1. THE SHORTCUTS TO SCALING
AGILITY…
(That won’t get you there)
Ram Ramalingam

2. My father’s name is Ramalingam Sumaithangi Sivarama Iyer
Ram Ramalingam

3. In the next 40 mins…
1. The shortcuts
2.How not to be led into one
3. Joseph Henrich -The twist in the tale
4.Some tools to manage the twist – understanding culture
Disclaimer
1. This is an exploratory talk
2.Not a completely researched field
3. There might be more questions than answers
4. Bit of a roller-coaster ride
5. A lot of terms I use may have a XP-tone when I talk Agile –
but, really, isnt XP the real agile ?
6.“All models are wrong. Some models are useful” – GEP Box.

4. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…
Quick,
Rewarding
Familiar
Tough,
Boring
Counter-intuitive

5. Some cognitive science
 Loss aversion
 Prospect theory
 Endowment effect
 Attribute substitution
 Hindsight bias / availability heuristic
 Framing

6. Loss aversion
 You are offered a gamble on the
toss of a coin
 If the coin showsTails you lose Rs. 100
 If the coin shows Heads you gain $150
 Would you take the bet?
Source: Daniel Kahneman
Most people don’t – people are more aversive to
A Loss than a gain by the same amount

7. Loss aversion
 Being too invested in the work already done
 At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to
become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its
behavior accordingly.
 Value is often perceived as what’s available in
house than what customer really needs
 Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through
early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
 Throwaway code is anathema
 Welcome changing requirements, even late
in development. Agile processes harness change
for the customer's competitive advantage.
 Working software is the primary measure of progress
 Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is
essential

8. Attribute substitution
 Subjects asked two questions
among many others:
 "How happy are you with your life in
general?”
 "How many dates did you have last
month?"
 In this order, the correlation between
the two questions was negligible. If the
dating question was asked first,
however, the correlation was .66

9. Attribute substitution - Framing
Framing Treatment A Treatment B
Positive "Saves 200 lives” "A 33% chance of saving all
600 people, 66% possibility
of saving no one.”
Negative "400 people will
die”
"A 33% chance that no
people will die, 66%
probability that all 600 will
die.”

10. Attribute substitution
 Assuming that past experience is superior to end-
user empathy
 Business people and developers must work together daily
throughout the project.
 Reliance on experts and specialization over cross-
functional teams
 Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the
environment and support they need, and trust them to get
the job done.
 The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge
from self-organizing teams.
 Comprehensive documentation leads to less errors
 The most efficient and effective method of conveying
information to and within a development team is face-to-face
conversation.

11. Some typical anti-paths / anti-patterns
• It says working
product. Mine does!
Management
• Selfish-organization
Philosophy
• Freeze! I am Ma
Baker..
Practices

12. It says working product. Mine does !
 Anti-path:
 I am happy to accept change. But we will need a fool-proof
change control board and the customer has to pay for it
 The customer doesn’t understand how good this feature/product
is
 Agile Path take you must…
 Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.
Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive
advantage
 Play games, visualize future etc. and help the team have a
good dialogue/vision to negotiate better
Management

13. Freeze, I am Ma Baker…
 Anti-path:
 But then I am delivering data to a system
 But then my team doesn’t have a product owner
 But we need some architecture, surely?
 Agile Path take you must…
 Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and
continuous delivery of valuable software (Valuable to users!)
 Keep goals visible – product mapping - etc
As an MIS
I want data from the old source
To continue to reach me when
am retired
So that I can rest in peace?
Philosophy

14. Self-organizationish
 Agile Path
 The best architectures, requirements, and designs
emerge from self-organizing teams
 Anti-path
 As a PM, I want productivity metrics, so that I can be sure the
team is not slacking away
 We are completely self-organized within theTesting, DB, Dev and
UI teams
Practices

15. Two roads again diverged in a yellow wood…
Quick,
Rewarding
Familiar
Tough,
Boring
Counter-intuitive

16. The culture thing
“You like potato and I like potahto
You like tomato and I like tomahto
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto.
Let's call the whole thing off.”
- Louis Armstrong

17. Joseph Henrich
 WEIRD studies
 Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic
 Culture-Gene co-evolution
 Ultimatum game & Dictator game
 Altruistic punishment vs Anti-social punishment
 Framing - Mueller - Lyer illusion

18. Ultimatum game & Dictator game
 UG: Give a pair of subjects a sum
of real money for a one-shot
interaction
 Player 1 (proposer) offers a sum to
Player 2
 Player 2 can agree/disagree
 Dictator Game
 Player 1 (proposer) offers a sum to
Player 2
 Player 2 has no choice
 It was observed

19.  UG:
 Measure of self-interest and tolerance to
unfairness
 DG
 Undiluted measure of fairness
 Observations
 WEIRD consistently extreme
 Surprisingly some cultures rejected offers
that were not only too low, but too high
Ultimatum game & Dictator game
Joseph Henrich
-
Fairness andCooperation in E
conomic Decision Making

20. Altruistic punishments the norm?
Altruistic Punishment in
Humans -
Fehr and Gächter
(2002)
Herrmann,Thoni and G
ächter (2008)
> Strange behavior of
anti-social punishments

21. Framing: Mueller-Lyer ilusion
Joseph Henrich

22. So what do we do?
1. Read minds
2. Use available tools responsibly

23. Cultural nuances
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

24. Power Distance Index
The degree to which the less powerful members of a society
accept and expect that power is distributed unequally
- http://geert-hofstede.com/
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

25. Power Distance Index
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

26. Individualism
Vs.Collectivism
 The degree to which
individuals are
integrated into groups”
 In individualistic societies,
the stress is put on
personal achievements
and individual rights
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

27. Individualism
Vs.Collectivism
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

28. Uncertainty Avoidance
 Society's tolerance for
uncertainty and ambiguity”
 Extent to which members of a
society attempt to cope with
anxiety by minimizing uncertainty
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

29. Uncertainty Avoidance
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

30. Masculinity
 The distribution of emotional
roles between the genders
 Masculine cultures' values are
competitiveness, assertiveness,
materialism, ambition and power
 Whereas feminine cultures place
more value on relationships and
quality of life.
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

31. Masculinity
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

32. Pragmatism (vs. Normative)
 How people relate to the fact
that so much that happens
around us cannot be explained
 In societies with a normative
orientation most people have a
strong desire to explain as much as
possible
 With a pragmatic orientation, most
people don’t have a need to explain
everything, as they believe that it is
impossible to understand fully the
complexity of life
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

33. Pragmatism
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
India Bel China Germany Greece Norway Philippines Poland Russia Sweden UK
PRA
PRA
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

34. Indulgence vs Restraint (IVR)
 Indulgence stands for a society that
allows relatively free gratification of
basic and natural human drives
related to enjoying life and having
fun.
 Societies with a low score in this
dimension have a tendency to cynicism
and pessimism
 Restraint stands for a society that
suppresses gratification of needs
and regulates it by means of strict
social norms.
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

35. Indulgence vs. Restraint (IVR)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
IVR
IVR
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

36. Are we ready for it?
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
PDI
IDV
UAI
MAS
PRA
IVR
Ideal
India
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/

37. Self-organizationish
 Agile Path
 The best architectures, requirements, and designs
emerge from self-organizing teams
 Anti-path
 As a PM, I want productivity metrics, so that I can be sure the
team is not slacking away
 We are completely self-organized within theTesting, DB, Dev and
UI teams
Practices

38. It says working product. Mine does !
 Anti-path:
 I am happy to accept change. But we will need a fool-proof
change control board and the customer has to pay for it
 The customer doesn’t understand how good this feature/product
is
 Agile Path take you must…
 Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.
Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive
advantage
 Play games, visualize future etc.
Management
Agile value embrace you must

39. WVS - distribution
 There is still hope
 World values survey
Source:Worldvaluessurvey.org

40. WVS – relation to economy
Source:Worldvaluessurvey.org

41. I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I— I took the one less traveled
by,
And that has made all the
difference
- Robert Frost