The document provides information about Samuli Ruuskanen and his company Huitale, which provides agile and lean coaching services. Some key points: - Samuli has an engineering and business background and experience implementing agile practices in companies in the UK and Finland. - Huitale was founded in 2007 and provides professional services to help software companies implement lean and agile practices across business, management, and technology. - Huitale's coaching involves conducting assessments, creating custom implementation plans, providing training to development teams and management, and ongoing operational coaching to transform organizations.

1. Let’s talk about:
Agile and lean coaching
Samuli Ruuskanen
Huitale, Helsinki
twitter.com/huitale|facebook.com/huitale|huitale.blogspot.com

2. my background [samuli]
• AaltoU MSc Tech / EDHEC, France 2007
• Software developer 2000-2004
• Agile program management, UK 2006
• Agile software developer 2007
• Business owner 2008
• Entrepreneur and sales operations 2008-
• Lecturer, advisor and coach 2010 -

3. company background 1/2
• Professional services in lean and agile
coaching
• We debug, fine-tune and fix living sw-
companies
• Areas of business, management, technology
• ”One stop shop for next generation software
house”

4. company background 2/2
• Founded 2007, key personnel:
– Co-founder, lead coach, CTO, Marko Taipale
– Co-founder, coach, CEO, Samuli Ruuskanen
• FY 2011 sales 170 000 eur
• Also producers, marketers of Nextdoor.fi (c2c)
– live example of lean product development
• Small in size, but widely known in the market
• We let our customers make the noise

5. what are we talking about
• Agile • Lean
– Embrace change – Continuous learning
– Fast adaptation – Quality improvements
– Small increments – Eliminate waste
– Short cycles – Less is more
– Customer collaboration – Visual management
– Flow of value

6. why care about agile
• Improved go-to-market, beat the competition
• Motivated and self-organised personnel
• Improve product quality, operational efficiency
• Customer-centric business development
• Flexibility and adaptation
• Improved ROI
• Continuously looking for perfect strategic fit
• Change is driven by the personnel, but benefits
are also recognised at the org. level

7. why agile coaching 1/2
• Effective and concentrated effort to improve
living software organisation
• Most organisations keep focus in what -
production, not how - method development
• In-house coach is not seen as very feasible
option

8. why agile coaching 2/2
• Coach is top talent- you get faster results,
fixed costs
• You buy objective view, from outside the
power play
• Helps ”both sides” – management and r&d
• Coached companies perform better & keep
their staff
• You could say coaches are your secret
weapons

9. what is an agile coach
• Trainer, consultant, advisor, mentor
• Outward –looking, communicative ”people”-work
• More valuable person, than IT –consultant, more
practical, than strategy/management consultant
• Benchmarking with perspective, rationalise
• Facilitation on key decisions
• Outsiders’ look at the big picture
• Skill transfer on processes, management
• Introduces best practices, helps teams to excel

10. okay, but what does he/she do daily
• Dialog with development teams, management
• Gives lectures for larger audience
• Gives workshops for specific theme
• Documents findings to agile playbook, manual
• Invites guest lecturers in-house
• One-to-one advisory for key personnel
• Facilitates meetings and negotiations
• Writes and presents progress reports
• Gives active support, problem solver

11. when ready to be coached
• Intiative supported by vision, investors or board
• Hunger for excellence, better performance
• Existing, documented trials on agile & lean
• Successful local optimisation
• Challenging restructuring ahead
• Fill in COO position, before new one is found
• Reality bites – books and seminars are done
• High growth, new teams, new prod. units
• ROI / financial pressure to perform

12. how gets things done
• Working persistently, listening to the customer
• Set-up ”one enterprise”, systematic view
• Challenging static, rigid, thinking models
• Stick to the agile and lean fundamentals
• Tailor them to fit the local setting

13. how gets things done
• Find out what works well, and improve it
• Drive natural and organic transformation
• Set up agile playbook, rolebook, manual
• Operational assistance in implementation
• Specific training, such as TDD, CI, Scrum,
automation

14. why choose
• Necessary entrepreneural mindset
• Complete set of skills, experience, interest
• Four years’ track record, happy customers
• Two complete transformations in Finland
• We practice, what we preach in our own biz
• Attention to detail
• Keynote-level, celebrated in-house product
• Ability to handle business/tech. issues
• Commitment and passion brings results

15. what wants
• Strong business partners, living organisations
• Smart personnel working inside smart org.
• Work with motivated and open-minded
professionals and their superiors
• Backing from the top-management – however
earned repeatedly at each milestone
• Learn more about lean- and agile experience
through the ”customer experience”
• Bold customers, who want to win the market
• Make things happen, push things forward

16. Stages

17. Stage 1 Agile Health Check & audit
• 1-5 core projects under study
• Interviews, observations, documentation
• Open communication
• Final report and presentation
• 10 days (8 on-site, 2 backoffice)
• What can be expected?
– Short analysis of current state of agility

18. Stage 2 Improvement plan & tailoring
• Recommendations and action plan
• Pinpoint critical domain touchpoints
• ”One enterprise” –vision as internal driver
• Full operational integration plan
• 2-4 weeks, full time ( 50/50 on-
site/backoffice)
• What can be expected?
– Detailed, custom implementation plan and
metrics

19. Stage 3 Development team and
management training
• Made to fit
• Scaling practices and transforming organisation
• Resolving complex issues
• Day-to-day practice
• 1 month – 6 months (100% on-site)
• What can be expected?
– Ongoing operational coaching period that aims to
improve the whole organisation towards self-
sufficient lean methodology

20. Thank you
Contact
samuli.ruuskanen(a)huitale.com
+358 40 7179763
This is the end of the presentation