Adopting Agile Beyond Project Level

Marko Javornik

Director – International Services

Agenda

• About Comtrade

• Agile in Software Development

• Agile beyond Project

• Discussion

ABOUT COMTRADE

COMTRADE OVERVIEW

• Comtrade Group is the largest IT organization in Southeast Europe.

• Revenues of over $300M in 2013.

• About 80% of solution business revenue is generated in Western Europe and US markets.

• 1.500 employees of which about 1.000 software engineers with deep knowledge in key verticals & horizontals.

• Certified ISO9001/Tick-IT from BSI since 1997.

BASIC INFORMATION / ACTIVITY

ComTrade Group

DistributionSolutions

ADRIATIC

IT Solutions and Services

INTERNATIONAL

R&D, SW engineering, sale of our own IT products

SRB

SLO

BIH

INTLSRB

BIH

MNE

MK

REGIONAL

IT (HW, SW)Consumer electronicsService

Comtrade Group

BASIC INFORMATION / GEOGRAPHIES

BASIC INFORMATION / TECHNOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT CENTERS

Development centers

1. Banja Luka

2. Belgrade

3. Dublin

4. Kragujevac

5. Ljubljana

6. Maribor

7. Sarajevo

8. Nova Gorica

9. Novi Sad

10. Podgorica

Technology centers

1. Belgrade

2. Ljubljana

3. Sarajevo

BASIC INFORMATION / DATA CENTER

Data Center:

• 2.000+ servers, 20+ platforms

• Internal IaaS cloud

– Blade systems

– HA virtualization

Comtrade Offering

Telecommunications

COMTRADE OFFERING

Industries

Services

Public Sector Gaming

Utilities & Smart Energy

Enterprise Sector

Banking Embedded Systems

Enterprises Storage

System integration Custom application development

Product development hosting

Partner-driven solution implementation

Business process management Testing and evaluation

IT infrastructure and system management

Business and technical consulting

Platform-independent content production

Electronic signatures Electronic banking solutionOnline casino platform (incl. live

casino content)

Mobile content delivery solutions

Storage white label software modules

G2S/S2S platforms and VLT monitoring systems

Application management productsHealthcare information systems

Casino management systems

Selected products

Travel & Hospitality

COMTRADE GAMINGComtrade Gaming is a leading independent software supplier to the gaming industry.The company’s product portfolio includes online gaming platforms, server based gaming systems, live casino and solutions which enable regulators to monitor and control gaming activities.

w w w . v o y e g o . n e t

The Application Suite Voyego has a 360 degrees approach for

travellers and hospitality providers - Voyego BOOKING, Voyego

ON THE GO, Voyego SURPRISE.

Below the surface

is a powerful

Voyego Guest

Experience

Manager which

covers all the

areas needed for

use of the app.

Comtrade offers solutions for efficient management of business

critical applications and IT infrastructure for clients world-wide.

MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS

My Personal Introduction

AGILE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Evolution of Methodology at Comtrade

1990:

Waterfall / distributed

teams

1997:

Spiral, staged

delivery

2000:

RUP and UML

2002:

XP

2005:

First Scrum project

2007:

First large scale

Scrum

2014:

About 70% projects use Agile

Comtrade & Evolution of SW Development Methodologies

Project Methodology Statistics at Comtrade

Why Agile?

• Because Software Development is different:

– No physical form, intangible

– Based on knowledge / human beings

– Fundamental dependencies many times unknown, unpredictable and changing fast (technology)

• Because Software Development is complex. More complex.

Classic Approach vs Agile

A

BB’

A

B’

Now Imagine…

A

B

B’

Value of Methodologies

Complexity(Unpredictability)

Val

ue

Classical

Agile

What is Next?

• While Agile as a methodology is becoming predominant, it leaves two key questions unanswered:

– How do you scale Agile to projects of more then 7±2 people in a single room?

– How do you adopt (and plug in) Agile in the rest of the organization?

AGILE BEYOND A PROJECT

Our Real World Example

• Very traditional company based in West Europe

• Champions in their business domain

• Trying for many years to become also a software company, zero success so far

• We are discussing potential partnership:– It is clear that their “traditional” approach to running

business is completely incompatible with modern software development

– If they want to be successful as a Software vendor, they need to change significantly

Year 2012

Valued at $1B

• Established in 2010

• 13 Employees

Goes Bankrupt

• Established in 1888

• 90% market share at peak

Inst

agra

mK

od

ak

How External Business Environment Changed?

External Environment

Unpredictable

Unstable

Fast changing

New business models

Newtechnologies

Global Competition

Classical Approach Doesn’t Work

• Strategic planning is not possible (in the same way as before)

• Yearly budgeting becomes a waste of time• Basic principles of economy that were valid for

more than 100 years are becoming obsolete• Classical organization / hierarchy brings many

disadvantages (up to the point where it simply does not work)

• It is very comparable to Classical vs Agile in the projects (for very complex and dynamic projects)

Two Approaches Towards Agile

Top-down

• How to deal with complex environment?

• How to benefit from this?

Bottom-up:

• How to plug-in Agile projects?

• How to keep Agility across company?

Jurgen Appelo: Management 3.0

• System approach: Based on complexity theory

• Based on Agile best practices and management of teams:– Self-organization with constraints

– Purpose & motivation

– Shared goal

– Discipline & skill

– Increasing autonomy within the organization

– Non-linear improvements

Jacob Bøtter, Lars Kolind: Unboss

• Challenging classical economical doctrine

• Optimizations made in the past are not needed nor appropriate anymore

• Need to unlearn

• Passion before Profit and Control

• Networks instead of hierarchies

• Unlimited vs limited company

• Managers – Leaders, Employees - Partners

Two Planets

Agile

Fail Fast & Re-think

Embrace Change

Trust & Passion

Classic

Plan

Execute

Control

Our Experience (1/4)

• Budgeting process reduced from months to days: no negative impact, only positive

– Planning beyond some basic level does not bring additional value

– Strong financial control greatly reduces non-linear improvements

Our Experience (2/4)

• Best product marketing approach: fail fast + agile development

– Fast small steps instead of one big one

– Changing course every time, re-thinking next step

– Driven by market

– Lean approach

Our Experience (3/4)

• Recovering from financial challenges: creating a partnership with employees

– Fight between company stakeholders is a loose –loose situation

– We took significant effort to create awareness and align views

– Passion wins over control most of the time

Our Experience (4/4)

• Removing hierarchy from the organization

– Flexibility in the organization

– Cross-functional teams work best

– New approach to creativity (room 1 vs room 2)

Conclusion

• Don’t be a Turkey, embrace change!

THANK YOU!