Enabling Organizational Change through Agile Methods Agile approaches and methods have been promoted as a panacea for long-standing problems in IT projects. Such problems may be denoted as “one-size-fits-all issues”, “failing to embrace changes in the projects”, “lack of IT-Business Alignment”. Recently, practitioners have experienced that agile methods can be used as a means to facilitate change concerning IT mind-set and practice as well. This talk is concerned with the effects of agile method on organizational change. We explore underpinnings of an agile-enabled organizational change in terms of the way of thinking and actions. To articulate such underpinnings an exemplary case is used. Reflections on lessons-learned and practical insights are to be presented as well.

1. Agile Turkey Summit - 2013
Agile Transformation Case Study
27 September, 2013
Mehmet Aydın, Kadir Has University
Nurullah Battal, Roche

2. Agenda
 Agile History & Evolution
 Recent Studies on Agile
 Agile Method Construction
 Agile Transformation – CASE STUDY
 Future Topics

3. Evolution of Agile Methods
Source: Abrahamsson et al., 2003

4. Progress and Recent Studies about Agile
Methods
• Most examined methods: XP ve SCRUM
• Key issues and most investigated topics
– On the notion of agility and its underying concepts and practice
– Agile Adoption and Adaptation
– Combining Agile and Traditional Methods Agile
– Understanding Method Evolution at the organizational and
individual level
– Organizational culture, knowledge issue and tools for management
agile projects
– Examination of those factors affecting : Decision on Agile Adoption,
Use, Post-Implementation

5. Fundamentals and Underlying Primitives of
Method Construction
based on
The way of thinking
Principles
Assumptions
derived from
lead to
based on
support
have
Practices
Limitations
The way of action
Source: Aydin, 2005
Source: Turk et al., 2005

6. On the Notion of Evolution and Adoption
Understanding  methodology X
 Understanding of situation Y
Improved use of Methodology X
and others (including possibly no
methodology)
I – Methodology – World
Source: Harmsen, 1995, method development lifecycle

7. On the Notion of Adaptation
I – Methodology – World
Source: Fitzgerald, 1997

8. Drivers for Change
Increasing competition from Local and multinational companies
 Competition in all areas
 Local companies are more agile, focused
Low customer satisfaction
 IT is not flexible for dynamic business needs
 High bureaucracy even for simple projects
 Decreasing cost-quality balance
Inherent IT problems
 Increasing leadtimes
 Quality issues
 Low productivity
Restrictions and constraints of Project Management
Methodology
 Waterfall project management
 Milestone based, not iterative
 Not flexible

9. Change of Delivery Methodology
In order to be more agile to the customer requirements and to meet their
expectations, we need a new delivery approach:
 Faster project delivery with lower costs (more agile project execution
framework)
 Increased customer satisfaction
 Increased involvement and participation of the business resources
 Flexible approach to customer needs and requirements
 Eliminating redundancy (waste) in the delivery processes
 Increased quality of the delivered product while lowering the cost of
development

10. Agile Methodology Selection
 Evaluated different Agile Methodologies for pros and cons
 Applied «Methot Tailoring» to come up with the most suitable approach
for our organization
Scrum
TDD
FDD
XP
Modified
Scrum

11. How was our journey?
High Level
Transformation Plan


Learn the new approach and practice
Find potential problems to be fixed
 Try to prove agile is working
 Compare with existing practices

12. Change Agents Analysis
 Customize communications according to Target Analysis
 Do not use one communication for all roles

13. Change Agent Register & Mapping
IPMPF Process Owners
Project Managers
Solution Architects
Developers
IT Quality Process Owners
Information Managers
Program Managers
Functional IT Heads

14. New Organization & Roles
Full Team
IT Account
Managers
Informatics
Portfolio
Commitee
(IPC)
Program
Managers
Extended Team
Business
Matter Experts
Core Team
Architects
Developers
Buiness
Sponsors
System
Admins
 Perception of new titles
 Colocated vs virtual team
Product Owner

15. Key Decisions & Takeaways
Select the right project for pilot
 Visibility
 Size
 Risk
Align IT & Business resources
 Shared performance goals
 Individual bonus are linked
Select the right project team for pilot
 Supporters
 High commitment
 Exclude resistors
Decide on the post pilot expansion strategy upfront
 Surrounding systems
 Related solutions
 Step-by-step

16. Results
 Increased customer satisfaction
 High commitment and motivation of team members
 Increased accountability of business team and resources
 Expansion was easier than pilot

17. Ongoing and Emerging Issues
 More emperical issues (case analysis, action research, focus group)
from alternative perspectives
 Agile adaptation at organization, project, and individual levels
 Investigating agile approaches in new contexts including
 In-house and/or globally distributed development
 Outsourcing ve offshore outsourcing
 New environments and platforms (Cloud computing, aPaas, etc)
 New industries (in addition to finance, telecom ...)

18. Teşekkürler

19. Backup Slides

20. Design Phase
Design
Phase
 Build solid / well
structured strategy and road-map
 Identify clear time-lines and milestones
for the implementation
 Develop training plans for each role:
 Map the current employees and
roles to the scrum roles
 Determine the proper trainings and
workshops per scrum role
20

21. Design Phase Cont.
Design
Phase
 Gather feedback
and lessons learned for outside
organization which implemented
Scrum methodology
 Establish guidelines and how-to
guides to facilitate the change
 Identify the guiding principles for
the implementation
21

22. Delivery Phase
Delivery
Phase
 Identify pilot teams and projects
 Evaluate the results and feedback of
Pilot projects
 Share findings with the change targets
 Revise the implementation Plan
 Finalize the Roll-Out plan and schedule
 Determine the new team structures
according to Scrum Teams
 Roll-out in the organization
22

23. Optimization Phase
Optimization
Phase
 Collect data on the project
 Perform periodic pulse checks to
assess climate in the organization
 Collect ideas from the team for further
improvements
 Consolidate and prioritize improvement
ideas
 Implement improvements for evolution
23