Scaling Up Out Agility

Tathagat VarmaVP, Strategic Process Innovation

[24]7 Innovation Labs

What is Agility?

Wikipedia: Agility or nimbleness is the ability to change the body's position efficiently, and requires the integration of isolated movement skills using a combination of balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, strength, and endurance

Drucker: Large organizations cannot be versatile. A large organization is effective through its mass rather than through its agility. Fleas can jump many times their own height, but not an elephant

Agility @ Scale?

Scale “Up”

• Vertical scaling • Across product• Subset of value

stream• Cycle Time,

Efficiency, Outputs• Agile fractals

Scale “Out”

• Horizontal scaling • Across

organization• Entire value

stream• Lead Time,

Effectiveness, Outcomes

• ???

Agile fractals

http://senexrex.com/scrum-fractals/

https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2013/june/scrum-of-scrums-running-agile-on-large-projects

Scaling-out?

Scaling-Out across R&D Org

Community

Internal community of practitioners and enthusiastsExpert talk series – bridge the gap between theory and practiceExternal community connectUnconferencingLean Coffee

Org Structure

Roles and responsibilitiesGoal-settingPerformance managementCompensation and rewardsProfessional Development

Training

Intact team trainingRole-specific trainingSpecialized CoachingExecutive Briefings

Process

Product Development ProcessCommon Metrics StrategyTools

Scaling-Out across Entire Company

Develop Products

Product Management

Platform Engineering

Data Sciences

Design Studio

Program Management

Service Delivery, ProdOps,

Sell Solutions

Pre-sales

Sales, Marketing

Program Office

Finance, Products, Design, Engineering, Operations, Delivery

Legal

Deliver Outcomes

Service Delivery

Optimization

NetOps

Operations

HR, OD, IT, G&A

Recap

Agility doesn’t obey economies of scale.

At team level, outputs might be enough. At organization level, outcomes matter.

Agility is all about the approach to problem

solving, and not about mechanics.

http://www.roofingsalesman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/go-fast-go-far.png

References• 8 reasons why Japanese workers are so slow at making decisions,

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/11/18/8-reasons-why-japanese-workers-are-so-slow-at-making-decisions/

• Competing through Organizational Agility, http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/managing_in_uncertainty/competing_through_organizational_agility

• Scaling Agility, http://www.ivarjacobson.com/resource.aspx?id=402• Getting Agile to Scale Up,

http://sdtimes.com/getting-agile-to-scale-up/• Agile 2012 Keynote: Bob Sutton on Scaling Up Excellence,

http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/08/agile-2012-bob-sutton• Scaling Agile Software Development for Digital Transformation,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2014/09/08/scaling-agile-software-development-for-digital-transformation/