Ryder Hosts Agile Transformation in the Enterprise – ITWomen Professional Development program

 
Agile Transformation in the Enterprise, a part of ITWomen’s Professional Development series this year, was a phenomenal success. Our host Ryder created a welcoming atmosphere for over 100 guests, showcasing their beautiful state-of-the-art-facilities. Ryder’s team Shawna Cartwright, Vinita Rajpal and Tresha Daise did an outstanding job of developing an engaging program, packed with Agile Leaders who generously shared their insights into Agile Transformation Journeys within large complex environments.  


Rajeev Ravindran, Ryder’s CIO,
kicked off the evening ’s conversation focused on Change Leadership, reminding participants that change is hard, particularly within large Enterprise environments, and change starts and ends with each of us. His other sage advice centered around how vital it is to have empathy for the people impacted by any large scale organizational transformation efforts, and the need to engage individuals to become part of the journey to help build momentum and support.

Agile: Goodbye to “Large and in Charge!” Hello to Empowered Teams

IPC (Subway’s) Rick Regueira then took participants on an interactive journey from waterfall to Agile, examining how eliminating traditional management roles and creating self-directed and empowered teams  with increased business buy-in through Product Ownership roles leads to better business outcomes through continuous feedback, higher quality outputs and faster delivery as a result of your highly engaged, high performing teams.   So in short, it’s Good-bye to PMs who try to get things done by being “Large and In Charge”!


Key Takeaways from our Panel of ‘Agilistas’

Some key takeaways from our panel of Agilistas, expertly facilitated by Shawna Cartwright Group Director, Office of the CIO, Ryder included:

Andres Borque, Enterprise Agile Transformation Leader – You are going to need substantial financial support.  In addition to org redesign, training, a change management methodology, tools, and physical space redesign, you are going to need Agile Coaches and Experts, and they are expensive!  

Vinita Rajpal, Enterprise Agile Coach, Ryder – Executive support is essential to secure the investment required to embark upon  a “Transformation” and it is all about  constantly demonstrating business value and finding ways to COMMUNICATE and SHOWCASE the value delivered to the org.

Ariel Molina, Software Development Director, Carnival – Align your investment ask with business value & results.  Carnival was able to show significant ROI by growing bookings through Carnival.com, but you need to keep finding ways to deliver business value by understanding your business partner needs. For Ariel’s teams it is all about, What’s Next?  Is it improve the Guest Experience through frictionless boarding?  Is it reducing waiting times for guests in lines?  What is most important to your business leads?  For him it is also about ensuring the team has a purpose. It is not about creating great code, it is about engaging each individual in the greater purpose to get the best from  your T players, who bring not only depth, but breadth to the team so they can play multiple roles.

Regina Batista, Agile Coach Principal, Transformation Experts – Fail Fast & leverage Agile Best Practices.   For those PMP’s out there, yes there continues to be a role for you in the Agile world, it may be at the Portfolio level, or perhaps as a Scrum Master.   

Stephen Reid, VP Software Engineering, Ultimate Software – As a Software Company, Ultimate SW sees Agile as a natural fit with Product Owners closely intertwined with Development teams from the outset of their journey in 2006. However, the investment is continuous, as is the evolution of practices, and flexible spaces don’t always mean flexible spaces 🙂 .  By providing a Safe environment that encourages team members to experiment they have realized significant gains in their output, enabling the delivery of new product features, increased employee engagement and even leveled out the teams workloads with their continuous delivery model. By continuing to learn from other industry peers, Stephen’s team has also been able to scale agile across the organization and remains a strong advocate that the investment is worth it. 

Don’t Forget DevOps in Your Agile Journey

Last, but certainly not least, don’t forget DevOps. No point delivering your code faster if you can’t get it deployed into production faster.  Remember to bring your operations and infrastructure teams along on your Agile journey.  Yes folks, that means, the removal of silos!

Post by Christine Zambrano