH UNCERTAINTY: Individuals who are happy working with ambiguity make good agile practitioners. The best people are able to flex their approach and are not fazed by constantly changing boundaries.
- 11. Agile Transformation 09 09 WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET ACCEPTANCE FOR AN AGILE APPROACH IN A TRADITIONAL CORPORATE SETTING? Persuading a traditional, and sometimes sceptical organisation to adopt agile working can be a real challenge. Generally, people push back because they are afraid of the unknown, so it’s critical to communicate clearly about what agile transformation means and how adopting this mindset will take the organisation forward. Organisations represented at the event have experimented with a number of approaches for getting agile to be more widely accepted across the business. Some have set up transformation coordination groups, these pull representatives from different disciplines together to work towards one over-arching goal. This has the effect of breaking down silos and building a supportive network who can ‘win together’. Other organisations have invited representatives from functions such as legal and HR to attend transformation project meetings, so they can see how agile approaches work in practice and how they might be applied to their own business problems. Pilot projects have also proved successful in demonstrating how thinking and working differently can pay dividends – and generate a groundswell of interest in agile processes. Panellists were in agreement that the key message to get across is that agile transformation is a marathon not a sprint. Practitioners need to celebrate the small successes along the way to help maintain momentum and demonstrate that progress is being made. It’s important to recognise that many agile transformation projects are not successful on the first attempt. Often it takes two, even three iterations – and a number of changes of project team - before the real benefits are seen. Success requires patience and a willingness to be in it for the long term. THANK YOU TO OUR PANELLISTS: Jody Weir | Head of Agility, AMP Rob Marcolina | Group Executive - Strategy, Transformation & IT, Qantas Tzipi Avioz | IT Director, Customer Solutions and New Zealand, AMP Dennise Openshaw | Digital Delivery and Agile Transformation Executive Consultant, Independent Sarah Atkinson | Founder/Principal Consultant - Digital Transformation, Enterprise Agile, Pragmateam Tony Nguyen | Enterprise Agile and Innovation Lead, CBA