Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/2ruswfa. Matt Barrett talks about how his team at Adaptive Financial Consulting manages to get things done in the face of huge cultural resistance while maintaining their own engineering culture and leaving their clients’ development teams in a better place than when they arrived. Filmed at qconlondon.com. Matt Barrett is a director and co-founder of Adaptive Financial Consulting. He is involved with project delivery as a technical architect and engineering lead, as well as consulting strategy and sales.

1. Delivering Value
While Behind Enemy
Lines
Matt Barrett
Adaptive Financial Consulting
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 1

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afc-cultural-resistance
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4. Who
What
Where
How
Why
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 2

5. Who
Adaptive
Not product,
nor enterprise,
but consultants.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 3

6. Who
Me
Previously: developer, technical lead.
Now: helping our teams deliver.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 4

7. Who
Us
Senior consultants acting as
technical architects,
senior developers,
team leads.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 5

8. What
Delivering Value While Behind Enemy Lines
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 6

9. What
Not just development.
It (unfortunately) takes more than engineering to deliver value.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 7

10. What
Reactive Trader
Event driven,
streaming,
high frequency..
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 8

11. Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 9

12. Where
...behind enemy lines...
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 10

13. Where
Big investment banks,
Small investment banks,
FinTechs,
Hedge funds..
Wide range of cultures.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 11

14. Where
Big organisation struggling to get something anything done.
Huge amount of inherited technology, infrastructure and
practices.
Brought in by one of two groups, business or IT.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 12

15. Where
Lots of competing forces.
History v. Culture v. Incentives
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 13

16. Where
Culture, past behaviour, current behaviour, and bananas..
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 14

17. Where
Bad Signs
• Architectural review boards and project codes
• Simple things are hard
• Change control
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 15

18. How
Getting a project up and off the ground is different from
staying in flight.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 16

19. How
Agile (or any process) v. the organisation
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 17

20. How
Observe
Orient
Decide
Act
-- John Boyd
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 18

21. How
Introduce yourself to everyone and start building relationships,
before you write a line of code.
Some people will be for you, some people will be against you,
and some people just won't care.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 19

22. How
Understand the big picture.
Cost v. Revenue
Change v. Stability
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 20

23. How
Time available to build trust is very short.
Demo something fast.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 21

24. How
Use a fulcrum.
Give me a place to stand, and a lever
long enough, and I will move the world.
―- Archimedes
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 22

25. How
Don't ask a question that you don't
want to know the answer to.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 23

26. How
The rules are there for those that cannot reason.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 24

27. How
Don't play politics.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 25

28. How
Be prepared to go to war.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 26

29. How
Don't delay bad news.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 27

30. How
Find allies,
get them on side,
and create a team.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 28

31. How
Bring positive change to the environment.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 29

32. Why
Easiest path is to go head down and code,
ignoring everything else...
...but it has a multiplying effect on engineering value.
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 30

33. Why
Delivering real value takes more than just engineering..
..and successful delivery is its own reward!
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 31

34. Thank You!
Questions?
matt@weareadaptive.com
@mattbarrett
Matt Barrett / Adaptive, QCON London, 2017 32

35. Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/
afc-cultural-resistance