How to sell Agile. Or Empowering your customer to transform to Agile.

1. This Presentation is the property of Jayathirtha Rao.
You may use it to train your colleagues and/or
customers. You may not use it for commercial training
purposes, and you may not redistribute it without prior
written approval from me. If you have any questions
about usage, please email jayathirth@gmail.com and I
will reply within 48 hours. With any usage, each page
must retain the text shown at the bottom of this page.
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

2. Empowering your customer
How to make your customer agile
Or
Selling Agile
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

3. What we call “selling” is really the act of finding what
interests people and seeing if an agile approach can help
meet their needs.
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

4. What do you want to be Agile for?
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

5. Unspoken Reasons
 I’m afraid of change
 I’m afraid I will have nothing to do
 I’m afraid I will lose my job
 I’m afraid people will see how little I actually do
 I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up
 I’m afraid I won’t be able to learn the new software
 I’m afraid this will mean hard work
 I’m afraid I’ll be fired if the decisions we make don’t work
out
 It’s just so much easier and safer when someone else
tells me exactly what to do
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

6. Ask them: How do you handle it now ?
Follow up with: How is that working out for you ?
An admittance that a problem exists and a solution is needed is the
best way to start the discussion.
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

7. Common Questions
 Agile Doesn’t Allow for Long-Term Planning – How
Are We Supposed to Do Our Budgets?
Take a completed project and do a dummy release plan
 It’s Worked So Far, Why Do We Need to Change?
 Show how it will make them look like stars; and take
away the painpoints
 Our Situation Is Just Too Complicated For Agile
 Use cases of teams from different fields. Certification audits
FDA/Sarbenes-Oxley, CMMI 5 can be Agile. Challenge why not,
help create an impediment backlog, ask what can be done, and
create a structure
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

8.  We Need To Matrix Resources To Get Maximum
Efficiency
 There are plenty of reports that show the productivity hits
when people are time-sliced across multiple initiatives – up to
40%! This is without management overhead.
 Our People Can’t Be Trusted to Self-Organize
 The problem is usually with management at this point,
and not with the team.
 How Can We Make Strategic Decisions Without Gantt
Charts?
 Create information radiators and then invite the
executives to the team room and help them understand
what’s being built and how we can track
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

9.  I Don’t Have Enough Time To Work With The Team
Every Iteration
 Try to partner with him or her in order to keep the
backlog staged for the team’s next iteration
 I Can’t Wait An Entire Iteration For That Feature!
 Discuss with them the possibility of shortening the
iteration length to better accommodate their needs.
Usually, once the stakeholders see that delivery is
reliable and consistent, this pressure subsides.
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

10. Not so obvious takeaways
 Typically, companies have used their IT suppliers for
introducing agile. This is often limited to just IT thinking
and may not represent the expertise required for
leadership, change and process transformation involving
non-IT personnel
 Agility is not a replacement of what the company is doing
today – it is an enhancement, an improvement and an
advancement that is significant enough to look at
seriously and leverage
 While patience is a virtue, profitability is a purpose and
companies can’t afford disruption if it means delays,
therefore, select a program or project that can bring
quick wins and demonstrate success
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

11. Part of selling is learning when not to sell.
Sometimes you have to plant the seed of an idea within people’s minds
and then let some calendar time pass. Learn when to push and when to
back off; and educate throughout the process.
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012

12. Questions? Feedback? Offline discussions?
Jay Rao – 9986076702 / jayathirth@gmail.com
Slides Provided by Jayathirtha Rao, CSM, ITIL – © 2012