Giom’s

Agile Dojo Singapore – practice is learnt by practice

giom April 29, 2019 No Comments

My long due project of Agile Dojos in Singapore have started and I’m so thrilled. It’s the first Tuesday of every month and anyone can register on Meetup.com.

I believe that at some level, practice can only be learnt by practice. In this regard I’ve been longing for a meetup where I could exercise with other Agile practitioners and learn by comparing our approaches. In short: an Agile dojo.If you want to review the various sessions and register on meetup, here it is

To ensure the focus will stay on practice, here’s the charter synthetising the spirit

it’s a place and time focussed on practice
we favour transmission of knowledge by practicing together (companionship) instead of being taught
the dojo belongs to attenders. Act like it’s yours, make it interesting, bring ideas, raise your thoughts, convey people to join
not confidential: what is said and seen can be shared outside
diversity of practitioners improves the learning: brings your teammate, your colleague, your client, experts _and_ beginners

Agile Dojo Singapore

Singapore, SG
66 Agile practioners

We believe that Agile practices are better learnt by practice. Ever wonder how others do their Story Map? How many styles there could be to write a user story? To prioritize a…

Next Meetup

Agile Dojo – June

Tuesday, Jun 4, 2019, 7:00 PM
4 Attending

Check out this Meetup Group →

“How to do your transformation right” / 31 May at Voxxed Days ’19

giom April 29, 2019 No Comments

Coaches in Singapore comment among themselves how the transformations in the region are done wrong, leading to a puzzling absence of any success story. To me, it’s frustration and sadness.

Frustration when I compare to everything I’ve learnt over the years about change management. Sadness when I see what some clients are going through while their transformation is dragging for years without much to show for it. Fatigue is felt.

It was time to tame my frustration, turn it to passion, and speak up.

Since I submitted the topic, my brain has been racking up everything I learnt and everything I witnessed on transformations good and bad. While working on the topic I had several aha moments, felt dots connecting, thoughts starting to simplify. I got way more clarity on what exactly is going wrong in the current trend and how to explain the difference with the approches that prove successful.

I’m fired up. See you there.

3 reasons why Agile Transformation are too complex for a Big Plan approach

giom April 13, 2019 No Comments

Have you heard of the Stacey matrix? Stacey has described the relationship between complexity in solving a problem and the different approaches that are effective.

A detailed plan can only address a situation where response to your actions remain predictable. Beyond this level of simplicity, plans don’t work. Solving your problem means “dancing” with it: entering a dynamic, engaged, and highly adaptive approach. That’s exactly the level of complexity of an Agile transformation.

What makes transforming an organisation to Agile so complex? 3 key factor comes to my mind

Your organisation will evolve all along

After your first step, the organisation has already evolved to something new. Mindsets have changed, new habits have formed, structure and processes have been changed. Heck, even people will change. It’s already a new territory, and many other steps are due.

Your organisation will react to the change

Your organisation is a living being. Every single individual, every team, every division, branch has their own context, processes and personalities, each one will respond differently. Some changes will be easy here, while extremely difficult there. Variants will appear.
This can’t be predicted.

Some fundamentals will be rocked: culture, beliefs, habits

You are going through an approach that challenges how people work together, how your organisation is structured, and how you do business. I can’t enumerate how many aspects of a business is touched, and I’m discovering new ones with my clients as we go. And so will you.

So what do you need instead of a plan? You need a vision and a strategy, and a system.

Also, you can call me 🙂

Traditional TV becoming digital heroes in 3 years

giom March 31, 2019 No Comments

Context – national TV under pressure to be on the forefront of digital media while facing bare

Weekly crashes on production, low level of software and devops practices, distrust between IT and media branches
Digital productions under political scrutiny, asked to grow N-fold
Working directly with the CTO of the digital division
Coaching for 3 years with a pair coach, Jean-Claude Grosjean

Approach: Accompanying Digital division as a whole into an organic transformation

1. Change strategy hand in hand with the CTO

Change management addressed early on (establishing urgency, vision, strategy)
Weekly strategic follow up

2. Approaching Teams and stakeholders as one

Addressing media and IT as joint teams
1o1 coaching of organisational roles: sponsors, agile managers, product managers

3. Organic and adaptive Agile transition in the organisation

Going product by product, with consideration of opportunity and strategic consideration
Starting with one pilot project, then
Coaching of every new projects to run inception and delivery the Agile way
Audit of existing projects, on-demand coaching when necessary
Always waiting for buy-in from IT and media branches, then both included in the coaching

4. Stabilization and resilience of Agile practices

Using simplified Agility metrics to review progress and eventual plateaux
Expertise and coaching on-demand with advanced teams to refine and adjust their practices
Training internal coaches
Creating Circles of Practitioners for various roles and topic of interest

Outcome – state of the art tech and practices help reach several national top audience

300 people coached (IT+business)
Several websites and apps becoming Top 3 national audience (FranceTVSport, FranceTVInfo, CultureBox)
Achievement praised by government sponsorship
Teams now sharing their experience at Tech and Agile conferences
Fun fact: a channel asked for an Agile coach in the design phase of a new TV show

How to confront ideas with your team / 21-03 at Nulab Drinking Code meetup

giom March 21, 2019 No Comments

I’ll be in Changi Business Park to talk about something I deeply care about: confronting your opinion with others. 2 reasons it’s close to my heart

Nulab Drinking Code March 2019 - Product Management

it’s a key skill of high performance teams (see books like Radical Candor, Creative Inc, etc) and I love when teams kicks ass
it makes people’s life better at work and in life eventually

For a broader take on the subject, you can refer to my session at Voxxed Days SG’18 “Developer under Influence” that these lovely fellows have recorded (47 minutes though, and very dense)