United Kingdom 
Vedavalli will be presenting the following session
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keyboard_arrow_downVedavalli Kanala / Priyank Gupta - Your role is superfluous: Software delivery with skills-based, self organising teams
Vedavalli KanalaSolution ConsultantSahaj SoftwarePriyank GuptaSolution ConsultantSahaj Softwareschedule 1 year ago
45 Mins
Talk
Intermediate
Traditional software delivery teams are layered with roles like user experience, project management, business analysts, developers, QAs, DevOps, etc. With the translation of business problems at multiple steps, each role induces a fitment drift in the devised solution. As part of this talk, we would like to present our experience from the last 7 years building products for clients delivered by teams with ZERO roles (No PM, BA, QA, DevOps). It presents the argument and evidence of why the notion of needed depth in every skill, every single time is an overkill, and how a small team of people who dabble with code and product thinking both can deliver solutions that are faster and better with minimum fitment drift. We outline the practices and rituals required to establish, operationalise and sustain skill-based teams. We also intend to discuss delivery objectives for software teams and how teams that organise themselves around business objectives deliver better products compared to one's setup with superfluous roles for analysis, testing, and management, etc.
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1. What got you started/interested in modern software development methods?
Total cost of building software was too high with traditional methods and the quality wasn't as satisfying. TDD, CI/CD, fail fast mantra, Agile methodologies that reduce cycle time and focus on eliminating waste caught my attention ever since i joined Thoughtworks back in 2004 and i was hooked onto these practices and methods ever since and there is no looking back.
Fast forward to 2021, i work for Sahaj now and we push the boundaries further in terms of faster time to market, quality of software products we build for our clients across the globe.
2. What do you think is the biggest challenge faced by the software product engineering community today?
Understanding what practices or ways of working would work best for the problem in hand and team attempting to solve it. There is no silver bullet or one size fits all for every software product, the engineering teams try to build. Teams need to understand what fits the bill and adapt and continuously experiment, seek feedback and improve until they discover a recipe that works for the people and organisation behind the product.
Gap between product and engineering teams i think is one of the biggest challenges. Drawing lines between business/product responsibility and engineering teams responsibility often causes poor quality solutions and long cycle times and immature delivery practices.
3. What do you think are the most exciting developments in software product engineering today?
Continuous Delivery, Infrastructure as code, Automation coverage for faster feedback, A/B testing, evolve a product iteratively and ability to evaluate and validate ideas quickly without spending a lot of time of money on an idea, and many more. The list is never ending.
Most recent ones are building software products that are inclusive, responsible and sustainable.
4. Why did you choose the topic(s) you will be speaking about at the conference?
Continuous Delivery, Infrastructure as code, Automation coverage for faster feedback, A/B testing, evolve a product iteratively and ability to evaluate and validate ideas quickly without spending a lot of time of money on an idea, and many more. The list is never ending.
Most recent ones are building software products that are inclusive, responsible and sustainable.
5. What are some of the key takeaways from your session(s) at Agile India?
- Unique way of self-organising teams based on skills
- Best practices that make skill-based teams tick
6. Which sessions are you particularly looking forward to attending at Agile India this year?
Hari Krishnan - Technical Debt Prioritisation - Identifying And Fixing Highest ROI Issues
Pramod Varma - Building for a Billion: Aadhaar and India Stack Experience
Russell Miles - Developing a Culture of Reliability and Resilience through Chaos
7. Any personal remarks/message you want to share with the software community?
Build & deliver software product that makes you proud. Do whatever it takes to get to this goal, there is no one size fits all solution. Figure out what works best for the problem in hand and pick the best technology, practices, ways of working that work best for the team in place, don't go by books or because popular said so or wrote a book about it.
Fail fast is my mantra as always.
