My keynote at Scaling Agile India in Bangalore on Dec 7. In this talk, I have discussed the aspects around scaling agility across the organization and not just in software teams.

1. THE ROLE OF
LEADERSHIP IN
SCALING AGILITY
TATHAGAT VARMA
HEAD, STRATEGY &
OPERATIONS, WALMART
LABS
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE,
INDIAN SCHOOL OF
BUSINESS

2. SCALING ANYTHING
IS HARD!

3. CHALLENGES IN SCALING AGILE

4. LEARNINGS FROM CAS 2018
• SCALING AGILE CONTINUES TO REMAIN A SIGNIFICANT
CHALLENGE PER OUR PARTICIPANTS IN CHANGE
AGENT SUMMIT 2018 (NCR) AND 2019 (BANGALORE).
• MAJOR CHALLENGES AND REASONS BEHIND FAILURE:
• CREATING A SHARED VISION
• RE-ALIGNING THE ORGANIZATION
• ESTABLISHING CONSISTENCY

5. TYPES OF AGILE SCALING
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2016/04/15/what-does-it-mean-to-scale-agile/#13f75ab078b9
Scaling Frameworks
(SAFe, LeSS, DAD, etc.)
???

6. SCALING “UP” VS. SCALING “OUT”
Scale “Up” Scale “Out”
Vertical Scaling Horizontal Scaling
Across Product Across Organization
Subset of Value Stream Entire Value Stream
Cycle Time, Efficiency,
Outputs
Lead Time, Effectiveness,
Outcomes
Agile Fractals ???
My 2014 talk on Scaling Out Agility: https://www.slideshare.net/Managewell/scalingout-agility

7. TRADITIONAL VS. AGILE SCALING
Traditional Scaling Agile Scaling
Strategy Top-down Bottom-up, sideways
Role of leadership Assign, or Delegate Lead, and remove constraints
Cadence Episodic planning Continuous process
Transformation Big bang Pilot, Test, Learn, Waves
Structure Functional silos Cross-functional autonomous teams
Paradigm Process determines behavior Behavior determines process
Goal setting Targets-based Evidence-based
Scope Local optimization End-to-end enablement
Interventions People, Process or Tech People, Process and Tech
Decision-making Core Edge
Approach Process-driven Culture-driven
Levers Hierarchy and position Influence and relationship
© Tathagat Varma

8. ROLE OF LEADERSHIP
• MISSION: “WHY”, NORTH STAR, PURPOSE, OBJECTIVE, …
• VISION: “WHAT”, GOALS, ALIGNMENT, BOUNDARY CONDITIONS, …
• MINDSET: RAPID, ITERATIVE, INCREMENTAL, FEEDBACK,
CONTINUOUS LEARNING, TALENT, EXPERIMENTATION, ...
• NETWORKS: NETWORK OF AUTONOMOUS TEAMS FIGURE OUT
“HOW”, DEFINE THEIR AGILE PROCESS, CROSS-FUNCTIONAL, SELF-
ORGANIZING, AUTONOMY, DYNAMIC RESOURCE MODEL, …
• CULTURE: EMBRACE DIVERSITY, EQUALITY, TRUST, RESPECT,
LEARNING, SHARING, CARING, …
• ORGANIZATION: SYSTEM, STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE, PROCESSES,
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS, ETC.

9. MISSION: BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

10. VISION: KEEPS PEOPLE FOCUSED
“If Coca-Cola can sell billions of sodas and
McDonald’s can sell billions of burgers, why
can’t Aravind sell millions of sight-restoring
operations, and, eventually the belief in
human perfection? With sight, people
could be freed from hunger, fear, and
poverty. You could perfect the body, then
perfect the mind and the soul, and raise
people’s level of thinking and acting”. –
Dr. G. Venkataswamy
Vision: To eliminate needless blindness......

11. MINDSET: THE RAW POWER

12. NETWORKS: THE AMPLIFIER

13. CULTURE: THE SECRET SAUCE
Source: Seeking Alpha
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/02/here-are-the-top-10-airlines-in-the-world-as-ranked-by-tripadvisor.html
4% voluntary turnover
44 consecutive years of profitability
#1 lowest number of customer complaints
85% employees say they’re proud to work for Southwest
No layoffs, no furloughs ever
https://www.humansynergistics.com/blog/culture-university/details/culture-university/2018/05/29/southwest-airlines-reveals-5-culture-lessons

14. ORGANIZATION: AN ECOSYSTEM
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-five-trademarks-of-agile-organizations
Five Trademarks
1. Strategy: North Star
embedded across the
organization
2. Structure: Network of
empowered teams
3. Process: Rapid decision
and learning cycles
4. People: Dynamic people
model that ignites
passion
5. Technology: Next-
generation enabling
technology

15. CONCLUSIONS
https://www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-galleries/2018/professional/shortlisted/natural-world/very