Agile in India

I recently completely a business trip to India for Serena Software. I visited Chennai and Bangalore. It was an amazing trip and the first opportunity I've had to directly experience the Indian people and their culture.

The purpose of my trip was to visit Serena customers and prospects and to speak with them about Agile development. I had meetings with HCL, Cognizant, and Infosys. These companies graciously hosted me and brought technical and project leaders from their organizations to discuss various aspects and issues with regard to the adoption of agile methods. I was very impressed with where they were. While Agile's initial foothold in India has for the most part been driven by the service company's foreign (mostly US) customer, agile was also being adopted now for its inherent benefits as well. I believe we are about to see an explosive adoption wave in India similar to what we are seeing in the states. Most of what we discussed was "typical" challenges for teams adopting agile. We of course spent a bit of time discussing how to handle globally distributed agile development. The pattern that seems to be most effective, is make sure that the agile team is co-located, and clear communication mechanisms are in place.

I had a few meetings with the press. One interview got picked up by SDA India. 

The open public presentations were a blast. It was overwhelming to see the excitement about agile. Both presentations were oversubscribed and were standing room only. The first was an evening event in Bangalore that was delivered to the Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN). SPIN's mission is "to achieve breakthroughs in quality and productivity" and agile is really resonating in this community. We also did a public seminar. We had capacity for 150. 270+ signed up. And we crammed 170 into ballroom. Pretty amazing.

It will be fascinating to see what will happen with 3 billion more people focused on making agile successful!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Be agile about agile!

The democrats and republicans are doing a fine job of "fire-bombing" the centrists in both their parties (I grabbed that quote from an article "It's not easy being George" in this month’s Vanity Fair). And, as I scan the agile groups and blogosphere, it seems the methodologists are doing it as well. Some of us take the "extreme" in extreme programming too literally, and others are holding on to some of agile developments long disproved stigma for far too long. My approach always has been (and hopefully always will be, unless of course I turn out like my father, which all of us eventually do...) a pragmatic one. There are many things I love about Scrum and agile - driving elaboration and development off the backlog, test-driven development, burndown charts, and much more. And there are a some that I could do without (self-organizing teams, developers and testers are interchangeable, ... I blog on these later). An agile approach needs to be tailored to y...
Read more

When Do You Need Agile Product Portfolio Management?

Image
First, let’s define Agile Product Portfolio Management. Agile Product Portfolio Management is a dynamic approach to managing a company's suite of products. It involves continuously evaluating and prioritizing products based on shifting market demands, customer feedback, and business goals. It integrates principles of Agile methodology - such as flexibility, rapid iteration, and cross-functional collaboration - into portfolio management. The focus is on adapting quickly to changes, making swift decisions based on current data, and ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently to maximize product success and overall business value. It's about maintaining a balance between long-term strategic vision and short-term market realities, ensuring the product portfolio remains relevant and competitive.  Agile Portfolio Management is needed when your business and product line achieve a size, complexity, and maturity where decisions can no longer be locally optimized for individual pro...
Read more