Strategy of No strategy, Agile tour Kaunas 2013-09-26

Who am IAdforma developer from the start….
Smalltalk and Turbo and waterfallmethod.... We talked about Software development Lifecycle... Getting back that later !!
Found this as I tried to find pictures in last slide... I had this on my door in IBM software laboratory.
I have during the years come to some insights… through many frustrations “why are we not getting there”, “we did everything right, all the planning, all the data analyze”As someone said “I had it all planed perfectly then life came and changed everything”Should mention Franz Johansen, Daniel Pink and some other authors have written it down…
I want to argue for a statement that “the world is unpredictable... This is asteroid 2012 DA14's closest pass ever BUTit was discovered by amateur astronomers.At the time, the asteroid was about 4.3 million km away from Earth.
The rules are constantly changingand success is therefore random”.We are told any success is result of strategy, planning and careful analysis... Its notWhen I talk about success I mean game changing things, not implementing an SAP system or any other project… innovation, new product, enter new market etc…Listen or reading about personal or corporate success, you will see that one theme repeats again and again: somewhere, at some point, someone got lucky. It is the fact that almost everyone that create a huge success fails todo it again...Absolut Vodka, Michel Roux, "I don't know"... Have not been able to reproduce the success. Nokia CaseExperts were extremely wrong.General Experts not able to foresee successes. Apple, not able to do mobile phones...Brand Stephen King story49 novels, all of them NY times bestseller. Psedonym Richard Backman Turn the logic around, if the world is predictable and there is a recipe for success … well then everyone would do it. Law firm in US.
So the world is unpredictable, rules are constantly changing and success is pure luck Let’s look at something different….
SO why is it that we are trying to find a strategy in this and when we listen to these trillion dollar millionairs?I would say we don’t like random. We want predictability. Early version of iPod made the shuffle "less random to make it feel more random.“With one exception: Love ...romance is beautiful ... love is no strategy
What do we do?The world is unpredictable, rules are constantly changing, success is pure luck and all we want is some structure and order…So what do we do?
How to expose your self for coincident / intersections (Slide)This requires hard work... That is why successful entrepreneurs are very hard working and always open for intersections / coincidents...Correct my self. success is not based upon pure luck... It is based upon coincidences...
So how do they do it…these people creating game changing things? I would say the way to go is to put as many bets as possible with minimal cost and maximal passion.When it kicks in go all in....Pablo Picasso created more than fifty thousand works of art in his career.That translates into roughly two pieces per day. He is by far the most prolific artist who ever lived. Spotify example. Daniel Ek.It turned out to work... Tested in Sweden.Hard work to go all in... A lot of money required... Rovio example. Angry Bird the 56th game that was produced. Apple has a failure rate of 90% of new products as we know it...Jonathan Ive, responsible for desgin in AppleInterview. Passion for doing the right products for people. Pfizer. In 1986, Pfizer, a relatively small American pharmaceutical company, began to speculate that blocking an enzyme called PDE 5 would relieve angina, a form of chest pain. Angina occurs when arteries in the heart get clogged, preventing blood and oxygen from entering. The consequences can be serious, even deadly, and can ultimately lead to heart attacks. Testing on humans it turned out that especially men were asking for more...it turned out that taking multiple high doses of the drug they kept getting sustained erections after taking the pill. Well, that was a big surprise.... Viagra was born...
So place your bets…easier sais than done… There is one thing that I believe is the most difficult and also the most important thing in creating game changing results ….so let’s have a look at another thing....
Pick one card and remember it.
As I see it... Get your eyes of the ball. See wider..Step out of your normal routines. Talk to other people than the one you know.Go to conferences where you do not know anything about anything…The trick to get an organisation to see wider...Called innovation process.
So the world is unpredictable, rules are constantly changing, success is based upon luck and all we want is some structure and order…The way to fix it is to get your eyes of the ball and place as many bets as possible. Yeah right easy said, hard to do…in my company it’s not possible…But there are more to it as I see it.
It starts at the top!Trust, empowermentI strongly believe in recognition,Awards instead of yearly bonusSmall tokens, KudoboxCulture, Values and norms.How are they created…
Rather talk about the DNA of the company… can not be changed through a ppt deck….
So the way to create drive for innovation a culture where bets are placed with lowest cost and maximum passion…It is dependent on the DNA of the company and it starts at the top… leadership!
when it comes to software development agile is a necessity!
“Prove the opposite to start with” Reflect over the Old waterfall method at IBM.ISO 9000 certifiedDelayed the project with 2 years just because I added some slack in my tasks…
The Agile PM method.Revisit vision once a year is to seldom…. The trick is how to within Aigle development without a long term vision and allow yourself to place your bets. Agile enables you to place your bet as lowest cost dueSprints every second week and the instant feedback about your product.Every sprint cannot be a bet then it will be complete chaos... You cant do everything at the same time..
In Adform we work with a max 6 months theme of our development.Where we place our bets within that theme…( It does not mean we leave everything at the side.)The bets are placed after a lot of discussions on features and functions based upon feedback.The bets are managed within roadmaps
Where do we in Adform put our bets….
MobileIs an open landscape. Talked about it for several years... No real winner.The success will be in the most unexpected way...
multiscreen advertising/Outdoor / TVEverything that can be digitalized will be digitalized it is just about time.Control outdoor screens with mobile...Syncronised ad, TV campagnion TV, apps on smartTVProducers like Samsung or Network broadcasters...Interaction with the ad via mobile phone...
This is Wall StreetTen years ago, brokers had to go to the stock exchange to buy and sell stocks, bonds etc. The whole business of buying stocks was a manual and cumbersome processToday, the “real” stock exchange does not exist. The stock exchange is now in the cloudThe whole buying process is digitalized and based on real timesupply, demand and algorithmsExactly the same is about to happen to the buying of display inventoryReal-time bidding is all about efficiency in the selling and buying of media inventory.
So in Adform we know that the world is unpredictable, rules are constantly changing, success is pure luck and that all we want is some structure and order…The way to fix it is to get our eyes of the ball and place as many bets as possible. This requires leadership in creating drive and with people being part of the solution not the problem.We call it the strategy of no strategy, which is the best strategy. Halleluja.
Be part of the solution not the problem. (slide see attached deck)
Hit or shit list (slide see attached deck)