Agility with a Fresh Perspective!
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Let’s take a look at IT agility—with a fresh perspective: through the eyes of a relatively new Java developer. This session dives into how companies are staying competitive by increasing their agility. You may be familiar with traditional SDLC methodology and how many firms are replacing a more rigid/monolithic approach with agile and related iterative methodologies: Scrum, XP, prototyping. An organization can’t just complete a checklist and be “agile.” Some key elements are nonnegotiable; core values and results must be the primary goals. The road to those goals must be adapted to each organization’s own model and culture. Whether you’re a longtime professional, have just joined the field, or are looking for something new, this session may give you thought-provoking perspectives.
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Agility with a Fresh Perspective!
- 1. Agility with a fresh perspective! Jennifer Heckler
- 2. About Me: • Recent graduate, MS CMIS in May • Programmer Analyst at Edward Jones (since 2013) • PMP certified • Enjoys learning where tech will take us next • And finding ways to organize chaos • Also an avid violinist, movie soundtrack fanatic, and NCIS addict • Wedding – Nov 2016! • @JMHeckler (Twitter)
- 3. Purpose
- 4. To boldly Go… • Why are we here? • Benefits for business and tech
- 5. Business is business Rule #16: If someone thinks they have the upper hand, break it. • Improve market position • Better business • Personal growth and career development Think of the companies that rule the world right now • Amazon? • Apple? • Others?
- 6. What Is It? Organizational agility: improving the speed and flexibility of the overarching processes, decisions, and concerns at the company level. Key: efficiency, effectiveness Agile Manifesto: • Individuals/interactions over tools/processes • Working software over comprehensive documentation • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation • Responding to change over following a plan
- 7. How Do We Achieve It? Varies based on industry and business Certain elements non-negotiable, but others can be customized Goals = core values and results All aspects of business reviewed and improved Business needs to be flexible to allow change, yet governed (standards) to achieve speed
- 9. Workforce Agility Employees and their interaction with tech How employees can improve a firm's ability to provide products or solutions to customers faster or better Accomplished through… 1. Physical elements – tools and training 2. Cultural elements – PEOU, PU, management
- 10. Interaction with it Physical • Tools = productivity, speed, decision- making • Employee training = knowledge, empowerment Cultural • Perceived ease-of-use • Perceived usefulness • Rule #38: Your case, your lead • Encouragement = Intrinsic motivation
- 11. Change • How does change affect us (as developers)? • What about our business area? • Our users? • Old habits die hard
- 12. Challenges Change can be threatening • Why? Wrong changes Competitors Risk Size/logistics Impact Little/no stability Training nightmare Procedure/documentation (you get the picture)
- 13. Characteristics • Rule #15: Always work as a team • Business/IT alignment --> simplicity in decision-making • Encouragement-driven culture • Extreme flexibility • Location independence • Virtual teams/collaborations • Collaborative tools to easily communicate and accomplish tasks
- 14. Organizational Agility Transformation vs. Evolution Need to balance… 1. Agility 2. Reliability KEY: modular and collaborative structure impacts agility!
- 15. IT Agility • Ok, so IT changes rapidly….. • “Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be” – John Wooden • Why is IT so important? • Besides for supporting our livelihoods, of course • And because every other business uses it
- 16. Why IT? IT permeates all areas of the business. Tools and information used in all departments Increase speed for Human communication Information/data-sharing Data analysis Decision-making End-to-end process (reduce human intervention for repetitive tasks) Not Accounting Agility or Manager Agility or HR Agility – but IT Agility! By affecting area that supports all others, can increase overall org agility
- 18. Changes at the speed of light “The requirements change so quickly that if IT’s pace is in weeks and months, you end up not delivering anything, because the problem changed by the time you deployed your solution.” – Ken Venner (CIO of SpaceX) So how do we keep up? Well….how are others keeping up? • DevOps • Business/IT alignment • Light, widespread governance • Modular architectures • Technologies • Cultural changes
- 19. DevOPs Why DevOps? • Rule #1: Never mess over your partner • Faster, higher quality solutions • Traditional approach tends to build walls between ops and dev Mentality of "those who build also support" tends to increase accountability
- 20. Words of Wisdom “Giving developers operational responsibilities has greatly enhanced the quality of the services, both from a customer and a technology point of view. The traditional model is that you take your software to the wall that separates development and operations, and throw it over and then forget about it. Not at Amazon. You build it, you run it. This brings developers into contact with the day-to- day operation of their software. It also brings them into day- to-day contact with the customer. This customer feedback loop is essential to improving the quality of the service.” – Werner Vogels, Amazon 2006
- 21. IT and agility • Business/IT alignment • Reduces layers of barriers for changes • Minimize misunderstandings for strategy • Simplify decision-making for changes • Modular architecture • Lighter, smaller components • Flexibility, speed, adaptability • Cultural changes • Innovation, experimentation • Pair programming, collaboration • Light governance structure
- 22. Nuts and bolts • Governance • Key: low ceremony • Guidelines in place to structure responses and decisions • Lightweight, widespread, flexible • Technologies!!!!!
- 23. Technologies People: • Knowledge-sharing • Assist with tacit knowledge capture and dissemination • Integral to on-boarding and up-skilling • Mobile technologies • Apps and connectivity • Employees can do work anywhere and anytime • Usually means more work accomplished Things: • RFID – Radio Frequency Identification • Inventory management • Logistics tracking and efficiency
- 24. More tech • Data analytics tools • So much data • What is important? • Tools/people to consolidate and highlight • Faster data analysis = faster, more accurate decisions • Cloud • IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, oh my! • CapEx vs. OpEx • Pay what you use, no purchase overages • Dynamic provisioning, scaling • Responsive architectures • Microservices vs. monoliths • With long release cycles, failure is eminent
- 25. My background • Financial investments firm = rigid, sluggish, and traditional, and it can be. • But, we also realize the importance of agility. • Adoption of "the sprint" • “For IS, our working group has established a structure that will segment the work into 30-day sprint. At the end of each sprint, we will review our accomplishments against the plan and then prepare for the next sprint. This method allows us to timebox the work, aligning efforts toward closure and maintaining our focus on a common goal.”
- 26. Customization • 1-size-fits-all doesn’t work with various metro markets across US and Canada. • Tailored solutions/strategies • It’s important when the financial firms are starting to adopt something!
- 27. Agile in action!
- 28. Agile Manifesto 1. Satisfy customer through early and continuous delivery 2. Welcome changing requirements late in development 3. Deliver working software frequently
- 29. Agile manifesto cont. 4. Business people and developers work together 5. Build projects around motivated individuals 6. Communication most efficient/effective face-to-face
- 30. Agile Manifesto cont. 7. Working software primary measure of progress 8. Agile processes promote sustainable development 9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility
- 31. Agile Manifesto cont. 10.Simplicity is essential 11.Best architectures, designs, and requirements built by self-organizing teams 12.Team regularly reflects on how to become more effective, then adjusts accordingly
- 32. Future Developments • Security: if we're constantly changing and adapting, maybe criminals might have a harder time breaking defenses that morph • New/better tools for collaboration, automation, communication, and data sharing/reporting that increase agility • Role of management in workforce training and technology adoption/acceptance • Types of training that provide most impact to agility
- 33. And more! • Untapped capabilities remain in workforce • Capture and transfer of tacit knowledge • As environments and people change, need improvements to exploiting workforce agility • Solutions for global economies (countries, time zones, languages) • Logistics and communication • Change creates continuous cycle to learn and improve businesses
- 34. QUESTIONS?
Editor's Notes
- Specify Master’s degree Approached the tech industry a little differently??? Any other NCIS fans? I have a few references. Extra points if you recognize them. Because I’m in fintech, may have a few terms that are similar with others, but not the same. So, if I’m getting too deep in jargon, let me know, and I’ll translate
- Sometimes we are busy and we simply dive into a development effort or a fix without really analyzing best solution But sometimes, there is wisdom in strategically planning your response. It’s easy (after working somewhere awhile) to go on autopilot and stop asking questions. Why are we doing this? Is there a better way? Can we improve this process? Try to make a timeline, so just do. Experienced employees often provide experience/knowledge/business skill/ etc, but those fresh to the field can bring – questions! So, whether you’re new to the field or an experienced professional, my goal for this session is to revitalize our perspectives and challenge us to always question
- Why here at JavaOne, working in this field, etc? (partly selfish and partly good citizen) Developers tend to want the latest gadgets and tools – why? Because we want to play with cool tech, but we want our business to be able to do really cool things with it, too. We want to improve (ourselves, our tech, our business people’s lives, our company’s position) And if we just support what our company currently uses, we’re digging our own grave as well as our company’s in the industry
- Going along with why we're here and improving our company's market position…… Don't take it literally! Though business world is brutal, maybe not quite that physically damaging Think Apple and Amazon (maybe Netflix and Google?) Why do we often think first of these companies when we think top of the market? Every company wants to to be successful or be in their market position, model after their successes Most employees would jump at the chance to work for them. "dream job” What’s so special about them? They’re not all competing (or achieving success) in the same way Amazon Product variety, speed, quality, cloud services (AWS) (customer service – example of Acer Chromebook order & search history for similar) Apple innovation, design, quality, user-friendly (iPod, iPhone, Macbook) Netflix Microservices (reliability), continuous delivery, survivability (Simian army – chaos, latency, conformity, doctor, janitor, security, etc.) Code to embrace failure. Failure not a matter of if, but when and they’ve planned for that Google Integration/building ecosystem, innovation (moonshots), search, advertising, machine learning (Google maps example) One thing they all have in common (we hope): long-term competitive advantage…....
- So we’ve touched on why we’re here (we want to improve and be viable in the market) And we’ve looked at the highly successful companies in today’s market So how do we compete? = organizational agility
- Look at real-life examples like those companies we just looked at that are top of the market, and you can see that they achieved their position differently. Different CEOs focus on different strategies, yet each strategy can provide a way to the top If we all reached the top in the same way, that just wouldn’t be very creative Must inspect every area, but one thing is consistent across the board – a few guideline standards as foundation, then flexibility to adapt
- Delve a little deeper into the IT contributions, but others worth discussing
- Take a minute and think of our situations now as developers. What makes us more agile, more able to make changes quickly or do our jobs better/faster? Some of you might say tools, mobile devices, remote technologies to work location independently, management structure conducive to decisions at all levels, or firm provides training or opportunities increase knowledge
- Tools for integration, communication, compiling, testing, etc. more skilled or educated your workforce and the more open they are with new tech (good, as it changes rapidly) means your firm can move and make decisions more quickly training can give employees confidence and/or skill with IT tools (help learn something faster) Training could also be cultural element Positive relationship with IT correlates with increased organization agility. If users like tech, they use it. PEOU: user-friendly, how long it takes/difficult it is to accomplish a task with a technology PU: how well the technology accomplishes what you need, what features it offers. As we are more mobile and business functions can be on mobile devices now, PEOU/PU related to how well can do job from any location Agile workforce = mobilize business processes through employees, increasing overall agility Reduce or eliminate time or location dependent functions Add management factor here, as well. If management won’t/doesn’t encourage it, it likely won’t motivate the employees to start anything from bottom up If a person is less (or not) intrinsically motivated, best thing to do is figure out how to increase intrinsic motivation Then build that into training, culture, and work environment Mgmt needs to delegate responsibility, as well as authority. If you only give responsibility, but not authority to act (decision-making), then nothing can happen
- Depends on the change How many times has your company locked things down for security and it makes our process a little trickier? Or our team changes our workflow to add/remove steps? Or when our area/dept/firm wants to decrease the release time? Business area added reviews, analysis, or process changes? Requirements changes that change our designs? Most changes should be invisible to user, right? Any changes to their process should involve communication, right?
- This list mostly pertains to org level (key words like competitors, risk, logistics) How does change affect us as developers? Wrong changes could mean extra developer or support hours to fix Logistics: change process or steps add/removes layers of communication and hands touching an effort Training: training yourself and your colleagues to new standard Procedure/documentation: documenting steps or updating system info Change can be a threat to organizations Difficult to see the forest for all the trees Easy to continue doing things same way when you're comfortable and fast how they are now. But, is continuing the process AS-IS the right thing to do? In order to accomplish goals (individual, team, dept, firm), aren't changes needed? And what are the best steps to accomplish those changes?
- May sound a lot like DevOps – hold that thought. We’ll cover that here shortly. single strategy that both IT and the business use as their goals. Decisions are simpler because both areas know how the unit will respond Discourage an us-versus-them mentality Management/colleague encouragement for org culture. Encouraged to question and find best way. Flexibility: If firm culture is strong governance and adherence to standard processes, you aren’t likely to be very agile (and there will be resistance if you do move towards a more agile environment) Think financial industry: limited by legal and government regulations (just how industry works). This applies to any industry that is highly regulated. May not be able to be as agile as other industries, or just have to be more creative Location independence If have a very dispersed team, then tools become more important to team communication and accomplishment of tasks Specific tools: Slack/Lync, email, web conferencing???
- There are times when transformation (rip-and-replace) is needed, but most often an evolutionary approach ensures continuity Not mutually exclusive, but especially at org level, usually in small scopes Hear pressures to deliver faster and not break things needlessly, but don't be afraid of the occasional failure. - Agility in flexibility to respond to changes and adapt to changes (with pilot projects, to create positive vibes around change) - Reliability in providing consistent, dependable service to customers (existing systems). Modular structure allows changes underneath without any (or little) appearance of change on the surface. Collaborative means that changes are made as a unit, assessing impacts and communicating with those involved.
- Even managers and strategists use it! (it must be intuitive) Goal is to reduce number of manual steps in process, faster can be deployed (great example is build pipeline {CI/CD – continuous integration/continuous delivery (Jenkins)}, but can be any process like an expense report approved/paid). More manual steps = longer time
- By no means comprehensive diagram/flow/visual aid, but just a highlighted list from my point of view IT is the basis for all other functions in a company. You remove a building block, and "the whole dang opera falls apart." - IT -> Client support: depends on core competency (hardware, software, etc. depending on your company/industry)
- - see, told you we’d cover DevOps. How can firm’s IT be agile and move its company forward? System infrastructure, databases, connections Key strengths that cannot find at another company
- Ops likes consistency, "boringness". Development likes dynamic, creative new tech.
- Saw these in org agility, but now from an IT perspective. Business and technology environment change rapidly, so easy to get out of alignment. Modular allows backup systems to seamlessly replace broken ones, changes in vendor contracts, upgrades, etc. Reduces time to market on products, services, or fixes Many times, we think microservices. I'll leave the microservices vs. monolith debate up to you. Cultural changes to encourage employees to collaborate and be creative
- Smaller IT governance means few procedures, fewer obstacles, and faster decisions
- Mobile fits both People and Things
- CapEx: Capital Expenditures. Can spend millions of dollars in hardware and system setup before ever turning anything on. Shipping, cables, physical location storage OpEx: Operational Expenditures. Cost of running it. This is what Cloud has over traditional IT. Scaling: automatically adjust processing power (number of processes to reflect demand) Dynamic provisioning: add more compute resources, spin up another instance Like Borg saying, "resistance is futile. You will be assimilated" (or destroyed)
- Agile methodology sprint: iterative, short cycle of steps Even though don’t have full scope of work for DOL, we are working in segments of what we do know (government does nothing small)
- - One model or strategy may work in Denver, but not in Atlanta, D.C., St. Louis, or Dallas. Began work on tailored solutions and strategies = customization, agility
- Still working on early and continuous delivery (), but our primary objective has always been to put the clients’ interests first It’s even a session of each associate’s orientation Also something we are working on. My team has dealt with “progressive elaboration” in requirements, especially recently due to the speed and complexity of projects has caused us to take a more iterative approach to many of our larger projects Realize the importance of quickly adapting and are working to reduce the release timeline Automated test scripts and reducing manual steps decrease the overall process length
- My area has added a team to bridge the gap between the business and IT. While it means additional communication hoops, we realize the importance of the relationship between developers and business users. The business users own the functions, developers own the code/support, and the middle group owns the data. Though we are a more traditional business, I believe we encourage innovation and continuous process improvement. There are initiatives started by employees that I’ve seen encouraged and even successfully implemented. Our team keeps a list of process improvements that individuals create. Tools, tools, tools! We have webconferencing, remote connections, meeting schedule tools, etc.
- One of our team's metrics for each year is having our systems available and reliable 24/7 and implementing our solutions right the first time. Our firm publishes FA feedback of our IS systems on our weekly Monday Memo. We evaluate the success of our systems based on user feedback to know what is working well and what needs corrected or what can make their jobs easier. While we're still working to adopt agile processes, we are working towards agile methods in some of our projects, and even our team is seeing a more iterative processes to requirements and shortening of development cycles Though tends to be more traditional, we do our best to implement systems efficiently and effectively. Because more traditional, we often use a process or system for a longer period, so we design solutions with longevity and some flexibility in mind. Things change (even if we still use a legacy system), and we want to adapt. Often have peer reviews for a complex effort early on when a teammate puts together technical spec/designs a solution, then again after coding is complete, and after thorough testing. My position at Edward Jones we are already a DevOps team. We analyze and design business solutions, code, test, implement, and support. Actually carry a physical pager. So, if there is a chance that my code may break, and that I would get called at 2 or 3 in the morning, I’m less likely to throw it in production.
- Continuing to work towards this (but, really, who isn't?). Are there teams who try to implement fancy, non-essential systems? We do our best (as many teams probably do) to provide the needed solutions in the simplest, most efficient way possible. Doesn't mean we don't sometimes get all starry-eyed over cool stuff and want more than we need, but that's not typically what we strive towards. Edward Jones isn’t quite ready to go completely organic across the board, but on smaller scale, application architectures/designs have adopted this approach. Experimental teams, short-timeline projects Depending on need For larger efforts, our project teams have a lessons learned meeting following the implementation to discuss what went well and what could be improved. We also have reviews on projects that seemed to have more difficulties than expected. Occasional team meetings, a team member will bring up a possible improvement and our team will discuss whether we are able to act upon it. Review our procedures or actions taken and see if they need improved
- At Edward Jones, our leadership talks about not just having a hard outer shell. But several layers of strong defenses (defense in depth) Always think of Harry Potter and the challenges to get to the Sorcerer's Stone at Hogwarts While changes may open up loopholes in firm security, they may also create changing barriers for attackers, as long as we have protected our changes workforce agility enabled by IT providing technology to aid processes and activities. Technology that is fast and flexible increases amount of work that can be accomplished. more tools provide capability, or new tools for certain functions Mgmt can play a key role by setting an example for adoption of technology, as well as providing training for employees on business or tools What kinds of training provide the most value for agility?
- As we solve challenges for global flexibility and communication, others will arise