0:00

Hello and welcome to the Product Agility

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Podcast.

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I'm your host Ben Maynard and for the next

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few days we have extra special episodes

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coming to you from Scrum Day London 2024.

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This event is a beacon for agile

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enthusiasts and professionals and I'm

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thrilled to bring you insights and new

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ideas from some of the brightest minds in

0:20

the agile and product community.

0:23

For those of you who are new to the

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podcast, the Product Agility Podcast is

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your go -to resource for practical tips,

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strategies, and stories from world -class

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products and agile thought leaders.

0:33

Our goal is to increase your knowledge and

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motivation to experiment, so together we

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can create ever more successful products.

0:40

Before we dive in, I'd like to thank our

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sponsor for this episode, Sheave.

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Sheave is my company, and we specialize in

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helping organizations simplify, focus, and

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align. through embracing a product mindset and

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using Agile as a means to drive success.

0:54

Whatever your product or Agile challenge,

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learn about how Sheave can help your

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organisation thrive or extend out your own

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Agile journey at www .sheave .co .uk.

1:05

That's S -H -E -E -V. And to get a whopping 15 % off of all of

1:07

our courses, use the code PRODUCTAGILITY24

1:12

at the checkout. Now we have an exciting lineup of speakers

1:13

from Scrum Day London 2024 who will be

1:17

sharing valuable insights and practical

1:17

tips for you to experiment with.

1:21

So grab a pen and paper, perhaps a hot

1:21

drink, and let's dive into a talking tent.

1:26

Scrum Day London 2024, I am here with

1:26

Kwasi Aponza, whose workshop, and I'm

1:32

going to read it out as it was listed on

1:32

the website, Accelerate Your Pathway to

1:36

Agility, Embrace the Five Pillars of

1:36

Business Agility, happened earlier on

1:41

today and... I'm looking forward to learning more about

1:43

it because I think that business agility

1:47

is something which is gaining more

1:47

traction from there is more focused on it.

1:52

It's been bubbling around in the

1:52

background for years now and it's

1:56

interesting to see it kind of making a bit

1:56

of a resurgence.

1:59

So I'm really keen to hear more about your

1:59

workshop and just what these five pillars

2:03

are. Thank you very much for having a podcast

2:04

and could you introduce yourself and your

2:07

talk to our and your workshop to our

2:07

listeners, please.

2:12

Thank you very much. So, who's Kwe Si An Ponsa?

2:16

I am an enterprise agility consultant and

2:16

I've been doing this work for about 16

2:24

years now. I've worked across industry in delivering

2:25

transformational changes for the financial

2:31

sector, organizations as well in the

2:31

public sector, and also in government.

2:37

Currently, I'm working for Jaguar Land

2:37

Rover.

2:40

I'm doing exactly what I've just said,

2:40

agile stroke digital transformation.

2:47

So that's me in a nutshell. Nice.

2:51

So you know Shelby then?

2:53

I know Shelby. I know Shelby, yes.

2:57

Myself and Shelby work in the same department. In fact, I work for Shelby.

3:02

It's a common theme, it turns out,

3:02

whenever people come on the podcast and it

3:06

seems that everyone works for Shelby is

3:06

what I'm learning.

3:09

They show Shelby is a, she's a friend of

3:09

the podcast, friend of mine as well.

3:14

She interviewed me for my own podcast a

3:14

couple of weeks ago.

3:18

Yeah, yeah, which is brilliant. So Shelby's fantastic.

3:21

Anyway, enough about Shelby. Let's talk about you, mate.

3:23

So you work at Jaguar Land Rover, great

3:23

company, doing some really interesting

3:28

things. I know they're saying it's a great kind

3:28

of,

3:31

point in your journey at the moment of how

3:31

things are changing.

3:35

But back to one side, your workshop, the

3:35

five pillars of business agility, so what

3:40

were these pillars? Yeah, thank you very much.

3:44

So firstly, let's demystify the difference

3:44

between agile and agility.

3:51

I think we need to cross that point

3:51

firstly before we move forward.

3:57

often we often relate agile to Scrum ways

3:57

of working.

4:03

And that's, I said it earlier, it's almost

4:03

becoming natural position for people to

4:08

take because Scrum is the most dominant

4:08

methodology out there.

4:14

The other point worth making is that Scrum

4:14

as a methodology can benefit methodology

4:19

or any other agile methodology whether it

4:19

be XP tends to be most relatable at

4:26

team operational level.

4:30

The problem comes along when you want to

4:30

get better insight into what the teams are

4:35

doing one, if you're able to measure the

4:35

outputs that the teams are delivering as a

4:40

second point, and you're able to then, if

4:40

you're trying to also connect those

4:45

outputs to strategy. Once we're embarking on that journey, then

4:47

we're starting to make steps towards

4:53

agility. And so that's the key thing that we need

4:55

to draw our attention to.

4:58

your ability to ensure or operationalize

4:58

agile principles from a strategic level

5:07

right down to the delivery that the teams

5:07

are outputting as solutions to our

5:12

customers. If you're able to achieve that, then

5:12

you're on the road towards agility.

5:18

So with that out of the way, what are the

5:18

five pillars then that enables that to

5:23

happen? What my talk focused on was number one,

5:28

the ability to achieve a customer -centric

5:28

working or operation.

5:35

And this does not just focus on just

5:35

having a product owner representing a

5:39

customer. within the setup of an organization.

5:42

There are practical things that you need

5:42

to really put in place.

5:45

How do you create effective feedback

5:45

loops, for example?

5:49

How do you enable a co -creation working

5:49

environment?

5:55

How do you also apply the principles

5:55

around prioritization and prioritization

6:01

led by empirical data?

6:04

That's the first thing. The second pillar that we looked at in the

6:05

workshop was the ability to

6:10

to deliver value at pace or accelerate the

6:10

pace towards value.

6:17

Now, to do that, what we looked at

6:17

critically was the ability to create an

6:25

environment where you can pivot and make

6:25

adjustments without mercy, if required.

6:33

So what that essentially is saying is, if

6:33

you're failing, don't just keep failing.

6:38

But if you're failing, recognize that

6:38

you're failing very quickly and take those

6:42

critical decisions to change direction if

6:42

need be.

6:47

That's the first thing. So that's very reactive in terms of an

6:48

approach.

6:51

The second thing that we're looking at in

6:51

terms of we're trying to accelerate

6:54

towards value is the ability to be in a

6:54

position where you're proactive.

6:59

So we recognize that in the journey of

6:59

industrialization, if you were to take

7:06

right back to the 18th century, where

7:06

we're looking at mechanization, form of

7:13

industrialization to electrification, to

7:13

automation, to globalization, to where we

7:21

find ourselves now. And I would say that we are at that

7:22

tipping point of digitalization.

7:25

We need to be in a position where we can

7:25

be very,

7:29

plugged in with our customers. But in order to be plugged in with our

7:31

customers, we need to understand what

7:34

value means to our customers and therefore

7:34

be in a position to deliver that value and

7:39

understand whether we're delivering that

7:39

value at pace and be in a position to make

7:44

the adjustments if we need to be. So take for example in the automotive

7:45

industry, we are in a position where we're

7:50

creating automated vehicles, but it's also

7:50

about the customer experience.

7:54

It's not just about having a car, that's

7:54

just a mechanical instrument.

7:59

is also having a car that gives you the

7:59

experience whilst you're driving it.

8:03

And so therefore, we're moving towards a

8:03

position where we're digitalizing the

8:09

experience within the cars, introducing

8:09

concepts around what you can subscribe to

8:15

within the car and so forth, and being in

8:15

a position where you're able to capture

8:19

the experience of the customer who's

8:19

driving that car to ensure that you're

8:22

continuously delivering value back to that

8:22

customer.

8:25

You're only going to be able to do that if

8:25

you're able.

8:28

to these pillars. All of these pillars need to be connected.

8:32

The third aspect of the pillar is to be in

8:32

a position where you're enabling

8:37

simplicity. So we often find ourselves in

8:38

organizations where...

8:44

the leaders come in and say, we want to go

8:44

and do Agile.

8:47

Why? Because it makes us produce quicker.

8:50

We want to deliver value quicker, which is

8:50

fine.

8:53

We want to move and get things done

8:53

quicker.

8:56

We want to be in the position. Often you don't really hear them tell you

8:57

that we want to enable a collaborative

9:02

working culture. It's always about how can we get things

9:03

done quicker, right?

9:06

Which is fine, okay, how do we go do that?

9:09

let's set up a Scrum team over there, or

9:09

let's set up an Agile team over there.

9:12

Well, they say let's set up an Agile team,

9:12

but what they really mean is let's put a

9:15

Scrum team in place, and then let's

9:15

embrace that Scrum team with JIRA.

9:22

And yes, we've ticked the box, and we've

9:22

been able to achieve Agile, right?

9:27

But what we don't do, what we don't take a

9:27

step back to really assess is, are we, is

9:34

the organization, organize to enable one, agile principles,

9:36

two, to enable agility.

9:43

So I always say the first step is look at

9:43

how the organization is structured.

9:48

Are we organizing the way where we can

9:48

truly trace the value that we're

9:52

delivering? Are we organizing in a way where we're

9:53

really enabling cross -functional approach

9:58

to delivering or not? So let's look at the organizational

10:00

structure.

10:02

Let's look at the operating model. How does that enable agile ways of

10:04

working?

10:07

So we need to ensure that we're enabling

10:07

simplistic ways of working by really

10:12

looking at how we're structured as an

10:12

organization.

10:14

So we need to enable simplicity within the

10:14

organization.

10:17

Third point is we need to enable, so we

10:17

need to liberate the people that work

10:27

within the organization by trusting them,

10:27

by creating environments of psychological

10:33

safety. by creating an environment where the

10:34

knowledge workers are really given the

10:38

empowerment to drive forward innovation.

10:42

We don't build those trusts within

10:42

organizations.

10:45

And without doing that, we're not enabling

10:45

agility.

10:49

The fourth point addressed the ability to

10:49

evolve our technology and processes.

10:59

We can apply agile ways of working.

11:03

be it Scrum, be it Camban at team level.

11:06

The reason why Amazon was able to push

11:06

Blockbuster out was because one, they were

11:15

listening to their customers. Two, they were able to deliver what the

11:17

customer want, but they were able to

11:21

deliver in a timely manner and give them

11:21

exactly what they want when they want it

11:25

at a fast pace. You're only able to do that if you've got

11:27

a technology backbone to support it.

11:32

And so we can't look at Agile in isolation

11:32

to the technology that embraces agility.

11:39

We can't look at Agile in isolation of

11:39

DevOps, for example.

11:44

you know, to create an environment where

11:44

we can continuously integrate,

11:48

continuously deploy and release on demand,

11:48

depending on what the data is telling us.

11:54

So evolving around our technology is the

11:54

fourth pillar.

11:58

Sorry, that was the fifth pillar. I've covered them all, fifth actually.

12:01

So yeah, so those are the five.

12:04

Customer centricity, being able to

12:04

accelerate delivery of value, being able

12:10

to enable simplicity in our operation.

12:13

being able to liberate the people that

12:13

work in our workplaces, really get them to

12:19

think and be empowered.

12:22

And lastly, being able to embrace

12:22

technology and evolve around.

12:28

the use of technology in our agility.

12:31

For me, these are the five pillars that

12:31

enable agility.

12:34

If we're able to do that, we move away

12:34

from the concept of just agile.

12:37

It has been said a few times in the

12:37

building today.

12:40

The question has been asked, is agile

12:40

failing?

12:43

My response to that is certainly not.

12:47

Agile cannot afford to fail in this age,

12:47

in this digitalization, as I explained

12:55

earlier. It cannot afford to fail.

12:57

is usually the application of agile.

13:00

that's usually the problem.

13:02

And having a broader understanding of what

13:02

agility really means is what we really

13:08

need to focus on. Leaders need to really, really focus on.

13:12

Organisations in general need to focus on.

13:15

I believe that that was brilliant.

13:18

Thank you very much. I love the liberation of the people.

13:22

I think that's such a lovely way of putting it. I'm kind of done with the word

13:24

empowerment. It's kind of overused, it's become jargon.

13:27

I think about liberation, that's such a...

13:30

Motive term as well. I love it. Thank you so much for taking this time.

13:34

It's been brilliant here about your five

13:34

pillars I'm gonna put your LinkedIn link

13:39

into the show notes if it would do want to

13:39

contact you and ask you questions follow

13:42

up Then they can grab you via LinkedIn. I suppose is okay.

13:44

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Please do I love talking about these

13:46

topics and most importantly for me is it

13:52

goes beyond theory I like being involved

13:52

in implementation of these principles.

13:58

It's absolutely critical. I Awesome, yeah, you've got to keep your

14:00

hand in man, otherwise what's the point?

14:04

Thank you so much for coming along, it's

14:04

been brilliant to get to hear about your

14:07

workshop, even though I couldn't attend

14:07

it, and everyone at home, wherever you

14:11

are, whatever you're doing, going for a

14:11

run, in the queue for passport control,

14:15

which I guess, which I hear is where lots

14:15

of people listen to the podcast.

14:19

It is, it is, need to be there listening

14:19

to you whilst you're waiting for security.

14:23

Thank you very much for listening, thank

14:23

you very much for coming on the show, and

14:26

yes, we'll be back again at some point

14:26

very soon.