Challenges of Implementing Agile at Scale

Xavier Segovia!Agile Coach!IBM Agile Academy!

“….culture isn’t something you “fix”. Rather, cultural change is what you get after you have put new processes or structures in place to tackle

tough business challenges like reworking an outdated strategy or business model. Culture evolves as you do that important work.”

HBR. Culture is not the culprit. April 2016!

Louis V Gerstner Jr.!Agile Values!

Trust! !

Courage!

Respect! Openness!

Empathy!

Louis V Gerstner Jr.!Agile Values!

Agile Principles!

Start with Clarity of Outcome and let it guide you!along the way!

Iterate, learn and course correct rather than !waiting until it is perfect!

Encourage self-directed teams to unleash!innovation, instead of concentrating leadership in!

the hands of a selected few !

Louis V Gerstner Jr.!Agile Values!

Agile Principles!

Agile, Lean, Design Thinking, DevOps!Agile!

Practices!

Strategy, Project/Programs, Operations!

Practices influence behavior change

Engrained behavior becomes culture

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Challenge 1: Company Size

Size

Our approach to enable Agile ways of working and thinking across IBM Cross-IBM, center of capability development and learning AGILE ACADEMY

Coaching

Community

Measures Definitions

Training Enabling Agile at

IBM

Training Developing a curriculum and training program to drive Agile knowledge and practices across IBM

Coaching Providing support for teams as they progress on their Agile journey and for signature projects for the business

Community-Champion Program Bringing together people and information to collaboration towards a common goal – both online and a community of practitioners helping one another

Measures Creating a means for teams and leader to measure their progress and to continuosly challenge themselves with the question “how do I get better”

Definitions Driving to consistency on the definition of Agile and related topics so we are aligned within IBM and with the industry

9

Champion

AGILE ACADEMY: OUR JOURNEY SO FAR

Coaching

Community

Measures Definitions

Training Enabling Agile at

IBM

28 World Wide Agile, Lean, IDT, DevOps

11K members 2K Champions

First set of measurements Curated content

10 courses 116K views

Leadership

5 Agile

LeadershipPractices

Drive !Innovation!

Setup for !Success!

Inspire!Purpose!

Optimize!Flow!

Govern for !Greatness!

•  Form teams!•  Distribute work!•  Measure what matters!

•  Visualize work!•  Observe for waste & bottlenecks!•  Drive continuous improvements!

Doing the Right Work!

Doing the Work Right!

•  Create the Right Environment!•  Don’t overburden!•  Set BHAGS!

•  Strategy/Discovery!•  Cascading Strategy!•  Strategy execution!

Skepticism

“The first follower transform the lone nut into a leader” Derek Sivers

Success Stories/Pilots/Failures!

Champions!

Patterns for implementation!

Communications!

Showcase result of experiments

Challenge 4: Strong Catalyst/Burning Platform

Organization support

“Have the end in mind; Listen, iterate and course correct; Small teams, self-directed, collocated and focused. Are you working that way? If you're not, go do it or talk to someone who's stopping you from it. And if they don't do anything, talk to somebody else. That's how we're going to get work done fast. You timebox. You move. That is the world that we're in, in so much of what we do.”   

– Ginni Rometti, CEO IBM

“Agile is not done to you. It’s not a program or an edict that gets checked off, or a certification posted to your

office wall. It’s a frame of mind and a frame of reference for how we work - together - across IBM, in

order to build a fundamentally new approach to enable us to respond to the opportunities and challenges that

lay ahead of us.” - Jeff Smith, CIO IBM

“I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture is not just one aspect of the game, it is the game.”

Louis V Gerstner Jr.!

eduardox@us.ibm.com