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[Music]
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hi the world is changing its changing
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really fast
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in fact it's driven to great extent by
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technology and it's driven by concepts
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that help us build technology faster and
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better and to counter that we have
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concepts and technology that help us
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help us cope with technology we've
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already built so what are we supposed to
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do with all this in the world full of
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rapid change things are going on things
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are moving very fast we need to be agile
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that's what I'm gonna talk to you about
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today something called the agile
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business mindset we're gonna talk about
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its effect on culture and for perhaps
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most importantly how we can make it work
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for us so it actually turns out that
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industry surveys show that two-thirds of
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technology projects have failed 2/3 and
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as recently as last year when they redid
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this survey 50% we're still failing now
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imagine that you know when you set out
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to do something that one out of the two
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things you're gonna try to do is doomed
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that's pretty rough but it also makes
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some sort of instinctive sense it's
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intuitive to us to know that if we're
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going to try to do something new to push
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a technical boundary to do something
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that's never been done before
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we have a real risk of failure it's hard
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it's harder than just doing something
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that's already been done so how do you
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handle that well it turns out that you
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try to build the right thing you try to
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do come up with different methods to
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help you do the right build the right
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thing but it turns out that building the
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right thing is also really hard half the
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time or more it turns out that by the
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time you're done building what you set
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out to build what you which a building
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is no longer
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70% of features in software aren't used
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that's like building a 10 room house and
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having the people you voted for saying
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we only needed three and we're never
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gonna set foot in the other seven runs
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that's a bit of an absurd thing to have
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happen but it happens all the time
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that's very challenging to deal with
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turns out that agile has been successful
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those using agile methodologies get
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product to a market 30% faster sounds
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great but what is agile really well Here
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I am with my first agile mentor that's
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Kofi the Lemur at Willowbank who nature
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preserve in Christchurch she's pretty
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pretty nimble pretty quick you know
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youth is all over limbs and a tail
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beautiful balance she is agile so
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agility is the ability to move quickly
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and easily or to think and understand
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quickly now maybe it's because my family
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is from India whenever I think of
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agility I think of monkeys they're
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cheeky they leap from branch to ground
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to another branch you've probably seen
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these great videos of monkeys in trees
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pulling cheetahs tails and then running
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back up the tree that's pretty agile
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that's pretty that that's taking some
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risk right that's your primary predator
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and you're literally pulling the guy's
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tail so monkeys are agile how can
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businesses be more agile well it turns
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out about 30 years ago a group of
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technology developers got together it
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was at what was called the Snowbird
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conference and they had been developing
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ideas independently of each other
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and some of these ideas are working some
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of them were having problems but they
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all shared the common problem that
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things were failing projects weren't
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getting done or even if they were cat in
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getting done by the time they were done
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it turns out nobody cared whoops so they
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came up with what's called the agile
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manifesto and there are four major
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values they chose to value individuals
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and interactions over processes
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and tools a usable product over
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paperwork now how many of you work in
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jobs where you fell out too much
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paperwork and you feel you don't get
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enough done that's challenging so we
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want to we want to value the product
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over to the paperwork they want a value
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collaboration over things like contracts
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the words are used interchangeably in
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some places but they're really very
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different things
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collaboration is about working together
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contract is a very tight type of
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interface and they want it to be
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responsive to change rather than
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obsessed with sticking to a plan one of
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my favorite quotes about how to do that
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comes from patent a good plan executed
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violently today is better than a perfect
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plan next week so it turns out that
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there are different ways to do a j'l but
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the fundamental concepts are adhering to
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those values and then also working to
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chop up work into smaller pieces each of
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which can be delivered and has some
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significant value to whoever you're
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delivering it to so this is a concept of
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eating an elephant a piece at a time it
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turns out we actually are often in in
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projects try to eat the elephant one
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whole leg at a time and then the trunk
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they'll feast it up too big we can't get
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things done it's better than shop it up
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so professor Blais Reich at the
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University at Vancouver and Canada she
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works on quantifying and understanding
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what agile actually does for business
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well it turns out more agile practices
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result in better stakeholder success
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teams doing better a culture of support
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better documentation clarity and what
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work needs to be done and the feedback
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led to budget and time success so it
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turns out maybe there is actual value in
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monkeying around at work even though
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they tell us not to but when you think
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about how agile has affected business
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you clearly there have been benefits
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but what about its effects on our
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culture agile is teaching businesses and
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therefore people who work in businesses
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and who are influenced by businesses to
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chop things up tighter and tighter we
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can do more in in smaller amounts of
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time we can do more in smaller amounts
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of space so is this an actual culture
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change towards people we hope so but is
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our culture and society better for it
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are we becoming more frantic are we
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choosing to give up doing things
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rigorously are we choosing to give up on
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projects and throwing them away too
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early in the name of agility
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corporations when you when they scale
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this up we'll hire and fire a thousand
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people all in a few months span that's
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pretty rough on people is that a benefit
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to our culture in our society and its
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agile confined to technology it turns
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out it's starting to leak like any good
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idea and a lot of bad ones too it's
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leaking out of technology into our
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general culture people are using it in
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their homes
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they're using it to manage a wedding
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they're using it to manage their family
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life and interactions with multiple
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children turns out people are also using
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it as in schools with PTAs the Boy
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Scouts are using it although perhaps the
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Boy Scouts could teach the rest of us
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how to be agile given the way they
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organize their troops in their teams so
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it's not confined just to technology but
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where are we finding the benefits in
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those places how do we make it work for
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us well it's in particular how do we
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make it work in New Zealand we've got
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Captain Kiwi here he's ready to go he's
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agile he's got a shield
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he's got beer on his belt just in case
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it's party time he's got enough he's got
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his boots on he's ready to go and the
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mud and the rain doesn't matter he's
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agile he's taken agility into himself
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he's like he's like some sort of special
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ready to go move you know very agile
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monkey
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so clearly agile applies outside of
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technology but what are we going to do
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with it as normal people as people with
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small businesses as people who have
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children have people who have schools
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well there are things we can do when you
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talk about industry they talk about cost
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budget time
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those are impersonal things that's not
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that's not how you and I in our daily
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lives outside of work can be agile but
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we can do certain things we can respond
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to demand quickly like the agile bakery
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that stopped bringing everybody in at
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2:00 a.m. started baking later and said
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we're gonna start with a basic croissant
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and then build fancy things on top of
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that but we can sell our basic product
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right away or the agile studio that said
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we're gonna build basic videos and then
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if people want more we can add more
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interesting things but we can go
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directly we can teach collaboration to
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youth in California project-based
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learning is becoming much more accepted
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as a new method of teaching children how
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to do work in the future and how to
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learn so what they're doing is actually
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democratizing leadership within students
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and student groups by using Athol
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methodologies what it does is it makes
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sure that the shy quiet children get
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their ideas heard and get a chance to
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demonstrate their knowledge alongside is
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the loud ones we can use it to be more
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efficient small construction companies
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are learning to commoditize portions of
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housing and other buildings that can be
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delivered and plugged in basically
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rather than choosing to build layer by
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layer it's very different way of doing
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things but that agility is allowing them
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to stop when it's the right time and
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stop quickly with less we
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sources expended we can build the right
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thing a lot of time in architectural and
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marketing design people are given a task
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and they go off spend a bunch of money
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do a lot of time and buy and when they
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come back to the customer they've done
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the wrong thing sorry that's not what we
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were interested in why didn't you talk
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to us well it turns out if they had had
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a move with tighter feedback from the
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customer you can build the right thing
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every time and you can use it to reduce
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risk when you're doing things for the
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first time you don't know if you can do
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them sometimes there are fundamental
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roadblocks that you have to deal with by
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doing things in smaller steps and
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checking back repeatedly and hopefully
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each of those steps is actually
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something you can test you can quickly
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expose if there is a block that simply
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can't be overcome and we can be more
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accountable to each other by using agile
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methodologies what you do if you find a
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way in our society to hold each other
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more accountable because you're not
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accountable just to some boss who's
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telling you to do something you're
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accountable to your peers it's a totally
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different way of looking at how we do
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things but as a society it's actually a
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much more community-based way now a
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friend of mine who is in the Marines
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always talks about improvising adapting
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and overcoming so how do we use agility
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in that context well there's nothing
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more agile than the kata then bringing
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together improve improvisation
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adaptation to overcome obstacles so to
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improvise can we chop up our car
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restoration into smaller more manageable
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pieces can we use it to help our
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retirement planning can we use it to
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help in our social lives and then also
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we need to adapt to agile so what that
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means is adopting agile into our own
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lives for example one way I use
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continuous feedback a lot
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is in my marriage my wife makes sure
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that I get a lot of continuous feedback
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but that's number one but you can also
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use it to chop up things into smaller
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blocks you know we don't have to clean
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the whole house at once we can clean
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parts of the house there's a lot of
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different ways to bring it into your
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home and finally we can use it to
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overcome by integrating all these things
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by being more community-based by being
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more democratized in the way we accept
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and use leadership by overcoming our our
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onion agility and becoming agile we can
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actually overcome a lot of obstacles in
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our lives in our endeavors not just in
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business but also in our personal lives
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in the end I come back to thinking about
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my beautiful little agile monkey it's
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quick its nimble it jumps around and but
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it does it with a purpose it's not
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incoherent it's graceful it's smooth
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they have communities that interact with
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each other and the leadership passes as
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necessary so we have to fundamentally
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let out our inner monkey thank you for
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your attention
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[Applause]
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[Music]
