Oakley Solutions

Embracing the values of the agile manifesto in an

organisation that didn’t really understand!

Fragile Agile

About Paul Hollis

The case for change (why?)

o We were too slow, and what was delivered was low on quality.

o We had the worst staff survey results in the whole of IT.

Catalyst for change

o New leadership team who could admit to each other that ‘there was a problem’.

o Leadership who understood the value of an agile culture and who lived servant

leadership.

Applying the agile manifesto (the what)

To improve our system of work…

…To give our staff a great experience…

…To give our customers great products

Now over to the how…

Individuals and Interactions (teams break)

o Easy bit - Organising our people into feature teams

o Hard bit – being servant leaders. Giving PM’s a choice…

Working Software (processes break)

o Easy bit – Doing experiments and proof of concepts to make the case for

software investment

o Hard bit – Doing no documentation for the sake of a process. EXCEPT to

protect our license to operate (legal and security)

Customer Collaboration (procurement breaks)

o Easy bit – Find product owners

o Hard bit – Convince procurement and suppliers that feature teams contracted

on a T&M basis was mature and thought through

Responding to Change (governance breaks)

o Easy bit - No Projects, No project plans, No milestone reporting.

o Hard bit – Finding a useful alternative - reporting on value created and customer

feedback.

2 years in…

o Reputation for quality and on time delivery. People wanted to work with us.

o The best staff survey results in the whole of IT.

The End. Any Questions?