Being a start-up we are discovering new business models and experimenting new client behaviour. Our platform is a B2B insurance digital platform which redefines customer experiences of an Insurance retailer / broker. Having 7 paying customers, now all of us are spending time with client on boarding and removing blockers related to legal, contracts and procurements process. We thought we are smart in having a separate team to focus on new discovery / new ideas so that our creative juices keep flowing in the midst of all the chaos of client on- boarding etc.. but this turned us into dysfunctional discovery - delivery teams, we started becoming silo organisations one focusing on discovery and other focusing on delivery.

This case study is about how we experimented a dual track model to regain our agility in experimentation and discovery.

Large Insurance enterprises find difficult to renew and find new ways to transform their customer experience, improve operational process and find new business models. As an experiment they engaged an insure-tech startup to lead their digital transformation journey.. This case study is about a point of view, approaches, challenges and cultural surprises that we faced during this journey..

The more we share more we learn!!

Total cost of ownership of the Investment Bank IT portfolio is way too high. Business is also keen in getting high responsiveness from IT. There is high desirability from all stakeholders in changing the way IT work. Based on a value stream analysis, key  aspects that impede speed and value are identified. Common and prominent impediments identified are silo, handovers, local optimization, manual and inefficient software engineering.  Principles and practices of DevOps seems to be an excellent fit for this change. This means new capabilities for IT workforce, new operating model, new way of measuring, new way of aligning with other corporate groups like security etc.  This session is a journey in progress of IT transformation using DevOps as core theme.  Where to begin? What to change? How to create capabilities? How to onboard teams into this wave? How to sustain? Where are we now? Where we want to reach? Lessons learnt?

Most of the Enterprise today are in a state where the business need to look beyond the aesthetics of a product or the nuts & bolts of a service…
Where consumer engagement and loyalty count far more than features and benefits alone,  where consumer expect to interact with or even influence suppliers. The new Global Enterprise paradigm is increasingly shifting power into the hands of the end consumers. This empowerment will make consumers more connected, intelligent, more capable of taking good decisions, and certainly more demanding. More connected consumers, automated processes, and sophisticated analytics place unprecedented demands on IT functions.  Only by connecting all the dots between people, ideas, and data can a business drive consumer loyalty, engagement and value.  
In this session I am going to brief on 'Pretotyping ' concept and techniques to learn on building the right 'it'. Recently I did session on same topic at Digital India conclave.

With business agility being the new watchword in senior management circles, many enterprises are looking for ways to adopt this into their technology practices. However, it is imperative for such an initiative to go beyond the mere adoption of agile in a few projects.

To run an effective enterprise there are different  systems and applications in every value streams.  There is no one size fit for all. There could be a broad pattern/ classification  like 'Money making applications' 'Applications which bring efficiencies to their operation' and 'Applications which are critical from a regulation and compliance perspective'.

My session is going to focus on experience and patterns that helped in  achieving Agility in the above categories of applications   with respect to  key 'Movers & Shakers' in the system.  

With business agility the new watchword in senior management circles, more and more enterprises are looking for ways to adopt ‘agile’ into their technology practices. However, such an initiative needs to go beyond the mere adoption of agile in a few projects. To successfully implement enterprise IT agility, organizations need to understand the impact of agile across functions and groups, develop frameworks to sustain agile, empower teams across the board to work in an agile fashion, and invest in the right infrastructure. A strategic roadmap based on these considerations can help organizations infuse agile into their practices, processes and systems, thereby achieving true benefits of agile – faster returns, better quality and quicker time-to-market.

This session  discusses the critical factors for an effective roadmap to implementing enterprise IT agility. It also outlines how these factors contribute to a successful enterprise IT agility strategy.

Technology has blurred the lines between the digital and traditional methods of dealing with a consumer of any Global Enterprises. The Business Process and IT is no more separate, in most of the industry verticals the Business is driven by IT.   Constant Innovation around IT has become the new normal to the Enterprises to meet rapidly changing consumer expectations and behavior dynamics.

More connected consumers, automated processes, and sophisticated analytics place unprecedented demands on IT functions. Many Enterprises are struggling to cope, and they seek to deliver on new demands by adding piecemeal elements to their existing operations. This is easier said than done. Reinventing the IT function at Global Enterprise requires far-reaching changes, from talent to infrastructure, tools, delivery models, partnership model.

This experience report  brings strategy of 2 speed IT, through which Infosys helped its Global top 10 clients to 'renew' its IT related to Digital & Mobility space using Agile as a key lever.

This session gives you experiences, practical on the ground challenges, stakeholder and vendor complexity and approach and journey towards Speed 2 value. Also I am pairing with Alok Uniyal who is senior leader at Infosys and a CIO coach who helped 50 plus clients to transform their IT organization in last 20 years.

A typical CIO of a large IT enterprise handle 4000 Applications of all types like Custom applications, Packaged Application, Legacy products etc..  Most of these applications are build using huge and heterogeneous partner ecosystem.  Most of these applications are to bring efficiency and effectiveness to internal employees in Marketing, Supply chain, Finance and HR.  As natural market dynamics all these business users are in driving a transformation in their business model. This in-turn is creating a big ask for a CIO to be relevant and be responsive.

It is very interesting to note 1/3 of IT budget is not coming to CIO, it is directly going to business... How Agility can help CIOs bring back the confidence of business and be in lime light? Is Agility at Enterprise is possible? How far it is possible? How the typical journey looks like?

This session is going bring point of views of various Enterprise IT transformation assignment which I am part of

Owing to internal and external demands and market place pressure, Services Companies have learned the hard way of executing the projects in agile like way. Irony is that, most of the contracts / Master Service agreements / Statements of work remained traditional ‘legal’ intensified subject matter. This is one of the top most impediment to realize benefits of agile like flexibility, collaboration and win-win strategy etc..

Agile is still a taboo in Marketing, sales, pre-sales, legal and finance functions of service companies. Each of these teams work in independently, and create suboptimal silos. There is a need of a framework which align these support function to enable an agile eco system.

This discussion is to bring perspectives and thought process related to the support / enabling functions of IT services and ponder on creating flow based approach, with each functions working to create a great agile experience to customer

There is nothing ‘Agile’ in the current distributed Agile project management systems, which is focused towards passively capturing and providing information to teams, they are traditionally designed for people who have no choice but to use, which are ‘transaction oriented than ‘relationship oriented’ this is really ‘anti Agile’.

This discussion / talk is inspired by Geoffrey Moore concept of systems of engagement . This discussion / talk is intended to

a)      Provoke thought on how to bring ‘Agile’ values and principle in transitioning from current Agile project management system designed around discrete pieces of information ("records") to systems which are more decentralized, & relationship oriented which embraces social behavior of a team.

b)    Talk also brings out following uniqueness of Systems of engagement and how can we achieve it in distributed Agile context