The document discusses the transition to agile management in international development, highlighting the importance of agility in addressing complex problems across various global contexts. It features insights from notable experts and outlines the event's agenda, including discussions on the principles of agile management and its application to development institutions. Additionally, it emphasizes the growing necessity for organizations to adopt an agile mindset to better serve customers and enhance operational effectiveness.

1. Bringing Agile Management to
International Development
How Companies and Organizations are
Innovating in a Transformational Time
July 16, 2019 • Eaton Hotel, Washington DC

2. 2
Bringing Agile to International Development
Welcome to the
age of agility!

3. 3
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Bringing Agile to International Development

4. 4
What is the distributor landscape of
plastics in Vietnam?
How do cash transfer programs work
in Mexico?
What is the market like for office
furniture in Indonesia?
What is the competitive landscape for non-
utility water services in India?
Is Costa Rica a desirable market to develop
successful solar DG projects?
What is the procurement process for
medical devices in Rio?
Do for-profit prisons perform as well
as federal ones?
How can we better understand early
childhood development in Bosnia?
What is the rail market trend in Asia?
What are the risks of financing natural gas in
Eastern Europe?
Hyper targeted matching within hours
Bringing Agile to International Development

5. 5
Bringing Agile to International Development
Steve Denning
Noted author and storyteller

6. 6
Bringing Agile to International Development
Stefano Negri
Former Manager, CEO's Strategic
Initiatives, World Bank
Jonathan Nash
VP and Chief StrategyOfficer, Blumont Inc.
Former Acting CEO, Millennium Challenge Corporation
Brigit Helms
VP Technical Services, DAI
Alexis Bonnell
Chief Innovation Officer, USAID
Development Experts & Panelists

7. 7
Bringing Agile to International Development
Who is in the room?
‣ 80+ Attendees from 40+ Development Institutions
‣ Top Funders, Implementers, Social Enterprises all represented

8. 8
Agenda
8:00-9:00
REGISTRATION AND NETWORKING
9:00-9:10
WELCOME & INTRODUCTION
• Brian Caouette
9:10-9:40
AGILE INTRODUCTION
• Steve Denning
9:40-10:30
AGILE & DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTIONS
• Jonathan Nash on Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)
• Brigit Helms on Development Alternatives International (DAI)
• Stefano Negri on The World Bank
• Alexis Bonnell on US Agency for International Development (USAID)
Bringing Agile to International Development
10:30-10:45
COFFEE BREAK
10:45-11:45
PANEL DISCUSSION
11:45am-12:00
CONCLUDING REMARKS & WRAP-UP
• Steve Denning
• Brian Caouette
12:00-12:30pm
POST-EVENT NETWORKING/CONVERSATION

9. 9
The Chatham Rule
When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the
Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the
information received, but neither the identity nor the
affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other
participant, may be revealed
Bringing Agile to International Development

10. Agile Introduction
Steve Denning

11. The Age of Agile
Steve Denning

12. 2010
Software development
General management
2010

13. What I heard at the Drucker Forum
• “Agile is only for software”
• “Agile doesn’t scale”
• “Agile can’t handle complexity”
• “Agile isn’t reliable”
• “Agile doesn’t last”
2014

14. http://www.sdlearningconsortium.org/
Members since 2015 have included
2015

15. Findings of the SD Learning Consortium
• “Agile is only for software”
• “Agile doesn’t scale”
• “Agile can’t handle complexity”
• “Agile isn’t reliable”
• “Agile doesn’t endure”
Agile is spreading to everything
Agile scales without sclerosis
Agile handles complexity
Agile can be fail-safe
Some examples: 10-15 years

16. “Agile is eating the world!
The good news. 2019

17. Today’s ‘Giants’20th Century ‘Giants’
June 28, 2019
2019

18. Exploring
3
2
5
Progressing Strengthening
Mapping the Microsoft Journey
3. Adopt Agile
for 25 teams
3
2. Form
several
teams
1
1. Form
one team
2008 2016 201820142010 2012
BusinessAgility
Time
4
4. Agile
adoption grows
organically
5. Nadella
becomes CEO
6. Dev. Division
gets Agile ‘org-
wide mandate’ 7
6. Agile
thinking
spreads
7. Grow
healthy
culture
8
6
10. Culture
of trust and
results
9. Growth
mindset
(vs fixed mindset):
specific ‘Agile
mandate’ fades
9
10
Top involved
Bottom up
Market
cap
$1 trillion
biillion

19. Exploring
3
2
5
Progressing Strengthening
Mapping the Microsoft Journey
3. Adopt Agile
for 25 teams
3
2. Form
several
teams
1
1. Form
one team
2008 2016 201820142010 2012
BusinessAgility
Time
4
4. Agile
adoption grows
organically
5. Nadella
becomes CEO
6. Dev. Division
gets Agile ‘org-
wide mandate’ 7
6. Agile
thinking
spreads
7. Grow
healthy
culture
8
6
10. Culture
of trust and
results
9. Growth
mindset
(vs fixed mindset):
specific ‘Agile
mandate’ fades
9
10
Top involved
Bottom up
Ten years
It’s like learning a profession!

20. BusinessAgility
Mapping the GE Lean Startup Journey
2008 2012 2016 2018
2
3
2. Lean Startup
team named
1
1. CEO discovers Lean
Startup
2. All staff trained in
Lean Startup
4
2. Lean Startup
seen as a process
5 .Disillusion with
Lean Startup
5
6
6 .CEO and team
are dismissed
Top involved
Bottom up
?
Market
cap

21. The five largest & fastest growing
firms on the planet
• Apple
• Amazon
• Facebook
• Google
• Microsoft
• instant
• intimate
• frictionless
• incremental
• risk-free
• value at scale
“The gold standard of corporate performance”
The good news.

22. The five largest & fastest growing
firms on the planet
• Apple
• Amazon
• Facebook
• Google
• Microsoft
• instant
• intimate
• frictionless
• incremental
• risk-free
• value at scale
“The gold standard of corporate performance”
The good news.

23. The five largest & fastest growing
firms on the planet
• Apple
• Amazon
• Facebook
• Google
• Microsoft
• instant
• intimate
• frictionless
• incremental
• risk-free
• value at scale
“The gold standard of corporate performance”
The good news.
Every person & thing
can now connect with
every other person &
thing instantly and at
zero cost
= a new world!

24. Surveys by Deloitte and McKinsey :
• More than 90% of senior executives give
high priority to becoming agile.
• Less than 10% see their own organization
as currently highly agile.
Multiple articles about business agility in:
• Harvard Business Review
• McKinsey Quarterly
The good news.

25. A huge amount of fake Agile going on
The bad news.

26. • Agile as ceremonies: Firms implementing
the processes of Agile with no benefits
E.g. General Electric?
Fake Agile .

27. • Scaling frameworks are often just
another name for bureaucracy
E.g. the SAFe framework?
Fake Agile .

28. So what is Agile?

29. Agile is mindset
What we saw:

30. With an Agile mindset,
benefits flowed,
no matter what the processes.
Without an Agile mindset,
no benefits flowed.
What we saw:

31. Agile is mindset
Agile is:
• Not a system
• Not a methodology
• Not a technology
• Not a platform
• Not big data
• Not an organizational structure

32. The components of the Agile mindset
• The Law of the Customer
• The Law of the Small Team
• The Law of the Network
Three central ideas

33. 1. The Law of the Customer
The Agile mindset

34. 21st Century: Power in the marketplace shifted to the customer
1. The Law of the Customer
There is only
one valid
purpose of a
firm: to create
a customer
The three laws of Agile
Peter Drucker 1954

35. 25
Firm Customer
Firm
The Copernican Revolution in management
Customer
1. The Law of the Customer
The three laws of Agile
This is a different way of understanding how the world works

36. Customer focus vs customer obsession
Our top priority is
to add value to the
customer!
…. But only within the
constraints of
our systems and
processes

37. Customer focus vs customer obsession
In the best Agile implementations:
• Everyone in the organization shares the obsession
with customers
• No activity begins unless and until its value for
customers has been defined in advance
• No activity begins unless and until
real-time customer-based metrics are in place
Think Like Amazon by John Rossman (2019)

38. 2. The Law of the Small Team
The Agile mindset

39. There is a presumption of:
• Descaling complex problems into small pieces
• Having work done by cross-functional self-organizing teams
• Working in small cycles, getting work completely done
• Getting direct feedback from customers
• Daily standups, and retrospectives
2. The Law of the Small Team
The three laws of Agile

40. The customer becomes the boss
Teams are autonomous but customer-driven:
• The team doesn’t start work unless and until its value
for customers has been defined in advance
• The team doesn’t start work unless and until
real-time customer-based metrics are in place
• The team’s performance is measured by customer
impact
Think Like Amazon by John Rossman (2019)

41. 2. The Law of the Small Team
The three laws of Agile
Managers still exist, but their role changes
• From controlling to enabling
• Helping resolve priorities
• Removing impediments
• Ensuring teams resolve dependencies on other teams
The manager can’t tell the staff what to do!

42. 3. The Law of the Network
The Agile mindset

43. The three laws of Agile
• The organization functions like a fluid network
• Communications flow up, down, sideways
• Ideas can come from anywhere
3. The Law of the Network

44. The three laws of Agile
3. The Law of the Network

45. The three laws of Agile
3. The Law of the Network
All teams focused on the
organization’s mission
Each team focused on its
own unit’s mission

46. The Law of the Network
1 Common physical space
2. Daily decision-making session
3. Exchange of staff between teams
4. From commander to gardener
Gen. Stan McChrystal, Team of Teams
U.S. Army
Getting collaboration across units

47. From fierce commander… … to gardener
Gen. Stan McChrystal, Team of Teams
3. The Law of the Network

48. CEO
CHRO
CFO
SVP Tech SVP Product SVP Sales
Div 1 Div 2 Div 3 Product A Sales MarketingProduct B
This can be a problem for the traditional org structure
The Law of the Network

49. CEO
CHRO
CFO
SVP Tech SVP Product SVP Sales
Div 1 Div 2 Div 3 Product A Sales MarketingProduct B
In ‘partial Agile’, most of the gains of Agile are lost
The Law of the Network
Agile Not Agile

50. Exploring
3
2
5
Progressing Mastering
Stalled half-way
3. Adopt Agile
more eams
3
2. Form
several
teams
1
1. Form
one team
BusinessAgility
Time
4
4. Adopt Agile
many teams
5. Management
declares
premature
victory
Top involved
Bottom up
3

51. The Law of the Network
Not just IT or R&D: ‘Business Agility’
• Agile budgeting
• Agile talent and experience (formerly HR)
• Agile strategy
• …. the whole organization is Agile

52. The Law of the Network
Budgeting is a particular issue
Traditional budgeting
Counting the outputs
of each unit
Agile budgeting
Counting outcomes for the
customer

53. The Law of the Network
This is how knowledge management works
This is how knowledge management fits in

54. The Law of the Network
How could this mess be rigorous?
This is how knowledge management fits in

55. Reconciling scientific rigor and Agile
The Law of the Network
How could this mess be rigorous?
Each team has an
objective measurable
customer-based function

56. The evolution of Agile
The three laws of Agile
2001-2010: how to manage one or several Agile teams
2010-2015: how to manage large numbers of Agile teams
2016-today: rethinking Agile strategy, HR and budgeting
Agile is a journey: you never arrive!

57. The
Agile
mindset
Three
Laws of
Agile
= Operational
AgilityX
Summary
Any zero means that the total is zero
The Agile equation: it’s multiplication, not addition

58. The Age of Agile
Steve Denning

59. Development Experts

60. 12
Bringing Agile to International Development
Jonathan Nash
VP and Chief Strategy Officer, Blumont Inc.
Former Acting CEO, Millennium Challenge Corporation

61. 13
Bringing Agile to International Development
Brigit Helms
VP Technical Services, DAI

62. 14

63. Smart is not enough
15

65. 17

67. 19
Bringing Agile to International Development
Stefano Negri
Former Manager, CEO's Strategic Initiatives, World Bank

68. 20
Bringing Agile to International Development
Alexis Bonnell
Chief Innovation Officer, USAID

69. Panel Discussion

70. Conclusion & Wrap-up

71. Networking &
Post-Event Conversation