From Legacy to Leading Edge:

A Leadership Blueprint for Digital and Business Transformation

Chapter 9: Technology

Poison in the water

The monthly engagement session between the Procurement Director from Falconridge, Asad, with DataCorp’s Commercial team, led by Hafeez team ended at 10 am. As the teams started to leave, Hafeez requested to have a few minutes with Asad alone. They asked the rest of the participants to leave and stayed in the meeting room.

“How is your family, Asad? We have not gone golfing for a few months. How about you join my family in the Dirab Club for a round of golf this coming weekend with your family?” Hafeez offered his old customer and friend.

“That sounds lovely, I will have to check with my family to see if there are no other plans.” Asad was certainly enticed by the prospect.

“Sounds great. If your family is on board, let's plan to meet for a round of golf either this weekend or next. Have you heard of this Agile thing that some of our account guys are trying to pull off?” Hafeez asked.

“Yes, even our management has had a bit of Agile mania in the last few months. All this change and contracting without a clear understanding of deliverables, scope, and plan does not make much sense to me. But to be fair, I have not yet looked at this in any detail.” Asad showed his skepticism.

“I am similarly against such nonsense. I will oppose it, as our corporate governance requires an understanding of risks and budgeting for them. Contracting in a way where even the scope is not fixed is so risky. How do you even leave the team to determine what they will deliver? This executive in our company, Abdullah, along with his program manager, John, sure wants to upend our organization. I would be careful when dealing with them.” Hafeez quietened his voice when he said this.

“You sure seem to have an axe to grind against Abdullah. I have worked with him before, and he seems like a decent guy! I have not been engaged yet for any changes, but will be careful.”, Asad promised, and the discussion was concluded.

“Well, Abdullah is not as innocent as he seems, and you have to hear what he says about your management in our meetings to know his true nature.” Hafeez planted a seed of doubt in Asad’s mind about his rival and ensured that it poisoned any future interactions. He felt that it was ‘Mission Accomplished!’

Readiness Project – Technology Change

One key goal of the Readiness project was to identify the technology toolset for delivering the new ways of working. Thus, the team planned that they would test a number of industry-leading tools for Agile and SAFe before presenting the business case to the management for investment approval.

The team needed to choose a suitable toolset to meet their requirements which they identified as,

· Provide Agile project capabilities like Scrum, Kanban

· Capable of supporting Scaled Agile framework for program management

· Meet the budget constraints of the program

· Have the capability to scale up to meet the needs of the whole organization in the future, if required

They defined the selection criteria in a ‘Definition of Done’ and agreed with John as the Product Owner.

The team self-organized themselves in small units with business, and technical capabilities to evaluate the various tools. Most of the tools they looked at were quick to sign up online without any costs. One of the toolsets that was evaluated was well known to Graham as it was an industry leader in Agile.