Agile Leadership: Want To Change Your Results? Change How You Lead

Niel Nickolaisen, OC Tanner
Agile Leadership: Want to Change
Your Results? Change How You Lead
Niel Nickolaisen – CTO OC Tanner
nnick@octanner.com

Webinar Series Niel Nickolaisen, OC Tanner
The IT Paradox:
Achieve
operational
excellence while
driving
organizational
innovation
Trends that I
think are
important

Niel Nickolaisen, OC TannerWebinar Series 2015 Niel Nickolaisen, OC Tanner
Collaboration Model
the currency
is now speed
Everything is
moving fast
We need to
move fast too

We are swimming
in oceans of
uncertainty and
ambiguity
We must move
fast but move
where?

We are buried
in data and
so need to
be really
good at
personalizing
the filters

the individual is the device and there is
no difference between organizational
and personal computing

Leadership Challenges
• Get More Done by Doing Less
• Lead Change
• Deliver the Right Product
• Meet Customer’s Changing Needs
• Meet Market Windows
focus innovation on the few things
that create competitive advantage

Unleashing Innovation
Collaboration Process
think BIG
technology trends
towards perfection

Webinar Series Niel Nickolaisen, OC Tanner
We need to be in
the experience
business

My belief, “The biggest change to
the enterprise since Al Gore
invented the internet.”

This requires a new
leadership model

A Leader whose primary goal and
role is to . . .
Create a culture of Trust
and Ownership

Context: Trust Ownership Model

Context: Trust Ownership Model
If we operate
here, we are
the
speed,
operational
excellence,
and innovation
bottleneck

The Transformational Leader
1. Creates a culture of trust.
2. Creates ownership by being in the
What and Why business and GETTING
OUT of the How business

Culture of
Trust

Collaboration Model
Trust First!

Project Management
How Do We Deliver?
Trustworthy

purposeover
personal agenda

Teach and
support agile
principles
(the best way to handle
uncertainty and ambiguity
and show that you get it)

Using Agile / Lean Start-up Principles
Three things I know:
No one knows what they want until they
see it (so get visual)
Once they see it, they will want to change it
(so don’t invest much without getting
market feedback)
Big projects fail (so do everything in
chunks)

Culture of
Ownership

Push decision-
making to the
edges

What are the risks of
pushing decision-making
to the edges?

What to do? What to do?

How can we set up our teams
for decision-making success?
What defines decision-making
success?

From my perspective, great decision-
making:
• Drives value
• Moves the needle in customer and
organizational lives
• Is rapid and agile
• Is repeatable
Because . . .

What if it all comes down to . . .
making better decisions?

Business Value
Benefits
Value
Calculation
Costs
calculation
Don’t Do It This Way

we need some help !

Purpose
Considerations
Costs and Benefits
Business Value Model

where
do
we
start?

Purpose
Business Value Model

Market
Differentiating
High
Low
Mission Critical
Low High
Differentiating
(Better Than)
Parity
(As Well As)
Partner
(very rare)
Who cares
(hopefully rare)
My Operating System: Purpose
Alignment Model

Market
Differentiating
High
Low
Mission Critical
Low High
Innovate,
Create
Do we take this
on?
Minimize or
Eliminate
Achieve and
Maintain
Parity
In Practice

The Differentiating Rules
Rules How?
Always Be the
Market Leader
Innovate now and forever
Focus Have 1-3 specific things you do
better than anyone else
Own Differentiating You cannot outsource your
innovation

The Parity Rules
Rules How?
Fill Any Gaps
Because Gaps Kill
Adopt Best Practices – adopt
the innovation of market
leaders
Eliminate Risks
Because Risks Kill
Simplify – complexity increases
risks and reduces agility
Create Capacity To
Focus Resources on
Innovation
Standardize – there is only
downside to exception
handling of Parity activities

Market
Differentiating
High
Low
Mission Critical
Low High
Self-paced,
Competency-
Based Higher
Ed
Everything Else
Fin Aid,
Registration,
Student Support,
Faculty, Etc
Example - WGU

Market
Differentiating
High
Low
Mission Critical
Low High
Fin Aid,
Enrollment,
Marketing,
Registration,
Student Support,
CRM, Etc
How Did We Operate?

What Did That Mean For IT?
We either built or customized everything
WGU was slow
IT was a bottleneck
“Outsource” all new projects
Tons of shadow IT
No focus on what makes WGU unique
Instead, focus everywhere
No IT operational excellence (systems
down at least hours a week)

Market
Differentiating
High
Low
Mission Critical
Low High
Student Analytics
(for competency-
based and self-
paced)
Everything Else:
Network, CRM,
SIS, Portal, ERP,
Enrollment
Aligning WGU to the Market and IT to
the Market and WGU

Project Purpose What To Do
Student Profile Parity Kill current custom
project, configure in CRM
CRM Parity Replace seven different
systems / approaches
with one
Enrollment Parity Configure (not customize)
and free up 4 engineers
Analytics For
Student
Engagement
Differentiating Pilot “Edge” technologies
to capture and analyze
data
Rationalizing The Portfolio And The Projects

Results
6 months later, IT throughput doubled
9 months later, WGU asked IT to “Please slow
down – we cannot embrace new
technologies at your pace”
IT developed breakthrough student analytics
technologies
In two years, IT budget doubled
All excess funds were first allocated to IT
(CIO got an amazing job offer from someone
else)

Market
Differentiating
High
Low
Mission Critical
Low High
What goes
here?
Everything
else goes
here
Strategy
The Challenge?

• Sustainable
• Competitive advantage
strategy = sustainable
competitive advantage

4important questions:
1. Who do we serve?
2. What do they want and need most?
3. What do we do – better than anyone else – to
meet these wants and needs?
4. What is the best way to provide this?

the “billboard”test…

Don’t worry about learning, you should see our
Student Profile!

strategy
creates
decision
filters
a HUGE
idea!

decision filters:
make daily
decisions
schedule projects
what
to develop

cascade
decision
filters
throughout
organization

caveats

treat exceptions as exceptions

Managing Risks
List Three Professional Optionscommon sense not
common
practice

parity ismission critical

purpose is not
priority

Differentiating
changes
over
time

• Leadership Influence
innovate!

How About Those WGU Analytics?
• Increased student retention 10 percentage
points (this is huge)
• The one time my IT innovation changed the
way the entire organization operated

What data did we use to classify students?
• demographics
• prior academic performance
• assessment performance
• pacing performance
• mentor notes
• on-line course usage
• difficulty of assessments in term
• time left in term
These broad categories created approximately 1800
attributes per student

Analyze
Feedback/Intervene
The Process
(Sucker Fish)

Example: Course Navigation Predicts Success
Machine Learning algorithm can predict pass or fail
with 77% accuracy after a student’s first session

To Recap
Use every interaction to build relationships of trust
Deal with uncertainty with iterative methods
Use Purpose Alignment to pick and fight the right
battles
Focus innovation where it makes a real difference
Adopt best practices to quickly get to operational
excellence

Final Thoughts On Trust - Ownership
Establish two decision filters:
• Will this improve trust?
• Will this improve team / individual
ownership?
And always ask, how can every human
interaction create a relationship of
trust?

Next Steps
Trust first
Get agile
Use Purpose Alignment on your portfolio or
next projects
Learn more about the Business Value Model
and Purpose Alignment, Iterative Methods,
Analytics and Strategic Planning
Become the leader your organization needs to
succeed in a technology-driven world

questions
nnick@octanner.com

•6884
www.synerzip.com
Hemant Elhence
hemant@synerzip.com
469.374.0500
January 21, 2015Confidential

Synerzip in a Nutshell
• Software product development partner for small/mid-sized technology
companies
– Exclusive focus on small/mid-sized technology companies, typically
venture-backed companies in growth phase
– By definition, all Synerzip work is the IP of its respective clients
– Deep experience in full SDLC – design, dev, QA/testing, deployment
• Dedicated team of high caliber software professionals for each client
– Seamlessly extends client’s local team, offering full transparency
– Stable teams with very low turn-over
– NOT just “staff augmentation”, but provide full mgmt support
• Actually reduces risk of development/delivery
– Experienced team - uses appropriate level of engineering discipline
– Practices Agile development – responsive, yet disciplined
• Reduces cost – dual-shore team, 50% cost advantage
• Offers long term flexibility – allows (facilitates) taking offshore team
captive – aka “BOT” option
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Next Webinar
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Complimentary Webinar:
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Presented by: Rohit Ghatol
Director of Engineering
Synerzip
January 21, 2015

Call for a Free Consultation!
Hemant Elhence
hemant@synerzip.com
469.374.0500
Thanks!
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Confidential January 21, 2015

Agile Leadership: Want To Change Your Results? Change How You Lead

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