Experiences during the agile transformation of a Greek insurance company. Presentation in the Agile Greece meetup

1. “Interamerican Journey towards Agility“
Apr 2019

2.  Managing a waterfall project trying to go live 3 years after the requirements phase
can cause heart-attack or stroke.
 When we decided to build our new core insurance system (OnE) we applied agile
practices: Iterative development, reviews, agile modeling.
 The project was successful, without putting anybody’s health at risk.
Some agile experience since 2010

3.  Our new (then) CEO had a vision of an agile company.
 Started with the IT department.
 As is the case in the agile “movement”, there were almost as many opinions as
people.
 Hired a consultant.
Summer 2016: Official start of our agile transformation

4.  Scrum: The only agile thing that could be explained to the whole company.
 Scrum trainings.
 Agile Coaches appointed as Scrum Masters.
 We misinterpreted the term “cross functional”: One team was actually two teams
developing different (somehow connected) systems.
 Mature development teams didn’t “love” the experience. They focus on their delivery
while the agile coaches focus on the main thing they understands: Roles, rules &
artifacts aka process.
Fall 2016: Two pilot scrum teams

5.  Three types of PO background: Developer, Business analysts, Business.
 Ownership of the product’s technical debt was a nightmare for product owners with
“Business” background: Suddenly technical debt became an issue of urgency.
 We misinterpreted the term “team independence” and ended with isolated (not
cooperating) teams, even though some were building the same system.
 It is very difficult for small teams (2-3 developers) to solve impediments without
stopping delivery.
 Two many teams for 3 agile coaches to act as scrum masters. Impediments were
(and still are) mainly technical. Finally, senior developers took the scrum master’s
role.
Spring 2017: All IT development teams

6.  Disclaimer: We are not Spotify, we don’t do Spotify, we don’t know how much our
Tribes have in common with Spotify.
 Three Tribes, consisting of squads doing Scrum.
 Nexus when three or more teams develop the same product (codebase).
 Solved the problem of “isolated teams”: People from different teams are encouraged
to pair whenever they want to.
 Teams matured. Specially POs with “business” background.
Fall 2017: Tribes & Chapters

7.  Team agility != Corporate agility (Klaus Leopold & Cliff Hazell)
 Portfolio management: Kanban board for Enterprise epics. Portfolio management
meetings. Planning 3-months increment.
 Planning event with all tribes and business stakeholders.
 Risk & dependencies management.
 Common understanding of what is going to be built and why it has been prioritized.
February 2018: Portfolio management & Plan increment

8.  Interamerican new way of working: Agile – Lean – Accelerator
 First business tribe: @nytime
 Fall 2018: IT teams from the front-office tribe collocated with the anytime tribe
 We keep changing & experimenting in our effort to improve continuously
 Fall 2019: Next big step in our transformation: From doing to being.
The journey continues

9. Any Question?