Loading...Context
You have probably heard before about Pentalog’s agility process. This program was called “Guépard” and started in July 2014. The transformation will naturally target both the clients’ (production) teams and our internal services. Why “Guépard” (Cheetah)? Because it is the fastest animal on earth with amazing speed. These innate skills are reinforced by their ability to adapt to every situation, confirmed by their existence of 3.5 – 4 million years, long before the appearance of the other large felines.
Vision
The need for agility is a result of the following main factors:
- the increasingly dynamic business environment calls for ideal partners able to adapt their clients’ needs to the new contexts (extremely dynamic markets, volatile opportunities, new technologies);
- in its turn, Pentalog is constantly seeking to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its services (to offer its clients a higher added value as quickly as possible).
We are convinced that there is only one way to achieve this: through education. Yes! “Guépard” is an educational program whose results will be reflected in the following direct evidence:
- motivated employees and clients,
- short production life-cycles powered by frequent and stable deliveries
and indirect evidence:
- closer collaboration – at both contractual and operational level,
- empiricism (visibility, inspection and adaptation),
- colleagues open to change and new challenges,
- flexible teams, and
- continuous improvement embedded in daily life activities.
Strategy
Our strategy consists in educating our colleagues at four levels:
- Trainings;
- Coaching;
- Knowledge sharing + camps organized by Pentalog Institute;
- Alignment of internal processes.
Trainings
We have already designed a plan for almost 1500 training man days (Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Product Ownership, Leadership and Extreme Programming). The first trainings of this program started at the end of August and we have had so far 265 training man days in the Iasi, Bucharest, Orléans and Cluj delivery centers. Given the course participants’ warmth, enthusiasm and involvement, we are more than confident that this program will be a success for both our clients and the Pentalog employees.
Coaching
Our support is two-fold:
- Assimilation of correct values;
- Assimilation of Agile best practices.
As far as the best practice alignment is concerned, the first step is to ensure an accurate visibility level, with the ultimate goal of laying the bases indispensable to collective improvement:
- Visualize the workflow (physical or virtual and physical scrum/kanban board),
- war room, definition of DONE/READY,
- burndown chart,
- cumulative flow
- etc.
The process is slow but highly important, and we will treat it with due care.
Alignment of internal processes
A first step in this regard consists in matching Guépard’s vision with the ISO 9001 standards that Pentalog is already aligned to. This process is yet to start…
What’s next?
- We will continue the ongoing training and coaching process;
- We plan to have a workshop in order to start aligning the Agile process with the ISO certification in the near future.
Keywords: agile, agile thinking, fun, involvement, collaboration, creativity, openness, continuous improvement.
