Martin: [00:00:03]
Welcome to the Agility Narratives podcast.
We're kicking off this podcast series in the community book.
Our working title is the agility narratives.
We're holding a space where as a community; we can listen to leading change makers and enterprise leaders about the narratives on agility that they hold as a leader.
I've also got a narrative on agility and realize that so many others do. So we wanted to hold a space where change makers and leaders, each of them with their own individual narratives, can co-create together and see where that takes us.
Satish co-hosting this ?
This podcast initiated this idea for the community book, and I'm very thankful for his support and advice as we built this out.
Satish is a business leader with twenty twenty six plus years of experience in the technology industry. He's led many large consulting and transformation programs in the agile world. He's been a key contributor to the design of distributed agile delivery model.
Is now the CEO of Info Map Solutions, a boutique it is company, and also advises multiple startups as a board member. Welcome, Satish. Thank you.
Each show will talk to a change maker or enterprise leader and talk to them about their journey with agile and agility. This is about their personal journey as advocates of change.
So let's meet our first guest. On the agility narrative show Alok Unitel ,
Satish you've worked with Alok and know him for many years. Could you introduce him?
satish : [00:01:46]
Thank you, Martin. It's a pleasure being on this panel with you and the look I look and I go a long way back in Infernos.
Alok is a senior leader and head of enterprise consulting group Metamorphosis. He's a seasoned I.T. professional with rich experience in it, consulting and transformation.
I have seen him from close quarters advising customers and adopting new ways of working, leveraging lean and DevOps, agile design, thinking, etc. towards greater business agility and resilience. He is somebody who is hands on and gets involved in the programs and helps achieve the outcomes of the transformation programs, and it's a pleasure to have him here on this discussion.
Alok: [00:02:34]
Thanks for this opportunity and great to be joining you on this. On this panel,
Martin: [00:02:41]
Thank you for Alok.
So let's kick this off.
Let's start with some definitions.
How would you define the word agile and the word agility? And what do these words mean to you?
Alok: [00:02:53]
I think agile is more about, you know, the methods, tools, techniques and the mindset that actually helps you to respond quickly to the changes and demands of your environment. In some sense, agile is the means to attaining agility and agility, in my view, is a is a more overarching ability of an enterprise. You know, your ability to sense and respond quickly to changes. Ability to adapt to dynamic environment. And not just like respond. I think it's also about being able to foresee the change that's going to happen and take action. So that's how I kind of view agile and agility. I just want to add one more view, and that is that we often speak about being agile and doing agile in context of agile. So while being agile definitely leads you to agility, but you know, if you just do agile, you do not really get you to that agility. The way I kind of described it.
Martin: [00:03:56]
Agile is like the toolbox and agility is the outcome, yeah.
Alok: [00:04:00]
Yes
Martin: [00:04:01]
Thank you for that definition. That really helps. So I'm interested in your origin story with agile. So how did you first come across it? What was that experience like? What did you most appeal to you in terms of agile and what was the challenge that stood out for you at that time?
Alok: [00:04:17]
Yeah, I think it's very interesting the way I got initiated in this whole agile journey, it was way back in 2001 2002 and I used to work with some other company at that time, and we had a senior stakeholder visiting us, one of our clients, stakeholders from a large European bank. And, you know, in that bank, they were trying to drive multiple initiatives, so they were trying to implement CMM. They were also trying to implement the DSD Dynamic System Development Methodology, which is kind of an early adopter of the multiple iterative methodologies which came out. And they were also trying to think drive some balanced scorecard kind of stuff. And then at that time, I had not even heard of DSD. You wanted a viewpoint on how do you really bring all these three things together in an enterprise? Because obviously he was getting challenged and there was a time that I heard about this DCM and I obviously did a just a quick read before I went to that. But logically, I was trying to figure out what it is. And then of course, I presented to the gentleman. Then he somehow liked it, and he said, Why did he come over to Europe? And before I knew that in in a week's time, I was on a flight and I was I landed on a cold evening, it the month of December.
[00:05:37]
You know, Europe is in December. So I was there and the very next day I was in the bank and I started talking to various stakeholders. So, yeah, so that was the first time I got into this old DSD thing and I started looking at it and I found a few things which are quite interesting. So when I got into this engagement with this client and Europe, of course, you know, [00:06:00] so obviously, I mean, the SDM was very new. There were a lot of skepticism as well, but there are certain things about that whole thing. I liked a lot, you know, your ability to prioritize time box prototyping, strong orientation towards outcomes, right? Because those that came out very strongly and that kind of resonated very well with me, but at the same time, also realize that it's not so easy to implement, which I sense when I started working with the teams and I used to come across various reasons why it is not possible, right? The typical mindset related issues. But nevertheless, I think it gave me the conviction and confidence also that this is something which can actually help enterprises and elevating all the pain that they typically go through.
[00:06:44]
And they're running this large waterfall kind of programs and know delayed projects, investments being written off, et cetera. So, so both my engagement with this particular client, I came back to India and then I got into a kind of different role. I was more into that internal in a process leader, kind of a role where I was managing internal processes for the organization. And when I was in the internal process function, I realized that there was this constant struggle with sales and delivery know having to justify the need for all these internal processes and controls. People used to talk about, Yeah, we need to be agile, but beyond that, people didn't have a clue as to what does it really mean? I mean, agile was more of a world, right? I mean that you need to be agile, but what does it really entail? So that's something that's kind of I know I saw that struggle, and that role also gave me a good insight into what are the typical challenges on the ground, right? When you try to bring in any change in the organization. Because if you were to bring in agile obviously requires a lot of change management. So I think that did sometimes with a good grounding for me to understand the various complexities, various aspects of driving a change in an enterprise.
[00:07:55]
And that also kind of prepared me for my next role, where I moved in completely into a consulting kind of a role. There I was working more closely with clients initially advising them more on it, efficiency and effectiveness. And so that again was, you know, that also opened me up to the realities of an enterprise. What are the various complexities and challenges typically around various dimensions, you know, people related processes, related tools and technology related. So so that also kind of then help me to then figure out, OK, these are the challenges and this is here is the traditional way of working, which is very sequential, waterfall ish, et cetera. And here is now a new way of doing things. So how does this all come together? So what is the potential of this new way of working offers? So that kind of led to a lot of reflection and ideation and also firmed up my my own thinking and thoughts and beliefs as to what is feasible and what is not feasible. Because I also realized that agile is not a silver bullet. It will not obviously solve all the problems of the enterprise. But yes, it would definitely alleviate some of the pain that they typically go through.
satish : [00:09:09]
A very interesting journey, I look to see how you transition from your earlier role to agile leader now, so that's the great journey. So I wanted to ask you how how do you balance the internal controls
Alok: [00:09:25]
With the external delivery
satish : [00:09:26]
In this kind of role that you played? And do you remember one thing that worked really well at that time? Any specific challenge?
Alok: [00:09:36]
The one thing which which always worked well, Satish, was the moment you talked in terms of metrics or KPIs, because otherwise things are very abstract, I can say. You need to value delivery. So what does value delivery mean? So one is more from a customer standpoint and one is from an internal standpoint. So I realized that the moment your conversation, your [00:10:00]
discussions are more fact based, data driven, where you are talking more in terms of metrics and what is the potential impact on the matrix when you implement a certain process or a control? So your ability to articulate the value in terms of some KPIs and metrics that helped in some of those conversations? And that also kind of helped in articulating why a particular process or an internal control is needed to enable a certain goal or objective that we have committed to a customer so that I thought went well in terms of challenge. So see, the challenge always was, I think, more from a people standpoint, the whole mindset thing. So even from an internal process perspective, I realize that a lot of times people were just following the process without even thinking what they're doing. So process was actually having a negative impact it had. It had created a very regimented way of working and that we were working with wrong because maybe the process did not get revised, you know, because enterprise context change the context for customer changes. But the process remained static and which is where I saw there was a big challenge and acted as an impediment.
satish : [00:11:16]
Yeah, many times. I mean, having daily stand ups and writing user stories and having the ports with lots of writing on that right, so I can appreciate what you mean. Thank you for that.
Martin: [00:11:31]
So so let's let's let's move the topic on. And start talking about today and what your agility story is, you've given us great context to that. So I know labels aren't helpful, but indulge me just here a little bit. Do you see your role more as a change maker responsible for helping clients move the needle on innovation and agility [00:12:00] or more as an agile leader responsible for the delivery of agile practices
Alok: [00:12:07]
Great question, Mark. So I actually see myself more as a change maker, an influencer helping clients to drive agility, to realize business outcomes. I mean, not doing a is just for the sake of it. I'm a very strong believer that, you know, all these are means to achieving your outcomes. Today, it could be agile. Tomorrow it could be something else. So I see myself more as a change maker and influencer so
Martin: [00:12:34]
I can see the the organization that you're talking about and some of the internal processes, as you describe them, as fairly fixed. And you describe yourself as a as a change maker. So let's talk about your agility narrative in your narrative. Who is the protagonist? Who is that central character? It doesn't have to be a character, a stakeholder. It could be a relationship, an attitude. Please introduce us to to them.
Alok: [00:13:04]
Ok. Let me think nobody has ever asked me that question, so. So I think in my view, in my world or the way I would have, I would like to look at it as my central protagonist would be. Would be a trade call, customer centrality, customer centrality is the central protagonist, and the reason why I'm saying it's central, I mean customer centrality because at the end of the day, whatever work we do in the enterprise, within the teams, it's all for delivering something to an internal or an external customer. And the reality, of course, is and very unfortunate that at times, you know, the team completely loses complete sight of the protagonist. And that's the reason why we end up in situations where customer says, Yeah, this is not what I expected I wanted.
Martin: [00:13:53]
But that's a very strong protagonist, thank you. Introduce us to when things work well, what's working well and why, and, you know, maybe a given give us an illustration of what that felt like.
Alok: [00:14:07]
Yeah, I think and I'm just trying to answer that question in relation to, you know, some of the cases that I've come across while working with customers, I think where the things work well is when you have, you know, a fair clarity on the on what you're trying to do, what is it that you want to deliver as an outcome? If it is in the context of a large transformation program, there is clarity in terms of what is the specific business goals or KPIs that you really want to impact to this program. And that understanding is pretty much cascaded down to the team level. So everybody identifies to true, not in that sense. So that's one. The second thing which in an ideal world or in some of these successful cases, which worked well, was very good collaboration across different groups as well as within teams. Minimal friction and conflicts. People very openly discussing issues threadbare. So I've been part of certain programs for clients in the U.S., and I recall one of the clients and it was an insurance client, in fact, that each, uh, in the U.S. and pretty mature, agile shop, very mature. They were one of the in fact, leaders. And I found a very different kind of an environment there, and some of these traits, which I'm talking about were pretty evident. The other thing, of course, is when the competencies and the team are there. At the end of the day, it's all about people and you have to have the right set of competencies and of course, the mindset as well. Last but not the least, you had the leadership which was walking the talk on servant leadership. It was not just lip service. The leader was actually demonstrating all that, which was being dogged when it came to demonstrating agile behavior and agile leadership.
Martin: [00:16:01]
That's a lovely picture you've built of alignment, collaboration, high competency and strong servant leadership in the 2019 puny, agile unconcerned. You were a keynote speaker talking about the business impact of agile. You outlined a number of patterns of success, and your basic message really helped inspire this podcast series. Tell us more about those key messages that you had around the success of Agile and where you saw the gaps.
[00:16:34]
And I just highlight a few of those buttons, and I still recall that particular conference that you are referring to. So I think the first thing is and I refer to this in my earlier response. Clarity of vision goes a sense of purpose. What is an enterprise you stand for? And I'll give you an example. If you look at I mean, basically, it's answering the question What is your purpose? If you ask an enterprise, what is their purpose? If you look at Toyota today, how does Toyota define its whatever purpose or mission? It says that it wants to lead the Future Mobility Society enriching lives around the world with safest and the most responsible ways of moving people? Now, just imagine they're not saying that we want to be the biggest global auto manufacturer or dish out so many cars, . But they're saying, No, we want to be a mobile solutions provider. We want to help society to be more mobile and provide them with very safe and responsible ways of transportation. And as part of the same statement, they also called out three things which will get them their commitment to quality, ceaseless innovation and respect for planet. So they brought in these Austin. So these are things which it's a higher purpose thing, and I find that when an enterprise talks at that level. People connect to that within the company and outside as well, but I'm talking here about people within the company. So that was one example. Likewise, Telecaster leading
[00:18:00]
telecom from Australia. Their vision is to become a world class technology company that empowers people to connect. So again, they're very clear. They want to be a world class technology company and they want people.
[00:18:13]
They want to empower people to connect to their solutions, . And likewise, if you look at Tesla's mission, right, so Tesla says that it wants to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. Well, they're not saying they want to be the biggest manufacturer of electric cars. What I'm trying to say is that the why of an enterprise has to be called out very clearly. That, I think, is a starting point to my mind. And then, of course, the question why the need for agility? So so can we distill it down to a few goals or KPIs that OK, my goal is to enhance the customer experience, which should be reflected in when net promoter score or something being more specific and coming up with something measurable to which people can relate to. So it is where I've seen a lot of times a gap. You talk to certain CXOs, they want to do agile, but then you ask them, OK, where do you want to be agile? And they, yeah, they'll say, Have you got to deliver faster to the market? But then again, it has to go beyond that. So that's the first one, I think, which is a very important thing. The second important button for success is rather the question that one needs to ask Do you know your customer organizations which talk in terms of customer journeys, which talks in terms of user journeys, personas, empathy mapping? They're the ones who probably are able to successfully go down this path. So that's the second one. The third one is, of course, the fact that whatever agile practices and frameworks that you decide to leverage or use, they have to be contextual to the context of the enterprise.
[00:19:43]
I find a lot of times that people just pick up some buzzwords or some framework, and then they are more focused on implementing the framework rather than trying to make the framework work for them in realising their goals. So we should not get caught in that kind of a situation. Inflammation
[00:20:00]
radiators again, going back to the my point around data driven conversation again, it's very important need to take a data first approach in your decisions and how you are monitoring the progress of your initiatives. And here I am reminded of Deming's quote We trust in God and restoring data. So I think that has to be the guiding principle for the Enterprise's Amazon, by the way. It does a very, pretty good job on that. Amazon is very, very metrics driven organization in that sense. And last but not the least, the whole people and culture aspect, which I think is the most important aspect of this of this whole drive towards agility. So that's where it comes unstuck. If you do not address the people aspects in terms of how you are not only making them aware on the need for change, but also how you are enabling and equipping them to cope with that change, giving them the necessary tools and resources so they are prepared to deal with the uncertainty and the kind of ambiguity which comes in with any change that's driven in an organization. So these are some of the things Martin, which I which I believe are the key to success to move forward.
Martin: [00:21:10]
So thank you for what you've gone right from the way, right down into the specifics of culture change. My take away from what you said at the conference was, I think I felt you had thrown down the challenge to get to the agile community, to work together to to look at underlying constraints so that business can get consistent results, not not just the isolated case studies that you were talking about, and I can see that your framework helps with that. So we took up this challenge and hope that the agility narratives can become part of the forum for that, for the conversation, for this community. So in terms of external conversations that happen around underlying constraints, how did different stakeholder groups verbalize them today?
Alok: [00:22:01]
Yeah, that's an interesting question, so see the underlying constraints, the way I see it, right, because as a consultant, typically you are an external who's going into an enterprise, so you get to see an outside view of what's really happening in the enterprise. I think the constraints typically are there is a constraint related to organizational structure. I mean, how organizations are structured, we all know that value flows horizontally across different functions, but then everyone is trying to focus on their specific goals and KPIs specific to their particular functions. So they're trying to optimize their own area of work. And that leads to a kind of a global decay rate of the end to end value chain. So that's the first constraint and how this manifests. So, for example, I still recall a lot of times when we are talking to say, CXO or CIO, and we start discussing and we ask them, OK, so what are you? So the first thing the person would say is that you guys need to drive alignment. I mean, they would tell us as a consultant, the moment you hear that that alignment is nothing but trying to bring these different powers in themselves coming together. So and then often I've been told or I've been asked by CXOs that as a consultant, you guys should build a coalition for us.
[00:23:23]
So these are again manifestations of what is the underlying constraint, which they, you know, they obviously they will not say it in so many words. So that's number one. The second constraint is related to the middle management, middle management is not a constraint. Don't get me wrong, it's just that middle management is caught in a fire so as to speak. And the reason I say that is so the top management says, OK, we need to do this. We need to be agile. We need to drive this initiative. People on the ground, people at the team level, the score, the scrum teams, they want to do it. They love this way of working. Now the middle management is caught
[00:24:00]
in between because they not only have to deliver the ongoing change initiatives, the core of the work, but they also now have to drive this change. They have to implement the dictate, which has come from the top. They also have to meet the aspirations and expectations of people on the ground because but they are caught in between and they are not. They have not been suitably enabled to do this. There is confusion in their mind as to what's in it for me.
[00:24:28]
What happens to my role? They also sense so there is a perceived loss of power because agile is also about flattening the hierarchies and powering the teams a lot. So so what do I as a manager or as a middle manager manager, really do? Where do I fit in this whole new model? So these are some of the things which I find are difficult constraints. Of course, there are some other constraints which are more related to the hard constraints around technology. And because it's easy for me to say that you need to be an agile organization. But when I start constructing the teams and then I start composing the different scrum teams, I find that their underlying systems are their model monolith systems. They are their legacy systems, which makes it very difficult to deliver value incrementally frequently. So those are some of the things that those constraints are getting elevated also today because of all these micro services APIs and the cloud ecosystem. But yeah, I mean, in short, that's that's those are some of the constraints and how they came across in some of my. I am sure you would have also dealt with the internal
satish : [00:25:42]
Stakeholder constraints as well, right? Look, it's not just the external constraints, external state constraints. So foreign leaders, teams and coaches, what what are those unspoken needs? What concerns may be discussed in private and not openly talk about [00:26:00] how do these internal stakeholders feel inside? I'm sure there must be a lot of unspoken words about their feelings as well. So please throw some light on that as well.
Alok: [00:26:15]
So I dig any enterprise, most of these people will have experienced many initiatives as part of their professional career in an enterprise. So some would have succeeded, some would have failed. So firstly, what I find that the first response which they may verbalize maybe informally but they will not seek out in a formal forum, is that yeah, we have seen all the changes happen in the enterprise. But you know what's new? This is the it looks good on paper, but the reality is very different in our enterprises. That's a typical response rate, whether they talk about it or not. That's number one. And probably part of it is also related to some of their bad experiences with the past change initiatives. So they've seen a lot of initiatives come in and dying out, and therefore there is a level of there's a level of skepticism in their thinking. So that's number one. Number two is. And unfortunately, this is very unfortunate, actually, so I've seen a lot of our clients enterprises that. One leader would start an initiative and then there would be before, you know, in six months time, nine months time, there is a change. There is a new structure in place.
Alok: [00:27:28]
Then a new leader who would come in and the new leader will try to reshape what the earlier leader had started. And imagine this happening every nine months. And you can imagine the plight of the person on the ground because before they stabilize and try to align with something, there's a slight change in direction. So again, some of these things do not come out very openly, but they are there at the back of the mine. I also I also realize that while people do get the need for the change, but it's just that the proposed change
[00:28:00]
sometimes can be very overwhelming for them. And that also creates a kind of a mental barrier or a block. So some of these things have to be they don't come out very openly either. You have to really ask them very specific questions and then have a very open discussion. And the reason why these don't come out is because they see they don't see a safety net in the enterprise, which would where even if they speak about these fears or these these barriers in their mind, they know that they will not be kind of penalized.
satish : [00:28:35]
Thanks, very. Well articulated, I would say, yeah.
Martin: [00:28:41
] Alok, what would you say your theme of your agility narrative, how would you why would you pick that theme and what would it be?
Alok: [00:28:51]
I think my team would still be related to that central protagonist. What I said earlier customer centricity and the reason is that. As I said earlier that if you saw the whole objective is that you need to deliver value, which means you should have a very seamless view of what is that value chain or that what is it value stream which is delivering that value as perceived by the customer. So the value obviously has to be in terms of what the customer wants. And therefore, if a deal is all about driving faster business value, then customer centrality has to get into the DNA of everything that we do in the enterprise. Now, it's very easy to say that everybody will say that, yeah, we are very customer centrist. But if you take a closer look at the operating models of many enterprises, that customer centrality does not necessarily get reflected in that because of, as I said, that a of siloed structures and lack of collaboration.
Martin: [00:29:52]
In that narrative. Who are and what are the villains? Who's the guy who's constraining the process, not a person, [00:30:00] but like, who would you call out as the bad guy, the villain in this narrative?
Alok: [00:30:07]
The villains? I guess there are many villains. Okay, so villains for me, take it is more like impediments to it is that they act like villains. They said that the siloed org structure is a villain for show command and control mindset. Uh, is a villain because, you know, that inhibits agile thinking and behavior. Agile theories are villains that you'll find in every organization. There are people who are very passionate about agile, but they but they're very they've got a very bookish knowledge, very theoretical knowledge of agile. They are not able to translate into practical implementation. So that's a villain for you in theorists. And then, of course, the fact that a lot of time there are multiple initiatives running in the enterprise and there is no synergy, there's a lack of synergy. And that also acts as an impediment or a villain in your terms.
Martin: [00:31:00]
Yeah. Thank you.
satish : [00:31:03]
Yeah, that's interesting that you talked about the customer centricity being the protagonist in multiple villains, etc. So what are the stakes here and for the clients and for the industry? What is at stake?
Alok: [00:31:21]
Yes, living through unprecedented times this whole last two years, the pandemic, everyone working remote enterprises trying to go digital at a very fast pace digital revolution, literally really annihilating traditional businesses while turning startups into unicorns and quick times. But I was just reading a report that the average time to be a unicorn is also coming down right from a startup to a unicorn. And while a unicorn took the average time unicorns, tech startups look to be unicorn for seven years. They are taking less than three years to become tech [00:32:00] icons, which is like, you know, $10 billion valuation. So clearly there is a huge shift which is happening enterprises today. They don't know who will be, who will disrupt them, who will disrupt their businesses. The likes of Amazon and Google literally can walk into any field of business, and it's already happening in some cases. If enterprises really need to survive and thrive in this kind of environment where things are changing at a very rapid pace, and of course, technology is also evolving very fast. Enterprises have to make agility a key part of the DNA. As I said earlier, the ability to sense, adapt and respond quickly is the key to survival in this digital world. In fact, like Peter Drucker said, the best way to predict the future is to create it. So if we if you just keep on responding to what's happening, that's one part of it. But if you are taking the leap and trying to create the future and changing the rules of the game. That's the key. And to get there, obviously, then agility has to be in your DNA. And without that, you can't do it.
satish : [00:33:12]
That's great. Thank you. Thank you.
Martin: [00:33:14]
I look to close this conversation. Imagine you're talking to a group of key stakeholders wanting to move their organization forward as you describe. And honestly, they feel stuck, and you sort of empathize and understand that the difficult position that they're in, the delivery expectations within limited acceptance of failure, the sharing of risk for decisions they really feel on their own. So what's you know, what's going on and what would be your call to action for them?
Alok: [00:33:47]
Some of the things that I have seen worked well. I will try to answer this. Based on that experience, my first advice to them would be to go and meet some organizations who have been on this journey
[00:34:00] of late and finding this this activity well, because enterprises which have gone through that journey and they have come out successful, that gives conviction to, for example, in this case, this particular group of stakeholders that, yes, this is doable. And they also get to learn from that other organization as to what are the pitfalls they have to avoid. What are some of the things they need to take care of? So that's point number one. It just kind of opens up to the idea that, yes, this is doable. Having done that, my second action for them would be to very clearly articulate the need for change the way. And what are the inveigh in the upside and the downside, the upside. If they can become successful, then obviously, you know, how does how it will impact the organization. And even if they fail, what's going to happen? So the failure doesn't mean that everything is going to go completely down. Obviously, they would realize something, at least based on whatever I've seen. Failure in this case does not mean that you will. You will not realize anything. You probably would progress, but you may not be able to deliver the complete nine yards of the outcome that you were looking for. So again, so that weighing in the upside and downside in a very transparent manner and based on that, agreeing upon certain guardrails which need to be established because see, the problem always is not in that the fear of any change impacting the inflight business critical programs. That is the fair and nobody wants to disrupt something which is already working well.
Alok: [00:35:28]
So how do you establish the necessary guardrails which minimizes the impact to what's already on flight, which is already a work in progress? So that would be my third point. The fourth would be, of course, the leadership has to create a safety net. The leader has to stand up and give that confidence, comfort the team that come what may if we go down this path, we are in this together. So that kind of a safety net is extremely important for people to be able to take these shared risks, as you mentioned. And last but not the least, the transformation itself
[00:36:00]
has to run in an agile way. Remember, any transformation journey of this nature gets into 18 to 20 months or twenty four months. A lot can happen in between. So again, if you're going to run the transformation in that waterfall way in which you have planned out everything for the next two years and then you start just implementing one by one, that's not going to happen. So you actually have to try to break down the whole transformation journey into a series of epics, and that has to be further broken down into a set of sprints. And that also gives you the ability to inspect and adapt, and you can course correct. Maybe things would have changed one year down the line. So that would be my advice to run it in an agile way. I've seen a lot of organizations where they have thought through the whole program for the next two years and they want to do agile. So it's a dichotomy, right? I mean, so so that that would be my advice or call for action.
Martin: [00:36:53]
What are some of the experiments and prototypes that you may add to that set of thoughts?
Alok: [00:36:59]
Yeah, I wanted prototypes of experiments, but today what I'm seeing is in the industry. They've been talking a lot about this whole shifting from a project to a product based mindset, but not much action has happened on the ground. Now I'm seeing that there is a lot of many enterprises, large enterprises. They want to take a very product centrist approach to the way they run their enterprise and customer centrality is an integral part of that product centrist approach. So that's something that we are focusing on a lot. We are already working with quite a few enterprises on this journey as they try to adopt a very product centrist operating model. So that's something which is happening in a big way, Martin. And the other thing, of course, is on the technology side, you know, site reliability engineering is today becoming a very strong and emerging practice in the industry. Remember that agile and DevOps have focused a lot on the change part of the business where you are delivering changes. Not much was done about when these changes
[00:38:00]
are actually delivered. Then how do you sustain and maintain an application? An operations perspective. So site reliability engineering, which has come from the world of Google, is something which is again becoming very relevant, and that's again an area where we are investing quite a lot.
Martin: [00:38:17]
Thank you a lot for sharing this amazing agility narrative. You talk to us about from vision and the big why down to the disciplines of KPI monitoring and to the creation of safety across the organization and introduce a lot of the disciplines required to be successful in this journey. Thank you very much. We really appreciate you being our first guest.
Alok: [00:38:45]
My pleasure, Martin and Satish, wonderful speaking to you on this forum, and I look forward to the future as the inheritance.