In this presentation, we want to show how it looks like when consultant approaches organization, what he can found and what may happen. We will show on real example, how organization accepts consultant and works with its recommendations. This is a story described from two perspectives: how it is seen from the view of the consultant and how it is seen from the view of the customer, represented by Product Owner. There are aha moments, misunderstandings, surprises and also politics.

1. One Product,
One Project,
2 Perspectives
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt
the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw

2. Introduction
Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
EXPERIENCE
§ 15+ years in technology business management
§ 1 Scrum Master in Czech Republic, introducing Scrum to CZ & SK
§ 1st Agile Transformation of company in CZ
§ Founder Agilia community, Founder Agilia Conference in Brno and Budapest
§ Training experience: around 1000 Scrum Masters
§ I help organizations to improve performance
Michal Vallo

3. Agile Transformation 4 Layer Framework
Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
SCRUM
DSDM
Prince 2Crystal
Clear
ITIL
Business
Domain
Testing
Continuous
Integration
Project
Management
Finance
Visualization
Business
Domain
KPI
Purpose
Vision
Team
Work
Environment
Engagement
Product
Parameters
Service
Parameters
DaD
LEAN
Principles
The Work
Growth
TOC - Theory of Constraints:
Elliyahu M. Goldratt
XP
Process
Challenge
RecognitionCollaboration
Empowerment
Customer
Engagement

4. Host
§ 5+ years in a software product management
§ 5+ years in a project management
§ Software Product Owner novice when met Michal
Vallo
§ Now, agile evangelist, helping corporates to come
back to lean mode
§ Mentoring startups in JIC Starcube international
startup accelerator and changing companies cultures
to agile
4
Michal Polačko
www.AgileWheel.com
www.linkedin.com/in/michalpolacko
Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz

5. The STORY – Assisting Me With Success
Business: Custom Data Processing
Company Size: 500+ people
Branches: Europe, Asia, America
Revenue goal: $100 Millions
Reason for Agile
KEEP DELIVERING ACCORDING TO
CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS AND STAY
COMPETITIVE

6. Problem Worth Solving
§ Coaching project
managers (PMO)
§ Skills were OK, but
tools were missing
§ Our customers turning
to agile
§ Unrealistic TAT
expectations
§ Overloaded resources
§ Human error increase
§ We all knew company
had to change
Economist

7. Historical attempts
§ Buy existing system
§ No enough money
§ Develop own system
§ No development
department
§ Attempt in the past
resulted in a big fail
Economist

8. Solution
§ Automatic distribution
& management
§ Machine learning
Economist
§ Select existing system?
§ Not possible
§ All owned by competitors
§ Build own system?
§ YES
§ So, we created MVP

9. MVP proofed the concept…
… So, we created
§ Business plan and vision for whole
company
§ Goal was bringing us from age of
dinosaurs to 21 Century
§ Unified tool and approach for all
our departments
§ I got funding from senior
management
§ I had to build development
department
Economist
And we started…
§ I had experience with agile
project management
§ I knew what to do
§ We build a small team
(developers, tester and scrum
master) in upcoming months
§ We used few agile approaches,
combined them and ended in
using Scrum
§ Senior management told us –
proof yourself to employees so
they will want to use your
products
Built the team
& product

10. And 9 months after, we still had minimum
users
§ We used everything as
described in available agile
materials (at least we thought)
§ My backlog was full of
different requests from
various departments
§ Team was not engaged,
except for few individuals
§ Team was disconnected from
users
§ We burnt ~$300K and still
almost nothing usable
§ I needed to do something
quickly to show the value
Built the team
& product
Problem -
Minimum users

11. Scrum Training
11Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
We use Scrum for 9 MONTHs
and somehow it does not
work
---------------
A-HA moments: Scrum is
different from what we do
now
---------------
We DO / DO NOT BELIEVE it
will work
The fastest way to burn your money is jump into the methodology.
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum users
1st scrum
training

12. Assessment
12Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
PROBLEM:
1) Scrum team does not deliver!
2) Save PROJECT running!
Invested 5-6M CZK
0 10 20 30 40 50
Knowledge
Response t/change
Value
Motivation
Assessment
40+ departments
VISION => We need unified system!!!
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the team

13. Assessment
13Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
ORGANIZATION
Number of users: ~40
Departments: 40+
Typical request: change button
„If you have problem, hire more people!“
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the team

14. Value Chain
14Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
Value Chain Analysis
---------------
How exactly is job done?
Where the value IS?
Key Discovery
---------------
95% of processes are identical in
principle.
Empower Product Owner – to deliver radical change!
2 - OPEX: Reorganize delivery process – reduce number of
departments – reduce number of people by 100-150. Create
opportunity for these people for new starting clients.
1 – Play with Scrum process, Team and PBL to gain productivity.
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the team

15. 1-2-1 Coaching (Change Breaker)
My biggest problems
§ Get a buy-in from
leaders
§ Show product value
§ Convince users to switch
to new tools
§ Make my team delivering
Economist
We focused on
§ How exactly the users
jobs are done
§ Where the value is
§ Metrics
§ Our costs
§ How to measure impact
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum
users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the team
1-2-1
coaching

16. 1-2-1 Coaching (Change Breaker)
Outputs
§ Savings vs Earnings
§ Visualize - 95% of jobs were identical
Economist
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum
users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the team
1-2-1
coaching

17. PBL Prioritization
17Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
Release 1
Release 2
Release 3
Metrics
(How to measure impact?)
1) How many new users?
2) How much money? (Savings / Earnings)
• Time
• No of Administrators
a) Time to delivery (Small Batch)
b) Estimate (Large batch)
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum
users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the team
1-2-1
coaching

18. Scrum and Team
18Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
PBL
- Prioritized
- True
Coaching Scrum
Master
Creating Team (10) +
including change of
team members.
Performance
improvement.
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum
users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the team
1-2-1
coaching

19. Achievements
19Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
900+ Users in 5 months.
Project no longer may
be put on halt
We created team,
which delivers
Use of product
delivers true value
Track 1
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum
users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the
team
1-2-1
coaching
Results

20. Failures
20Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
Management
Disconnection
Failure to materialize
possible savings on
business process
re-organization
from top to bottom
Track 2
Built the team
& Product
Problem -
Minimum
users
1st scrum
training
Consultation
with the
team
1-2-1
coaching
Results

21. Conclusion - Wrapping Up
21Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz
Bottom up approach in Agile
adoption/transformation is NOT
sustainable.
Implementing Agile is
organization wide project – not
a single activity.
True objectives are often
different than declared goals.
Employee afraid of radical
change, personal interest
prevails.
External consultants often do
not help either, it is against
their interest.
Trust your consultant, do not
hide anything, even negative
information

22. Discussion
Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz 22
Do you think - was it fail? Or success?
What would you do differently?

23. Contacts
Michal Vallo
Tel. +420 604 226 125
E-mail: mvallo@aguarra.com
www.aguarra.com
@aguarrawolf
Michal Polačko
www.AgileWheel.com
www.linkedin.com/in/michalpolacko
@michalpolacko
Aguarra, s.r.o., Plzeňská 157 / 98, 150 00 Praha 5, www.aguarra.cz 23