 We have with us Priti Desai, who is going to share with us her learnings on agility works only if you are truly agile. Without further ado, over to you Priti. Thank you, Shah for your warm welcome. And thanks to all who have actually, as Shah was saying, who joined us even before the session started. Thank you for taking time out to join the session. I'll start with a very brief introduction of myself. I'm Priti Desai. I have an overall 23 years of experience with a mixed baggage of experience across quality and delivery over the years. I have performed multiple roles. I have been a quality manager, I have been a scrum master, I have been a project manager over a spread of years. And what the topic that I would be covering today is agility works only if you are truly agile. And this is based on the learnings that I, you know, on the practical problems and solutions that I invented as a scrum master for a project. Okay. Feel free to post your questions, even if you have questions during the session, feel free to post those questions. I'll definitely come to those questions later. I have kept a session, I mean, I've kept a place where we can do that. Briefing what we'll be covering is what is a mindset that is required. Okay. Some important aspects in terms of change management and stakeholder management, which are very, very important and imperative to be thought about and actually worked on through the entire lifecycle of a project. Then I'll move on to where the project context where we started from, okay, where I started from, what does they do? Okay. And then how did that help? And in, you know, where we came to, finally, so where did we start? What did we do and where did we come to? So that's my, like, pre-fragmenta. So starting with mindset, what kind of mindset is really required, right? There are two kinds of mindset. There is a growth mindset and there is a fixed mindset. Okay. As they say over here, it's simple enough and it's growth mindset is everything that you need on the slide over here, right? But why is it important to have this growth mindset is basically what I assume, which is why I just covered each of those points. Perseverance is serious. I think personally, my belief is that forward maybe may have been, you know, World War III, where it was not a war with farms, but it was definitely, you know, a war against an illness, right? And the entire world was affected. We probably are still affected to some extent, but otherwise, we have learned that we have to, you know, in the face of some challenge, in the face of, you know, things not working out, we still have to keep trying to do the best of what we can do. Okay. So that is perseverance is really, really important. We need effort to build new skills, right? We are what we are till now because of what we have learned in the time that we have grown a problem. We have come into this world till the time that we are here today, right? Every day, I believe, personally, I believe that every day, we can learn something new. Some small things need not be some great things, but every day is a chance for us to learn something new. Okay. So, but that requires time, effort and patience. So we should be, and we should be invested in ourselves so that we put in that effort to build new skills. Okay. Inspiration is somebody's success. Don't be, you know, there is no reason to be not so happy with somebody's success. You don't need to have contention because somebody else is succeeding. We should look upon that as an opportunity which will help us to, you know, take inspiration and see how we can do better in whatever we are doing. Embrace challenges again. Things are not always going to work out the way that we want them to work, right? I would rather that, you know, every big guy, you know, whatever I do works, works out great, fantastic, but unfortunately that's not life, right? So we are going to have issues. We need to figure out what we can learn, you know, how we can overcome those issues. So we need to embrace those challenges and then overcome them, right? Except criticism. This is the point which probably is not so, you know, it's not something which we really like. You know, somebody criticizing about me or somebody telling me you're not good enough or something. We, I mean, sometimes we might just kind of say, you know, I do not agree with this. But rather than ignoring, okay, because maybe somebody is not trolling, somebody is actually giving a correct suggestion. So it is something which will definitely help you to understand, you know, to get better, right? Something which something is not right. Let us learn from that and get better and what we do, right? So accept criticism, okay? Always have a desire to learn every day. I should be wanting to have some learning out of my day, right? Build abilities is again the same thing, you know. To keep building whatever we know as compared to yesterday versus today, right? Whereas this kind of mindset, which is limiting, right? Where we would avoid challenges, where we, you know, if we are, if we come into some issues, you know, we just leave it. Let me not do it. Wanting to, you know, wanting to ignore feedback, okay, threatened by somebody else's success. This is, this kind of attitude is not really going to help us to, you know, get better on a daily basis. So first and foremost is the right mindset, okay? And this is something we really need to think about and actually work on. Then the other, the elephant in the room, right? Change management, right? If you, anytime you ask somebody that, you know, this is a change that you want to implement or this is something that we want to try, okay? People are always going to ask the question, why? Why do I even need a change? Do I really need a change? Things are working fine, right? Why are you asking me to do something which, when things are working perfectly fine, right? So that is something that people are going to not want, okay? We have to understand that nobody likes change, but change is always going to happen. Change is constant, right? So change is constant, but what we need to, so instead of saying don't change, instead of, or rather embracing change, at least you're out what is the reason, what is the logic, okay? Behind why a change is required, okay? And based on that, you can decide whether you really want, you know, you agree to a particular assessment or not, right? So change management is something which takes time, effort and perseverance and it takes a lot of time, okay? Six months depending upon the kind of change you're actually looking for, it could be anywhere six months to three years. So that is something that we need to be cognizant about, okay? Stakeholder map wise is important, is it important? Yes, because we always need to understand who are the stakeholders that we are interacting with. And the stakeholders, the change, you know, stakeholders, the independence of two factors. The influence of the power that the stakeholders have, okay? And the interest of the stakeholders. So I'll start with a simple example, the customer that we interact with on a daily basis, right? Those are the ones who have a high level of influence and power, okay? And have a high level of interest in them, right? They want to know what is really happening in the project. They want to know if things are working fine. They want to know something is going wrong, right? So we need to manage them closely. How do we manage them closely, keep them in, you know, give them updates, what is happening? Help them understand they never have any questions on what is going to happen, why it is happening. Communicate and tell the next, right? Next we come to the set of people who are high influence and power, okay? But they may not really have a lot of, you know, interest in their daily ongoing sort of project. Who could be your customer's boss, customer's boss's boss, you know? So it could be anybody. They need to understand that hierarchy and then keep them satisfied. So whenever they need information, we need to be ensuring that we provide that information immediately, right? The third is this, they have a very high interest but they do not really have much of influence and power. Probably the quality folks are far out of organization. They notice they are really, really, they want to understand, right? What is happening in the project? The project is working fine, is there a problem, right? So, but they don't really, they cannot really have much of influence. So we keep them informed, we inform them of whatever is happening, okay? This last quadrant of people is what we need to keep looking at. What we need to keep looking at is people with low influence in power and low interest. What we need to do is monitor them to see if ever they get to do any of these other three quadrants, right? So this is, so once we have identified what, which, who comes and what, we know what to do. Which is the reason we need to understand this particular package. I will go on to the case study in the project. This is where I started from, okay? I joined the project as a Scrum Master in Spring 15, okay? This is a retro board of Scrum Master of Spring 15, where it was planned, okay? Now, is it really possible that a team of 25 people don't really want to talk any day? So people, so there was this particular, there is obvious hesitation when somebody view joints, right? So what is this person going to bring in? Is that person going to bring in that change? Is it going to help us more importantly, right? So that is something that people are really, which is why you see, you might see a hesitation in the initial stages. But as you, as the other retro board goes, right? We are, I mean, it's not like there are no issues. There are issues in fact, this project was being executed during phase two of COVID, right? So if you see people were stressed, okay? People were like, you know, we are putting too much pressure on ourselves. So, so people were stressed, even I made mistakes, okay? So retro points, I, I didn't, I mean, I didn't really actually believe in some cases, okay? And so, and even that was, till that point in time, all I had was theory, the knowledge on Scrum, right? That was the first time that I was actually performing the role of Scrum Master. So even I made mistakes and I learned, learned from those mistakes. So then now what we actually did for our people, okay? And before I get into what we actually did, one thing we always need to remember is the values of Scrum, right? Respect, commitment, focus, courage, and openness. That is something we always will need to have at the bottom of our, you know, at the back of the head. This is something that, this is how we always want to be, okay? Be respectful of everybody around us, okay? Be committed to meeting our project goals. Be focused on the work that we need to do, right? Be courageous enough to open up and raise issues when there are issues rather than keeping quiet about it. It doesn't help if we really want to bring in a change. Somebody has to tell what is the change that is required, right? So it needs courage to open up and talk about things. Feel free to do that, okay? Be open, openness is like, be open about, talk about the good things, talk about the bad. Let us have a trust, a trustful and a transparent communication always, right? Because only transparent communications really take the projects, right? Help the team morale, build the team morale. So that is something that we always need to remember. These crumb values are something that we need to abide. The scrum, the agile values are something that we always abide by. Okay, now moving on to what was done. So for the customer, what we started with was, we tried to understand what were the problems that they were facing, okay? Based on the problems, what was from our side, what is it that was going wrong and what is going right? Okay, do a root cousin analysis, okay? And identify what are the solutions and implement them. Again, it is important that we identify the solutions and also implement them completely, right? Not halfway or not midway, right? Sorry, not midway or some part of it. A complete implementation of solutions is what helps. Okay, that's based meetings. Now this is where we understand what the stakeholders, right? So if it is our daily customer who very, very clearly needs to understand what is happening on the project on a daily basis, either we have daily, we have bi-weekly, okay, or tri-weekly. So however it is that we can keep them informed of what is happening, we keep them appraised. So that they also know that things are going right or things are going wrong, okay? And accordingly we can, if we get derailed somewhere, we can kind of come back on track before we go completely off track, okay? So cadence based meetings is something very, very important. And cadence also helps, you know, our human mind or it trains our human mind to say that, oh, I have to go and meet. I know today now I have to go and meet this person at this time. So that cadence really helps, okay? Now when, so what happened in our case was initially there was a VP who was really looking into the project. And he really couldn't put so much time, understand the daily issues, right? So he brought in another person who would actually be working with us to understand what is happening on a daily basis. So initially when she came and she was a little hesitant, okay? And I could feel that hesitation that when we should say something she was like, are you painting her rosy picture or are things really good? So then I had a very open conversation with her and I asked her exactly why, what is your, you know, what is your hesitation? What is the one thing that is stopping you from, you know, because I said, I send her hesitation. I would like to understand how she moves that, okay? And then she actually mentioned that she had actually an experience with an earlier Indian based organization. And, you know, they didn't tell things as they were and then things really kind of crashed in the end. So she was coming with that experience and, you know, she was not too sure on whether she really, you know, this is another Indian company again. So what happened is with that meeting or with that long discussion, it helped her understand that we don't work that way. Apart from that, over the months, you know, whatever interactions we had, she was very, very clear that we will get what it is without, you know, without painting a rosy picture. What it is, it is because we always believe in keeping a trust, a transparent communication. It helps them, it helps us. Trolls, okay? Now, again, which is where I'm saying the previous thing, there's a difference between criticism and trolls. We need to identify if they are trolls, okay? We should not be needing the trolls. That is something that we don't really want. That's not field customer trolls, but when, because at a different stakeholder, the customer side might have different set of people who are associated with the project. And anybody can troll to troll, but if it's a customer who is trolling, we can't just, you know, and because obviously the stakeholders will be, you know, a part of all these stories, they will be aware of all the trolls. So we can't just say, you know, let us just ignore it. All that we need to know is we should not be needing the trolls, but we need to ensure that the relevant stakeholders are informed about the facts, okay? Openly tell them what is the correct thing or whatever is wrong, but be very, very open about whatever is our side of the story, right? So that is something and it should be fact-based, it should not be, you know, it should not be, basically it should be fact-based. Then for our internal industry, we still have cadence-based meetings, okay? Again, I keep repeating this cadence because cadence is something really, really important, where they would tell them, you know, what things are, how are things happening? They would give us a lot of good feedback and, you know, you should be trying this, you should be trying this, because so even, see, they also have their own experience and they will have their own level of knowledge, which we can use for our purpose. It makes it easier for us to, you know, talk about what are the challenges that we have so that if there's somewhere they can help us, you know, we talk about it during the text. So, yes, cadence-based meetings. Now, for the team, very, very important, right? It is the team which is going to work on what needs to be done and it's a team who is going to give or make help with the project outcomes, right? So, initially what we realized is for whatever reason, people are not really able to meet the delivery commitments, okay? And what we basically did is we, you know, we took a hard look at that site and we said, you know, this is not done, right? If we have made a commitment, then there's something we need to understand and meet. I mean, we cannot just not meet those commitments. So, then what we, okay. So, once we took a hard look, we identified things that were going wrong and threw out, okay? It's not just once, twice. It's an ongoing activity that we need to figure out if things are not going right. What can be done, okay? Find the solution and implement those solutions, okay? And that really, people were, because once we, along with that, what I also did is I calculated the reasons. People based on the role that they were performing. So, we had developers, we had testers, we had architects, we had product owners, right? So, based on discussions with each of them, okay? I was able to gauge on what is their thought level thing, okay? And if it was something which really need to be worked on, we did come up and implement corrective and preventive actions, which helped. Because overall, the team morale kept improving through the entire, you know, life of the project. The other thing is in terms of competition, what used to happen is typically there was, as you all know, there's a point when there's too much work and there's some kind of slack period. So, sometimes people used to work on Saturdays on saturdays, okay? So, then what we would say, you know, you clearly work on Saturdays, okay? Just taken off, okay? Monday, Tuesday taken off. And so, you don't need to put in leaves or something, just taken off because you have put in your effort, right? You have given your, you have put in your commitment. So, how do we reward that commitment? I'm sorry. Retros. We definitely love transparent communication. Sometimes people might be a little reluctant in opening up and talking about the problems, okay? So, transparent communications are always good, right? But retros try and make them anonymous, okay? Sometimes I might want to say something which might hurt somebody and hence I don't say it or I say it and then there is a tip in the team. So, instead of getting into those issues, best and make it anonymous, okay? Whoever wants to put in whatever points, we need to put in those points so that the more we know what is going wrong, the more we can correct. Hi, Preeti. Yeah. Just a general time check, Preeti. Yeah. What is the time? Sorry. It's 7.55 pm right now. Oh, okay. So, I'll quickly, it should be, okay. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Quickly cover the other points. Okay. Then we added buffers in the team so that people could, you know, wherever there was too much of work that people could kind of, others would be there to help us. We have more than enough formal meetings, right? Informal meetings. Meeting once in a while with the new hybrid way of working or working through a move. So, we have lost that, you know, that talk that we should do over canteen over coffee, right? So, those meetings are equally important once a month, one hour is more than enough, right? Rocksters, this is what I started for every sprint. Somebody who has done something more above and beyond what is a regular expected work. Okay. They were awarded. And they were awarded rather than this. Rocksters of the sprint used to go to the team and the senior management and which became a motivational factor for the people in the project. Okay. Videos, right? We have more than enough videos available. Use a technology, right? Face to face communication is important. There's a reason. Okay. Lambsley and not easily. Race matrix brings in that accountability. And this is where we came to over six months. I even after saying that, you know, people these put in your points, they have absolutely no points. Okay. This has actually now become an agile maturity, right? A mature agility. Yes. That's all I wanted to cover a question. Sorry. Sorry about that. Any questions? None on the tech window or the Q&A so far, Preeti. So thank you again, everyone. Once again, thank you, Preeti. Thank you all. Thanks for your time.