Business Agility

James Sweet Eliassen Group Delivery Lead

Experience

§  Over 15 years experience in solution delivery across diverse industries. §  Deep Agile Transformation/Implementation experience spanning industries and enterprises of all sizes §  10+ years of Agile Coaching/Training success §  5 years of hands on Agile practitioner experience §  10+ years management consulting experience working with the highest levels of organizations Roles

§  Solution Deliver Manager §  Director of Service Delivery §  Scrum Master §  Agile Coach §  Transformation Agent

Why Agile?

How the customer described what they wanted

How the PM understood it

How the Architect designed it

How the Developer coded it

How it was documented

How the customer was billed

What the customer actually needed

Faster

Better

Cheaper

72% vs. 64%

8%

Leading Causes of Agile Failure

How does the work that you/your team are doing tie into

or support your company’s corporate strategies?

Agile is NOT for the faint of heart

“Many people may think that agile is just another software development process. Although that is true as it relates to the

frameworks under Agile (Scrum), there is a lot more to agile than just a process or just a set of practices. Agile (or agility) is more of a mindset - a different way of thinking.”

Agile Thinking Agile isn’t a methodology. It’s a distinct thought pattern, a way of thinking about business.

Key Principles:

§  Expect and embrace change. §  When in doubt, defer decisions to the last responsible moment. §  Only do what is needed and no more. §  Organize the work to leverage the power of collaborating teams. §  Organize work so we get product into customer hands as quickly as possible. §  Get started as quickly as possible and learn as we go – inspect and adapt.

Adaptive Planning Focus on the Most Important Objective

Rapid Inspection and Adaptation Transparency

“Today’s Armed Forces must be smart, fast, adaptive, collaborative, and

accountable”

Agile

Cultivated capability that enables an organization to identify what the most important initiatives or opportunities are and to respond in a timely, effective, and sustainable way.

Dynamic ability to sense opportunities and threats early and often, to quickly identify and solve problems and to change the enterprise’s resource base or even the entire enterprise structure as needed to respond.

Largest Reconstruction Project in US History?

Acted Courageously Adaptive Planning

Focus on the most Important Things Rapid Inspection and Adaptation

Transparency Fail Fast

500,000 Square Feet

Completed in 11 months 1 month early

80s – largest, most profitable oil and gas company on the planet

#6 on Fortune’s list of “most admired companies”

Textbook management paradigm – top down decision making, massive cost cutting, blind

diversification, aggressive expansion

$2 Billion

$6 Billion

567,000 gallons

‘93 Dropped from #6 to #110 on Fortune’s list of “most admired companies”

Profits off 70%

Large-scale leadership exodus

Public relations nightmare – the Exxon brand was

trashed

Acted Courageously Adaptive Planning

Focus on the most Important Things Rapid Inspection and Adaptation

Transparency Fail Fast

1999 acquires Mobil

2000 becomes largest, most profitable company on the planet. Still holds that ranking today

1980 – Good as dead. Japanese competitors had nearly killed it in the market.

Fire sale but no one would buy.

1981 – leadership takes it private. Fires 40% of the workforce and hunkers down.

Adaptive Planning Focus on the most Important Things

Transparency Rapid Inspection and Adaptation

Fail Fast

One of the most respected brands in America

World renowned for quality

sex symbol

$734 Million profit last year

Stated corporate values include:

Embraces Change as a matter of course

Fail fast

Test and learn

Transparency

Agile companies have the ability to strategize in dynamic ways; accurately perceive changes in their external environment; test possible responses; and quickly implement changes in products, technology, operations, structures, systems, and capabilities as a whole.

“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”

Let’s stop doing Agile and let’s start Being Agile!

Focus only on the most important things

Practice Adaptive Planning

Transparency – Boardroom to Mailroom

Have Courage

Rapid Inspection and Adaptation

Fail Fast

James Sweet Agile Delivery Lead

Eliassen Group

D: 303.351.1623 M: 303.437.8712 www.egagile.com

Linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamessweet/

Twitter: @jamessweet