Going Agile at Scale: A Mindset Transformation of Global Proportions
How do you successfully transform 700 people working on one product? The answer: Give them ownership. Value people over process. This requires that leaders learn how and when to step back—and when to step up. In the past eight years, the Veritas NetBackup organization had tried three agile transformations: two unsuccessful and one showing promise. The key difference has been the transformation of the leaders, helping teams take ownership rather than focusing only on artifacts and ceremonies. What did the leaders learn—and how? Julie Urban and Jeff Byron describe NetBackup’s transformation story, and discuss concepts and techniques that made the difference. They describe learning to lead a leader, how to ask questions and not give answers, and other tools. Julie and Jeff share what they would do differently and where current challenges lie. Appreciate a culture of empowerment, ownership, and trust, created by people at all levels of the organization.
An agile coach at Veritas, Julie Urban is an experienced leader of high tech software development teams. With more than thirty years in the industry, Julie is knowledgeable in enterprise software development and delivery, agile methodologies, coaching, and collaborative leadership. She is passionate about continual improvement, building productive engaged teams, and taking on new product architectures and functional areas. Julie is committed to diversity with a focus on mentoring and supporting women in technology. She is a co-inventor on five patents.
Jeff Byron has been in the digital space for ten years with Thomson Reuters, Digital River, Target, and Symantec (now Veritas). Jeff took the leap from the eCommerce industry to lead a large-scale mindset and process transformation. His focus is on how to scale across more than fifty Scrum teams working in the same code base while maintaining a lean, empowered environment. His tactics include experimentation with frameworks for self-starting software engineers to connect with the market, each other, and only the stakeholders who add real value—and nobody else.