Once upon a time …. this multinational corporation was looking for IT methodology specialist (awful name by the way). I was looking for a job, and given that I knew some stuff about RUP, UML and CMMI, and interestingly I also knew some stuff about a methodology that is called Agile (Agile might be good, it sounds like doing the same stuff faster, that might have been a plus) ING decided to hire me for that position. So, tree years ago, I started working as level 8 employee in a 11 levels organisation with more than 1000 employees that would have never imagined the impact of that hiring.
After tree years they have more than 23 kanban boards, near 200 people from business, IT and contractors, every product building starts with an Agile inception and is continuously delivered in sprints by Scrum teams and the portfolio is visualised in taskboards their to properly manage the product flow among much more exciting things.
The virus spread also outside IT: business people are familiarised with Scrum, Kanban, user stories, continuous integration and delivery, daily standup meetings, retrospectives, etc. Even the top management participate in retrospectives, and use Agile inception and visual thinking techniques.
Cooperation and collaboration between IT and business drastically increased and the organisation decided to reinforce it, re-structuring the organisation to create a multi-disciplinar (business+IT) structure, which fits better with the new Agile way of working.
Many things happened in ING Direct Spain in this two years that I’m passionate about and I’d love to share with you.
I hope you’ll enjoy this story full of achievements, mistakes, successes, lessons learned, key factors, steps forward, steps backwards and much more about this long road.
15. WHAT I DID RIGHT
Strong message Eliminar “To improve, remove!”
Soft landing
Respect the existing methodology
Brutally manage impediments for change
Lots of communication
Visualization
16. WHAT I DID WRONG
Trying to be right
Trying to do it alone
Being too aggressive
Not looking for a reason for the people to change
Using buzzwords and complex concepts
I took trust for granted and I was a newcomer
23. WHAT I DID RIGHT
Hiring some help
I developed empathy for others and started working for them
Finding allies in top management
Creating a global community
Training, Training and more training
Gather some metrics
Simplify the message
24. WHAT I DID WRONG
It was still MY change not THEIR change
Not finding a place/role/purpose/goal for management in
the future organization
Don’t let people to do things “the wrong way” if they need
to
Focus too much in the Agile practice rather than in the
“whys”
Not properly manage the generated conflict
29. REORGANIZATION INTO A CUSTOMER
CENTRIC STRUCTURE
Reorganization of change
management in “Event in the life of a
customer”
Multidisciplinary Streams:
Marketing
Strategy
Business process
Business Operations
PO
UX
Developers
32. AND MORE …
From detailed plans to hypothesis and experiments
From annual to incremental budgeting
From keeping up with congestion to manage Flow
From project focus to continuously deliver value
Form hidden progression to radical visibility
33. WHAT I DID RIGHT
Involving business
Expand Agile beyond IT
Seeing Agile from the customer perspective
Organizing 2 Open spaces (Management, Gemba)
Going outside of the picture
Coaching coaches
Getting trust
Build a committed change coalition
Develop competences and evangelists
34. WHAT I DID WRONG
Not properly understanding my role in the Agile coaches
team
Not accepting that my job was done
Not being proud enough of the effort of all my colleagues
Focus too much in other Business Units / Countries
36. SUMMARY
Yes, It’s possible
Yes, It takes time, effort an courage
It’s not about you
Don’t do it alone
Think from the business perspective
Give people a reason to change as people
37. NEW LIFE
God of War is a registered trademark of Sony Computer
Entertainment
38. TRANSITIONING TO
AGILE IN A BANK, MY
STORY AT ING DIRECT
Angel Diaz-Maroto
@adiazmaroto
www.agilar.org
@adiazmaroto