The document discusses empowered teams and their advantages over disempowered teams for successful software projects. Empowered teams are self-organizing, focus on outcomes rather than tasks, seek feedback, and feel empowered through trust, knowledge of goals, and confidence. When hiring, it is important to find a "thought partner" team that is engaged, transparent, and focused on project success. Srijan organizes into empowered teams and brings projects to the teams to deliver business value for clients through an agile process.

1. Srijan's Agile & Lean Software
Development Philosophy
www.srijan.net | business@srijan.in

2. WHEN DO PROJECTS SUCCEED?
HOW DO EMPOWERED TEAMS DELIVER
BETTER PROJECTS?
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3. MAKING PROJECTS SUCCESSFUL!
● Clients are able to go-to-market (or internal stakeholders) early to
receive end-user-feedback
● Teams build valuable software in 2-week cycles, deliver demos
(functional pieces of working software), and adapt to changing end-user
feedback

4. MAKING PROJECTS SUCCESSFUL!
● The client-manager “trusts” the team
● There is room for honest, candid & adult/ mature communication
between client & team
● The team seeks feedback from client proactively, with an objective to
“continuously improve”

5. EMPOWERED TEAMS =
SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS
WHAT ARE EMPOWERED TEAMS?
HOW DO THEY BEHAVE?
HOW DO EMPOWERED TEAMS DELIVER
BETTER?
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6. EMPOWERED TEAMS
● Self-organizing
● Teams succeed when they are focussed on ‘outcomes’; not
functionality-built, or lines of code produced
● They focus on ‘outcomes’ when they are ‘empowered’ and ‘they
care’

7. EMPOWERED TEAMS
● When the client and dev team is “one-team”
● They feel empowered when:
○ They know ‘why they are doing the project’
○ They are ‘self-confident’ : can ‘ask questions’, ‘challenge
assumptions’
○ There is ‘trust’ within the team -- management team and client
business managers included

8. EMPOWERED TEAMS
● They feel empowered when :
○ They have diversity of thought, of approach
○ They seek and offer feedback without fear
○ Their ‘collective measures of success’ have higher weightage
than individuals’ success
○ Their success is measured in a balanced way -- client happiness,
finances, process, learning

9. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DO NOT
HAVE EMPOWERED TEAMS?
WHAT ARE THE RISKS?
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10. DISEMPOWERED TEAMS
● Focus on ‘writing great software’ rather than ‘building the right
product’
● Lack of early end-user feedback leads to project-waste
○ features, lines of code -- which is not needed/used

11. DISEMPOWERED TEAMS
● Are fearful of sharing challenges
○ leads to crisis and project failures
● Success is defined by ‘billing done’ as opposed to ‘business value
delivered’ or ‘client success’
● Project success is measured by “sign-offs received” and “billing
done” (all internal goals; customer focus is lost)

12. DISEMPOWERED TEAMS
● Individual are appraised for success/failure, rather than teams
● Lack flexibility and nimbleness to adapt to changing client/project
needs

13. HIRING AN EMPOWERED TEAM
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO HIRE SUCH A
TEAM?
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14. FINDING A “THOUGHT PARTNER”!
● A team of consultants focussed on “project success”
● An empowered team that:
○ understands the vision of the project
○ focusses on “success of the project”
○ “embraces change” in business priorities during the course of the
project
○ feels responsible for your project success

15. FINDING A “THOUGHT PARTNER”!
● An engaged team that
○ asks a lot of questions & challenges assumptions
○ gives demos every 2 weeks
○ shares their internal challenges transparently and honestly
○ seeks active feedback for continuous improvement

16. HIRING AN EMPOWERED TEAM
● Instead of inviting RFPs, choose your team first
● And to choose:
○ engage early; meet the team -- developers, managers, extended
management
○ share your project/business needs
○ get into a ½ day workshop

17. HIRING AN EMPOWERED TEAM
● And to choose:
○ discover their strengths, weaknesses; the truth beneath the sales
pitch
○ see if the ‘are asking smart questions’
○ see if their developers are able to communicate well
○ evaluate their pricing model
○ speak to their customers

18. HOW DOES SRIJAN DELIVER
BUSINESS VALUE?
HOW ARE SRIJAN TEAM’S ORGANIZED?
ARE THEY EMPOWERED?
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19. SRIJAN’S EMPOWERED TEAMS
● Srijan is organized around teams -- Projects, HR, Finances, Admin --
everything (we took Ricardo Semler too seriously)
● We bring projects to teams

20. ABOUT
SRIJAN
www.srijan.net

21. ABOUT SRIJAN
Consulting, designing and engineering
products and solutions for online businesses
for over 10 years
India’s largest Drupal company
Over 200 clients across US, Europe, Middle East
and APAC across industries
Agile / SCRUM process maturity
Preferred Acquia partners
Acquia certified Drupal engineers

22. MARQUEE CLIENTS

23. Contact us
Thank You
Interested in joining or knowing more about us? Feel free to reach out to us through
any of these channels. Happy to help!
business@srijan.in www.srijan.net
NEW DELHI NEW YORK GURGAON GOA DHARAMSHALA
Headquarter: 8A - Vandana Building, 11 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi - 110001 INDIA