Case Study: An Engineering-Focused, Scaled Agile Rollout at Standard & Poor's
A large company moves to agile, but when the going gets tough, they abandon all their agile processes and revert to old ways—which are now a combination of Scrum and waterfall—and delivery is worse than before they started. Usually, what happens next is the CTO gets removed, and the new CTO comes in and proclaims again that we are all moving to agile to re-energize the organization, and they start their transformation once more. Have you seen this movie before? The agile transformation for Standard & Poor's played out this way twice, but finally, the third time was the charm—their last transformation was successful. But why was this time different, what makes them think it will stick, and how do they know as they continue to grow that they won’t revert to old ways again? Join the CTO of S&P's Platts division, Stan Guzik, and their agile transformation lead, Mary Thorn, as they discuss their engineering-led agile transformation and why they are set up for future growth.
Stan Guzik is a global technology executive at S&P Global. He is seasoned at establishing transformational technology strategy and vision to software development, infrastructure, DevOps and leading global teams of more than nine hundred while maintaining hands-on software engineering skills. He pairs executive management with deep software engineering skills to quickly cut through project noise and rapidly produce results where others have struggled. He has extensive experience building SaaS-based businesses that experience healthy growth and is known for results, strong execution, and leading change.
During her more than twenty years of experience with financial, health care, and SaaS-based products, Mary Thorn has held VP, director, and manager-level positions in various software development organizations. A seasoned leader and coach in agile and testing methodologies, Mary has direct experience building and leading teams through large-scale agile transformations. Mary’s expertise is a combination of agile scaling, agile testing, and DevOps that her clients find incredibly valuable. She is also chief storyteller of the book The Three Pillars of Agile Testing and Quality and an avid keynote and conference speaker on all things agile and agile testing.