Driving Agile Transformation from the Top Down
90 Word Summary: Pete Morowski, senior vice president of R&D for Borland Software, will draw on his experiences leading an established development organization through an agile transformation to explore practical answers to questions that IT executives and dev managers from established enterprise organizations with multiple teams and projects may be asking themselves as they consider transitioning to agile. It will seek to add a new chapter to the existing body of agile knowledge, providing insights into how to translate agile principles from theory into practice for existing enterprises, enabling more mainstream application of agile principles.
Full Description: While agile practices are starting to make their way into large enterprises, in most instances this has been a “bottom up” up movement driven through grassroots efforts. But as agile success stories draw mainstream attention to the benefits of agile practices, an increasing number of executives are considering making an organization-wide agile transition. It is an attractive proposition. But, what does an agile transition look like when it comes as a mandate from the top? How do the “rules” of agile apply to a large, established development organization? How do you scale agile principles from a single team to an enterprise with multiple teams working on multiple projects?
When I joined Borland Software 18 months ago, we had 325 engineers, working on a broad portfolio of development projects from 13 different locations around the world. We made the executive decision to transition the organization to agile as part of an effort to reduce our development costs, boost our efficiency and quality, and introduce more operational oversight. Today, Borland is in “the thick” of its transformation – close to 40% of our teams are agile.
In embarking on this transformation, I found that many of the books and resources available on agile didn’t quite fit our situation. They were written for “pure” implementations and focused on how to empower self-directing teams. They didn’t provide guidance on how to manage a portfolio – a software development business – in an agile manner. They didn’t provide perspective on how to manage a transformation as a business initiative; to apply agile principles to a complex organization. We found ourselves in some uncharted territory. I’d like to draw on my experiences leading an established, multi-project development organization in an agile transformation – one that was “top down” – to map out some of this territory for other IT executives that may seek to make the journey.
Value statement: This talk will explore practical answers to the questions that IT executives and dev managers from large, established software organizations with multiple teams and projects may be asking themselves as they consider transitioning to agile. It will seek to add a new chapter to the existing body of agile knowledge, providing insights into how to translate agile principles from theory into practice for existing enterprises, enabling more mainstream application of agile principles.
Attendees will walk away with:
• An understanding of the role of management in creating an agile environment
• Insights into how to transition traditional development team roles – managers, chief programmers, product managers – to the agile model
• Suggestions on how to adapt agile practices to a multi-team, multi-project enterprise development organization – some guidance on what rules are immutable and where flexibility is crucial
• Guidance on how to manage a gradual shift to agile, and perhaps bridge “two worlds” indefinitely
• Real-world examples of how the benefits outweigh the investments in an enterprise agile transition
The format of the session is a talk (presentation) and a Q&A/discussion. The talk/presentation will run 40 minutes, answering the questions through examples, illustrations, best-practices and stories from my real-world experience transitioning an enterprise software organization to agile. Talk: 40 minutes Discussion/Q&A: 20 minutes
Please note: We submitted this twice — as a 60 minute talk to both the Agile & Organizational Culture and Main stages. We’d also be open to shortening it into a 30 minute experience report, or developing it for another stage should that be a more suitable option for the topic.