Presented at Agile Goa 2013 conference on 22nd Sep 2013

1. Agile team motivators in a
non-Agile organization
Reality or myth?
Agile Goa 2013
Manjunath MV

2. 2 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
• Currently: Agile Coach @ GE Healthcare, India
• 17+ years in the IT industry; 5+ years in the
Agile world
• Previous employment included:
ThoughtWorks, India
• Email: manjunath.mv@ge.com
Cell: +91-90083-07313
• My favorite books:
 Bhagavad-Gita
 The Alchemist – Paulo Coehlo
 The Lean Startup – Eric Ries
 Coaching Agile Teams – Lyssa Adkins
• My favorite quote:
“Think BIG. There are unseen forces ready to support
your dreams..”
About me

3. 3 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
First, food for thought!
What are the likely contributors for this situation?
Your customer and you
wanted to feel like this:
You and your customer
ended up like this:
During and upon completion of your project:
instead…
Entire world is ours!

4. 4 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
• Individual heroism
• Dependencies on several external teams whose availability is a
premium
• Misalignment in goals of different stages of the processing
pipe – teams/org vs. Customer
• Long (and/or phased) release cycles – typically 12-18 months
SDLC
• Collaboration with transparency bottlenecks – many
handshake points
• Agile practices in ‘Silos’
• Few pilot teams with inadequate experience
• Force fit into existing processes
Possible contributors
Can Agile be a silver bullet here?
What helps in delivering the ‘right solution’ to the customer?

5. 5 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
Our focus today: motivation factors
Key factors:
• Motivated team
• Collaborative environment promoting transparency and
continuous, validated learning
Delivering the solution
Popular choices in the market today:
• Agile – Scrum, XP, Hacking,…
• The Lean Startup
• What else have you heard/seen?
Based on:
1. Drive – excellent book by Dan Pink
2. Results of our experiments with our teams

6. 6 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
Dan Pink’s Drive – my key takeaways
Surprising Truth about Motivation:
Carrots and Sticks are counter-productive for any job that
requires conceptual, creative thinking:
 Is there any such job in the Agile world ?
Exercise:
Break into smaller groups, discuss and identify 3 motivation
factors.
Two studies funded by the Federal Reserve Bank and done by
economists at MIT / University of Chicago / Carnegie Mellon
university:
1. MIT students
2. Madurai India

7. 7 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
Dan Pink’s Drive – my key takeaways
Surprising Truth about Motivation:
Carrots and Sticks are counter-productive for any job that
requires conceptual, creative thinking:
 Is there any such job in the Agile world ?
Key drivers for motivating people:
 Purpose (Transcendental)
 Autonomy (Desire to be self-directed)
 Mastery (Get better at stuff)

8. 8 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
Our experience summary - purpose
Shared vision
• Quarterly releases – what matters to the business?
• Team Core Values (Game) - what matters to YOU? :
 Maximize customer satisfaction
 Keep it simple
 Teamwork
 Commitment
Consistent messages from the Leadership
• Why Agile? (business view)
• What do you need to be Agile? (leadership commitment)
• Pioneering journey in our world (of packaged applications & GE businesses)!
• Different leaders, different occasions
 Team meetings / All Hands
 Roundtables
 Recognition events, etc
More about the Values Game:

9. 9 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
Cross-functional team
• Core + dependent roles
• No longer separate teams of Producers & Reviewers/Approvers
• Empowered team for quicker decisions and faster delivery of a shared goal
Continuous Improvements
• Both “just do its” and “big rocks”
 Agile retrospectives
 Lean workouts
“just do its”
 Eliminate duplicate test cycles/environments
 Embed CM engrs into the scrum team
 VM-Tester pairing for reviews
“big rocks”
 Reduce IQ time to two days from eight days
 Documentation simplification
 Enterprise grooming
Our experience summary – autonomy

10. 10 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
Our experience summary: mastery
What worked/is working?
• Crawl - walk – run, incrementally!
[Shu-Ha-Ri model of Martial Arts]
• Opportunity to experiment with different
roles
• Recognitions and timely celebrations
 TEAM rewards/recognition
 Dinner/lunch after key milestones
 Cake/snacks before new release

11. 11 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
Our experience summary: business
results
Enabling business… with Agility

12. 12 /
GE Presenter and Event /
9/23/2013
What next?
Autonomy/Mastery:
• Agile Champions Team Award:
 Each team picks their three improvement areas over next three months
 The team sets their target bar
 Demonstrate results after three months to rest of the organization
 In addition to formal recognition, share knowledge and help other teams too!
 Of course, all teams start on their next set of 3 improvements in the coming quarter
Purpose:
• At work for a healthier world
 Build better products, faster (The Lean Startup)
Mastery:
• Scrum Champion Individual Award:
 Nominated by peers based on prior sprints
 One nomination per team
 Exemplary incremental improvements, challenged status quo and/or introduced new processes
that improved the productivity or quality