Tushar Somaiya is an experienced agile coach and trainer who founded ShuHaRiAgile and CoachingDojo to provide agile training and coaching. He has over 13 years of IT experience and 6 years of agile experience. He is a certified coach who helps teams discover their potential through neuroscience-based coaching. Tushar is passionate about creating democratic and self-organizing teams and believes in servant leadership.
Agile is just a fad. Don't adopt agile because the world is. Adopt agile if it solves your problem. For which you need to know your real problems.
When you are new follow them as-is. But don't stay new too long.
Question everything. See beyond methodologies and manifestos. These are not perfect. There is scope of improvement in them too. Challenge them. Seek beyond and deeper.
Best of luck!
Why scrum works - A NeuroScience Perspective @ Scrum Gathering India 2013Tushar Somaiya
Have you ever thought why scrum works? That too from NeuroScience perspective?
We all acknowledge and understand that we have moved beyond and past machine age or service era and are living in what is called “Knowledge Era”. Focus of current times is shifting from behaviours to values. From people to brain. Yet, we know very little about people or brain or its working.
Through this talk, I will attempt to link hard neuroscience to scrum and its practices to see why it works or does not work. Also we would look at practices required beyond scrum to create an environment where scrum can flourish. Or even exists!
I was CO-PMO for the recent PMConclave Dec 2012 event from PMI Mumbai Chapter. Theme of the event was "Delivering business results through agility". We had organised pre-conference "introduction to agile" sessions for all early bird registrants. This is the presentation that I had used.
Agile Lecture at S. P. Jain Institute of Management and ResearchTushar Somaiya
This is what I shared with SP Jain students when they invited me to deliver lecture to their Post Graduate Certificate in Advanced Project Management (PGC-APM) Batch 19 on 15th February 2014.
Agile is just a fad. Don't adopt agile because the world is. Adopt agile if it solves your problem. For which you need to know your real problems.
When you are new follow them as-is. But don't stay new too long.
Question everything. See beyond methodologies and manifestos. These are not perfect. There is scope of improvement in them too. Challenge them. Seek beyond and deeper.
Best of luck!
Why scrum works - A NeuroScience Perspective @ Scrum Gathering India 2013Tushar Somaiya
Have you ever thought why scrum works? That too from NeuroScience perspective?
We all acknowledge and understand that we have moved beyond and past machine age or service era and are living in what is called “Knowledge Era”. Focus of current times is shifting from behaviours to values. From people to brain. Yet, we know very little about people or brain or its working.
Through this talk, I will attempt to link hard neuroscience to scrum and its practices to see why it works or does not work. Also we would look at practices required beyond scrum to create an environment where scrum can flourish. Or even exists!
I was CO-PMO for the recent PMConclave Dec 2012 event from PMI Mumbai Chapter. Theme of the event was "Delivering business results through agility". We had organised pre-conference "introduction to agile" sessions for all early bird registrants. This is the presentation that I had used.
Agile Lecture at S. P. Jain Institute of Management and ResearchTushar Somaiya
This is what I shared with SP Jain students when they invited me to deliver lecture to their Post Graduate Certificate in Advanced Project Management (PGC-APM) Batch 19 on 15th February 2014.
Sharing how we build Agile teams at Agile Organization Development (https://agile-od.com). Now you know why the Agile teams we coach are built to last and sticky!
At Spotify we value Autonomy extremely highly, it is one of our core guiding principles. To be truly fast and responsive, we need decisions to be made as close to the actual work as possible. We aim to remove communication overhead and bureaucracy and improve quality and speed of decisions by having people with the right context make them.
We’ll tell you about what Autonomy means to us, and how we as leaders give people the freedom and help they need to perform. Supporting autonomy goes all the way from individual behavior to team coaching to organizational constructs and we will provide several examples of all of this
Would really like to hear your thoughts on the slides and how can the contents be improved.
Thanks!
Presentation contents:
Definition of Culture
Why Culture is Important
Definition of Agile
What does Self-Organization means in Agile context
Golden Circle of Simon Sinek
Comparison of Traditional Waterfall vs Agile approach
Key Benefits of Agile
Agile Methods and Practices
Scrum Principles and Values
Servant-Leadership
Real-world effects of Agile Transformation
Reasons for Adopting Agile
What's stopping Agile?
Cargo Cult
Presentation from full-stack agile on how you can scale your agile teams as your company grows. As your company grows your teams need to be able to adapt to change quickly.
Advancing as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach v2Rowan Bunning
Our Agile adoptions could be more successful if we, as Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, were more impactful. Achieving this requires a more holistic understanding of these roles plus skilling up to be more effective at fulfilling them. That starts with us.
In many organisations, a Scrum Master is seen as just a team facilitator. Often only superficial elements of the role are played part-time by an already busy team member. If there are full-time Scrum Masters, in many organisations they are rendered ineffective as change agents and capability builders. Their capacity is filled by a heavy load of co-ordination, stakeholder meetings, progress tracking and other project management tasks have been left to Scrum Masters in the absence of a project manager or the implementation of effective Scrum alternatives.
If this sounds like you, or someone you know, this session is for you!
At the heart of this appears to be a fundamental lack of understanding as to what the Scrum Master role is all about. Also a failure for Scrum Masters to explain their role in the context of the new mindsets and demonstrate its worth to teams, Product Owners, management and other stakeholders.
This interactive session aims to open your eyes to see what a Scrum Master is really meant to be and full impact that a Scrum Master can make.
aka "Agile adoption stories from highly varied organisational cultures"
Why is the culture change that genuine Agile requires so difficult in most army or machine-like corporate cultures, yet quite natural for certain organisations who have a culture similar to a family or living organism? It turns out that the type of Agile your organisation adopts corresponds with its dominant world view or stage of consciousness. Drawing from 15 years of experience with Agile in Australia and the UK, we describe how Agile was interpreted quite differently by organisations classed as Amber, Orange, Green and Teal in Frederic LaLoux’s model.
Familiarise yourself with the characteristics of the four stages of Frederic LaLoux’s consciousness model.
You will become aware of:
* The stage that your own organisation is at
* How your organisation is likely to interpret and ‘bend’ Agile to fit its world view
* Specific beliefs and motivations that make high agility difficult in organisations with Amber and Orange stages of consciousness
* The Green and Teal beliefs and leadership styles that are genuinely transformational in achieving and sustaining high agility and customer-centric Agile adoptions.
Five leadership lenses for agile successRowan Bunning
Sense Making lens - what is the problem contexts and appropriate management approach?
Systems Thinking lens - what should our organisation be optimised for and what are the dynamics?
Lean Thinking lens - how is our org. design relative to a customer value focus?
Cultural Analysis lens - what are our implicit beliefs shaping behaviour?
Self-Leadership lens - how do I show up as a leader to deal with complexity?
As presented at #sglon18
There are as many types of agile coaches out there as there are flavors of ice cream. And, their levels of leadership maturity and skill can vary just as widely. It can leave one fretting, “What am I really getting when I bring in an agile coach? And, how do I ‘grow’ my own?” In fact, what are the “must have” skills of an agile coach and how can you tell if your coach has them?
The Agile Coach Competency Framework is one big clue to answering these questions. Over the past two years, this framework has guided the development of hundreds of agile coaches. Agile managers and champions also use it to obtain “truth in advertising” to hire the right coach at the right time.
We will explore this framework and provide lightening-talk-style case studies that showcase how it has been used in the real world. You’ll leave with ideas and actions to help you become a more savvy purveyor (and/or developer) of agile coaches.
How agile coaches help us win the agile coach role @ SpotifyBrendan Marsh
In this talk, we cover:
- What is an Agile Coach at Spotify?
- What do they do?
- Why do we believe they help us win?
We also talk about:
- How do we scale or Organisation?
- High Performing Teams (What is a high performing team?)
- How are we measuring High Performance right now?
- How do we help teams reach High Performance?
Appendix:
- Chapter = Competency group
- Chapter Lead = Hiring Manager for Developer (or other) competency
Agile Resonance Coaching -Scrum Gathering 2013John Miller
Are you coaching Agile, or, are you doing something else? Take a long coaching stance in this approach that blends a true coaching approach with Agile values. Learn the benefits of how Agile Resonance Coaching can help you coach to help you coach to fulfill your client's Authentic Agility.
Sharing how we build Agile teams at Agile Organization Development (https://agile-od.com). Now you know why the Agile teams we coach are built to last and sticky!
At Spotify we value Autonomy extremely highly, it is one of our core guiding principles. To be truly fast and responsive, we need decisions to be made as close to the actual work as possible. We aim to remove communication overhead and bureaucracy and improve quality and speed of decisions by having people with the right context make them.
We’ll tell you about what Autonomy means to us, and how we as leaders give people the freedom and help they need to perform. Supporting autonomy goes all the way from individual behavior to team coaching to organizational constructs and we will provide several examples of all of this
Would really like to hear your thoughts on the slides and how can the contents be improved.
Thanks!
Presentation contents:
Definition of Culture
Why Culture is Important
Definition of Agile
What does Self-Organization means in Agile context
Golden Circle of Simon Sinek
Comparison of Traditional Waterfall vs Agile approach
Key Benefits of Agile
Agile Methods and Practices
Scrum Principles and Values
Servant-Leadership
Real-world effects of Agile Transformation
Reasons for Adopting Agile
What's stopping Agile?
Cargo Cult
Presentation from full-stack agile on how you can scale your agile teams as your company grows. As your company grows your teams need to be able to adapt to change quickly.
Advancing as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach v2Rowan Bunning
Our Agile adoptions could be more successful if we, as Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, were more impactful. Achieving this requires a more holistic understanding of these roles plus skilling up to be more effective at fulfilling them. That starts with us.
In many organisations, a Scrum Master is seen as just a team facilitator. Often only superficial elements of the role are played part-time by an already busy team member. If there are full-time Scrum Masters, in many organisations they are rendered ineffective as change agents and capability builders. Their capacity is filled by a heavy load of co-ordination, stakeholder meetings, progress tracking and other project management tasks have been left to Scrum Masters in the absence of a project manager or the implementation of effective Scrum alternatives.
If this sounds like you, or someone you know, this session is for you!
At the heart of this appears to be a fundamental lack of understanding as to what the Scrum Master role is all about. Also a failure for Scrum Masters to explain their role in the context of the new mindsets and demonstrate its worth to teams, Product Owners, management and other stakeholders.
This interactive session aims to open your eyes to see what a Scrum Master is really meant to be and full impact that a Scrum Master can make.
aka "Agile adoption stories from highly varied organisational cultures"
Why is the culture change that genuine Agile requires so difficult in most army or machine-like corporate cultures, yet quite natural for certain organisations who have a culture similar to a family or living organism? It turns out that the type of Agile your organisation adopts corresponds with its dominant world view or stage of consciousness. Drawing from 15 years of experience with Agile in Australia and the UK, we describe how Agile was interpreted quite differently by organisations classed as Amber, Orange, Green and Teal in Frederic LaLoux’s model.
Familiarise yourself with the characteristics of the four stages of Frederic LaLoux’s consciousness model.
You will become aware of:
* The stage that your own organisation is at
* How your organisation is likely to interpret and ‘bend’ Agile to fit its world view
* Specific beliefs and motivations that make high agility difficult in organisations with Amber and Orange stages of consciousness
* The Green and Teal beliefs and leadership styles that are genuinely transformational in achieving and sustaining high agility and customer-centric Agile adoptions.
Five leadership lenses for agile successRowan Bunning
Sense Making lens - what is the problem contexts and appropriate management approach?
Systems Thinking lens - what should our organisation be optimised for and what are the dynamics?
Lean Thinking lens - how is our org. design relative to a customer value focus?
Cultural Analysis lens - what are our implicit beliefs shaping behaviour?
Self-Leadership lens - how do I show up as a leader to deal with complexity?
As presented at #sglon18
There are as many types of agile coaches out there as there are flavors of ice cream. And, their levels of leadership maturity and skill can vary just as widely. It can leave one fretting, “What am I really getting when I bring in an agile coach? And, how do I ‘grow’ my own?” In fact, what are the “must have” skills of an agile coach and how can you tell if your coach has them?
The Agile Coach Competency Framework is one big clue to answering these questions. Over the past two years, this framework has guided the development of hundreds of agile coaches. Agile managers and champions also use it to obtain “truth in advertising” to hire the right coach at the right time.
We will explore this framework and provide lightening-talk-style case studies that showcase how it has been used in the real world. You’ll leave with ideas and actions to help you become a more savvy purveyor (and/or developer) of agile coaches.
How agile coaches help us win the agile coach role @ SpotifyBrendan Marsh
In this talk, we cover:
- What is an Agile Coach at Spotify?
- What do they do?
- Why do we believe they help us win?
We also talk about:
- How do we scale or Organisation?
- High Performing Teams (What is a high performing team?)
- How are we measuring High Performance right now?
- How do we help teams reach High Performance?
Appendix:
- Chapter = Competency group
- Chapter Lead = Hiring Manager for Developer (or other) competency
Agile Resonance Coaching -Scrum Gathering 2013John Miller
Are you coaching Agile, or, are you doing something else? Take a long coaching stance in this approach that blends a true coaching approach with Agile values. Learn the benefits of how Agile Resonance Coaching can help you coach to help you coach to fulfill your client's Authentic Agility.
Ignore middle managers at your peril!!!. Why middle managers hold the key to ...IQ Business - agility@IQ
Lack of Executive buy-in is known to be one the leading causes of failed Agile transformations! But what about another level of management buy-in that can either make or break your agile transformation efforts… Middle management!
Based on my experience in large corporate organisations undergoing an agile transformation, I have encountered massive support and buy-in from senior leadership and executives. Yet, still some of these transformations have failed to see the significant improvement in results that there were expecting. Middle management are often overlooked in Agile transformation initiatives, yet they are the people most effected by the change… and therefore the most likely to resist.
What keeps CEOs up at night?
“Leadership”, answered the President of one of India’s largest business conglomerates recently. “Do we have the right skills and capabilities to pull our strategy off,” reported a Global 500 CEO. “I worry that the current management team will not be able to take us where we need to go to next,” answered a third corporate leader.
Most CEO’s are satisfied with their strategies. Many are less satisfied with their performance. This Executive Insight Thought Leader centers on the imperative of leadership capability development as a business priority.
Leadership Agility is the ability to rage effective action in complex rapid changing conditions. Team and organizational agility refer to the same set of capacities. Organizational agility is an ability for an organization to renew itself, adapt, change quickly, and succeed in a rapidly changing, ambiguous, turbulent environment. Agility is not incompatible with stability – agility requires stability.
Organizations striving to grow and sustain their success in these dynamic times often try to identify the characteristics in their executives that will propel the enterprise toward its potential. The prevailing thought goes something like this: we want greater organizational agility so what does that look like in our key people? Fair question, but not likely to lead them where they want to go.
The challenge is Organizational Agility is an outcome we can measure organizationally not a personal characteristic. The executives can do a number of things to increase the organization’s agility but they themselves don’t exhibit it.
Let's discuss all of these with Abiodun Osoba (International Lean/Agile Coach & Trainer for Enterprise Transformations)
Leadership - the changing role of management in an agile world. The world is getting faster, we are moving away from industrial era work to creative and knowledge type work. So far our management practices have not evolved along with us - we have 21st century Innovation on 20th Century technology managed by 19th Century principles of command and control. Is professional management failing - and what do we do instead?
Organizational Agility for Sustainable Competitive Advantage in VUCASeta Wicaksana
An Organization has an SCA when it is able to generate more customer value than competitive firms in its industry for the same set of products and service categories and when these other firms are unable to duplicate its effective strategy
At present, the pace of change feels relentless – new technology has changed our working lives beyond recognition and disrupted whole industries.
Many of us like to think that change is rare - we feel like it should be a one-off event, with a beginning and an end. The reality is that change is a constant state - nothing stays the same forever. If this seems daunting, agility is our friend.
Leadership Development Process - InspireOne - Redefining Learning JourneysInspireone
Development & Business results are interlinked comprehensively. Unless business leaders &
HR/OD leaders don’t work together to create and
support this linkage, a virtual tug of war will pull
people in opposite directions. InspireOne provides complete leadership development solution for your company.
Our latest brochure with the latest information on who we are, the case for action for developing the foundation for success, our practices areas and our people.
People everywhere are talking about scaling agile and different frameworks and ideas to support this. Fancy and rather complicated scaling agile frameworks have not only taken shape but probably have started becoming mainstream. All these frameworks apparently claim to facilitate communication and collaboration.
However, as group size rises, all sorts of issues emerges. Even if more people provide a greater pool of resources, they also require greater amounts of coordination and management, to the point where size becomes an impediment. Scaling up might trigger not only “coordination loss” & “motivation loss” but also “relational loss”.
Small teams are agile!! I guess, thats the reason Scrum urges to work in small teams. As small as 5 to 9 members. So let’s explore if there is a possibility to scale down instead of scaling up? And, how can you scale down? What does it take? Has anyone scaled down yet? Is there a structure to scale down? Can it be replicated?
It is the team who does all the work. Team is self-organising. Team decides and plans. So what is the role of scrum master? Is it a full time role? How is it different from a project manager? Can a project lead or manager be a scrum master? It is probably the least understood and the most abused role in scrum. Let's explore these points in details further on April 10, 3:00 PM.
3 Roles in Scrum
Role of scrum master
Challenges of a scrum master
Skills, Knowledge & mindset required
Full time or part time?
Future career path of scrum master
Benefits:
Uncover the true role of a scrum master which is that of a facilitator, protector, negotiator and a coach.
Understand the true meaning of coaching.
Learn how scrum master can coach the team.
Understand the skills, knowledge and mindset required as a scrum master.
Perform better as a scrum master by getting introduced to some magical techniques and fad words like gamestorming, innovation games and visual thinking to facilitate collaborative decision making.
Learn points which you can use to make people understand the vital role a scrum master plays.
Appreciate the difference between project manager and a scrum master.
Learn who can be a good scrum master.
Attend the webinar and separate yourself from the crazy herd of people blindly accepting or discarding the role of scrum master!!
2. Tushar is founder, director of ShuHaRiAgile, a premium agile
training / coaching partner and coachingdojo, a unique
community for agile leaders, executive coaches, agile coaches
and agile practitioners to share, learn & network.
Tushar has 13 years of IT experience and over 6 years of agile
experience. He is known for his fun-filled, hands-on interactive
trainings & speeches at prestigious conferences. His blogs
have been re-published on ScrumAlliance, AgileAtlas & PMHut.
He is an active volunteer at ScrumAlliance & PMI Mumbai
Chapter.
Tushar Somaiya is a passionate certified professional coach
who helps executives & teams discover and unleash their true
potential. He believes in a democratic organization & self-
organizing teams. He calls himself a servant leader. Through
his NueroScience based coaching & consulting, he has helped
projects and organizations turn agile and become truly high
performing teams.
He is Results Certified Coach, Certified Transformational
Coach, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Professional,
Certified System Business Analysts & one of the first 500 PMI-
Agile Certified Professional.
3. Changing business scenario
Work is changing too
The ask from executives
Doing & being agile
Live agile?
Q & A
5. Changes in the new economic environment are
large-scale, substantial and drastically different
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
More volatile More uncertain More complex Structurally
different
Source: IBM—Capitalizing on Complexity:
Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study (2010)
6. The life expectancy of firms on the Fortune
500 has rapidly declined to around 15 years
and is headed for 5 years
Business model life cycle is down to 7 years
80% of new products and services fail
within 3 years
95% of CEO’s agree on the increased need
for enterprise innovation, yet half
acknowledge they have no team or process
for this. Of those that do have a
team/process, how many are satisfied with
it?
7. “Without exception, all of
my biggest mistakes
occurred because I moved
too slowly.”
--John Chambers, Cisco CEO,
“He [Chambers] also radically changed
the way he managed, turning a
command-and-control hierarchy into a
more democratic organizational
structure.”
8. Agility is the
ability to create
and respond to
change in order to
profit in a
turbulent business
environment.
9. “88% of executives cite organizational agility as
key to global success.”
“50% say that agility is not only important, but a
core differentiator.”
20. Systems Systems
of of
Record Engagement
Themes: Themes:
• Inward focus • Outward focus
• Efficiency/cost reduction • Fundamentally social
• Highly structured • Loosely structured
• Slow to change • Dynamic/in flux
21.
22. Adaptingsignificant Visionary/
changes in market transformational
place leadership
25. Think in terms of market-oriented visions
and strategies
Understand that a vision is not a plan, that a
strategy is more than number
Even at lower levels in organizations, they
set clear direction by generating
visions/strategies relevant to their areas of
responsibility
Believe in and seek teamwork by constantly
communicating visions and strategies
26. Communicate both with words and with their
actions, and do so day after day and week after
week
No meeting ends without some reference to
longer-term goalsMotivate action with positive
incentives of all sorts: a pat on the back, public
recognition, extra money in the paycheck;
Tend to attack, sometimes courageously, that
which can de-motivate employees, no matter the
source;
Dealing with these leaders, one senses the
enthusiasm, even from introverted individuals;
27. Fight past the cynicism and fear inside
themselves to find their hopes, dreams, and
childhood ideal
When ideals are involved, just "good" is
never good enough, and that attitude affects
all visions and strategies
Use the passion and creative power to shape
exceptionally bold group goals
The talk goes beyond what we do
(strategies) or how we do things (rules) to
who we are
28. "Do what is right" is the guiding
principal, and it’s created by appealing to
very basic human values: a desire for
security for self and family, for love, for
respect, for opportunities to grow, for a
sense of purpose in one’s life
Help people unleash untapped energies in
pursuit of the tough group goals by creating
work that has true meaning; even spiritual;
Always address the unasked (and very
difficult) questions of: so what?; why are we
here?; what difference can we make?; what
difference should we make?
33. Employees acting as
partners and
associates make their
own decision
They evaluate their
managers every six
months
Potential managers
are interviewed by
their subordinates.
34. Small teams
Belief in the
individual
No titles
People choose their
own work
All in the same boat
Focus on long term
value based view
rather than short term
benefits
35. No managers
Personal mission
“Collaborative letters
of understanding”
Conflict resolved by
jury
36. No formal
management
hierarchy
People choose their
own projects
No one tells what to
do, no fixed roles, no
reviews, no such
thing like promotion
37. No positions
No support functions
Decide your own
time
Self-managing teams
who owns their P&L
38.
39. I haven’t created images in this PPT.
References and credits provided at the
end
Ideas and words in the presentation are
referred and inspired from various
sources listed at the end
Does this have to do anything with agile?
Are we ready? What does it take? When
do we start?
40. John
Kotter:
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3294.h
tml
Bas Vodde: http://www.odd-
e.com/material/2012/06_shanghai/mana
gement_and_adoption.pdf
Jim Highsmith:
http://www.thoughtworks.com/sites/ww
w.thoughtworks.com/files/files/adaptive-
leadership-wp-us-single-pages.pdf