Publications

Change. This simple word has been used to create communities, build businesses, and promote adoption within a myriad of other actionable objectives. It is as common as the air we breathe and as revolutionary as any invention. Yet in all of its grandeur, it has incessantly stumped many businesses and individuals along the way. Software has taken a front seat in several organizations. It has become the core to any business, and change initiatives have sprouted and evolved to provide better solutions, be they faster, smarter or more affordable. Furthermore, for those organizations that adapt to change well and continue to sustain said changes and evolve over time, the rewards are exponential and in many cases, lasting. As new companies emerge in markets offering innovative solutions that can ultimately disrupt the market, those organization that cannot and or will not adapt and change, and perhaps more importantly, sustain change will lose. As a result, software development teams are adopting agile development techniques to shorten development times, decrease risk, all whilst developing solutions to become more responsive to the needs of the business.

An agile way of working spread to 5,000 practitioners within two years by using an Essence-based Practice Architecture A sustainable path to agility was created - teams could incrementally improve their way of working and growing Practices provided standardization which helped practitioners share and learn best practices

This paper discusses IJI's proven approach to sustainable change, and how under proper guidance from a well-formed Change Initiative, Practice Hubs, Coaching Hubs, and Communities of Practice can help make change "stick".

As with any new initiative people are struggling to see how it fits into the world and how it relates to all the other things going on. For example does it improve or replace their current ways of working. Is it something like lean that supports and furthers the aims of the Agile Movement, or is it something like waterfall planning that is in opposition to an agile approach? The good news is that both Agile and SEMAT promote non-prescriptive value-based philosophies that encourage software development teams to select and use whatever practices best fit their context and, most importantly, continuously inspect, adapt and improve their way of working. In this keynote we will look at how these two initiatives complement one another, providing the perfect foundation for teams that want to master the art of software development.

As Agile Software Development practices become more and more popular both customers and suppliers are looking to find ways to have more agile contracts. Contracts that reflect and exploit the benefits of an agile way-of-working on both sides of the relationship. This hands-on workshop introduces and applies a number of simple but powerful tools to enable customers and suppliers to establish effective contracts that reflect their level of agility without constraining or compromising that of their partners.

We must work as a team! Teamwork is critical! There’s no ‘I’ in team! These mantras are plentiful and many Agilists believe that success at the team level is the foundation to success at the organizational level. But what does it really mean to work as team and is there a common recipe to build and grow a successful agile team? Agile believes in principles before practices and in multi-disciplined, self-organizing teams. All teams need direction and guidance, but with an agile approach no one should be telling the team how to do their job. Teams need to be empowered to make choices rather than be told exactly what to do. But sometimes things can start to unravel and too much time and energy can be wasted arguing about the basics. You can forget about scaling agile if your team is unable to clearly demonstrate the value of agile at the team level. But, get the basics right at the team level and engaged, highly motivated, cross-functional teams of teams can follow.

Achieving Agile at Scale: 700 Engineers on 72 Teams across 3 Continents. IJI empowered teams with knowledge and practical solutions for a sustainable agile transformation.

In August 2017, Skandia began their transformation to a Scaled Agile way of working using SAFe® with the support of Ivar Jacobson International (IJI). Prior to the programme, Skandia's work culture was very much a centralized, plan driven over analytical approach. Since the introduction of the Scaled Agile Framework from IJI, they have changed to a 'let’s get going', experiment, trim and adjust approach that has impacted the entire business in very positive ways.

Now moving into its third year since introducing the Scaled Agile Framework, the dbPalace team at Deutsche Bank is well beyond the roll-out and introduction phase and results have been significant – from a 35% increase in product delivery to a 50% reduction in defect leakage to faster on-boarding of new businesses – the team has achieved significant results winning multiple industry awards. Listen to the interview.

This equipment vendor needed to move from a traditional waterfall approach to an agile way of working. They decided to engage with Ivar Jacobson International (IJI) to assist them with their agile transformation. IJI was chosen because of its expertise in large-scale agile transformation and its thought leadership. SEMAT's Essence and IJI's sustainable change model were central to the equipment provider's agile transformation strategy and success.