Improving Agile coaching with

amazing insights from Indian

Mythology

NAME ANAND MURTHY RAJ

EMAIL anandmurthy.raj@gmail.com

PHONE +91 9845707457

LINKEDIN https://in.linkedin.com/in/anand-murthy-raj-0a84a62

Dedication This presentation has been greatly influenced by the

work of Mr. Devdutt Pattanaik in the form of these

three books and his multiple videos in youtube

Who am I ?1. 20+ years of experience , 18+ in IT and 2 years in

manufacturing

2. 6 years of experience in Agile Transformation

3. Work for Blinklane Consulting NV

(http://www.blinklane.com/)

4. Clients worked – Hewlett Packard, Symantec, SKF,

Healtyhways and Philips

5. Currently part of the Global Agile Transformation Program - Coach @

Philips

6. Part of a NGO www.nisvartha.org helping 500 rural talented students to

see and realize their dreams by providing Education Support

What is Mythology?

1. Old Indian scriptures written thousands of years ago

2. Written in the form of stories

3. Communication of ideas through forms, stories and scriptures

4. Ideas that people respected are shared from generations to

generations

5. How you interpret is left to individual– its reflective and not

prescriptive

What is Enterprise Agile transformation

• Systemic behavior Change

• Mindset Change

• Shift � My success to Our success

• Enhanced Trust and Ownership

• Art of Living � Art of Leaving

• Managing by Enabling

• Future-ist � Now-ist

• Feature delivery � Problem solving

• My work, my customer and me are all the same

Who is a true Agile leader?

Rana Bhoomi Ranga Bhoomi

My hunger

matters most

I have outgrown

hungerYour hunger matters

most.

Mindset Addressing models

Leadership/Business

Employees

Organization Transformation

Organization

Employees

Leadership

Agile

Transformation

Process and Tools

Poeple creation - Karya Kartha vs Kartha

Poeple creation - Karya Kartha vs KarthaPeople can grow only when they are

1. Empowered to think of solutions

2. Given autonomy to decide the right things for the customer

3. Given the the Power to think out of the box

4. Given the platform to think and come prepared

Vishnu (Leader) has four hands

1. Eyes are always open – Constant Engagement

2. Conch Shell – Communication

3. Sudarshana Chakra – Understand and control the business

4. Club – To induce discipline

5. Lotus – Rewards and Recognition

Coaching Focus - PeopleTara = Stars= Talent whose

individual personalities does not

impact the organization

Graha = Planets= Talent

whose individual

personalities impact the

organization

Rashi/Nakshatra = Teams or groups or departments where collective performance matters

most than individual performance

Yagman - The leader

Behavior - PeopleGraha Behavior

Ravi Sun, radiant and attract attention everywhere

Soma Moon, emotional and moody

Mangal Mars, aggressive go getter

Budha Mercury, excellent communicator, silver tongued

Guru Jupiter, Bruhaspathi, rational relies on data

Shukra Venus, intuitive, relies on gut feeling

Shani Saturn, Procrastinates and obstructs

Rahu Eclipse causer, secretive, hates being transparent

Kethu Comet, resettles and spreads anxiety

Coaching needs hindsight and foresight

1. Values case study

2. Focuses on the past

3. Learning and Improving

4. Looking past for the future

1. Values creative visualization

2. Focuses on the future

3. Takes risk and moves forward

4. Looking ahead of the future

Force Counter Force

Strategy Tactic

Creativity Process

Ambition Contentment

Hindsight Foresight

Organisation needs to value people separately

1. Collaborative skills and reward in public

2. Differentiate the contribution and recognize in private

3. Build the character, focus on the process and results will follow

4. The reverse order of focus will lead to disaster

5. Always focus on the effort of acquired skills

6. Focus and appreciate .. What?

7. Environment matters a lot to define the behavior of the teams and individuals

Coaching the Leadership in Transformation

1. Coaching the Leadership to punish (take hard decisions)

2. Coaching the Leadership to liberate people

3. Bend the rules to liberate and protect the people

4. Teach, Mentor, Coach and watch

5. Enable leaders to make mistakes and if the mistake is costly, alert them

6. Allow the teams/Leaders to take their decisions (Yagna and Yagman)

Coaching rules for Transformation

ExploitationEmpathy

Dharma – Right

direction

Adharma – Wrong

direction

1. Rules/Policies are made to have harmonious system

2. Rules are valid in a context

3. Rules are valid only of they benefit people and customers

4. Bend the rules to upload the spirit of Agile Principles

Select the right Coach

1. Imposters know to walk the walk and talk the talk but they

simply don’t know what the talk is all about.

2. They know how to dress, how to carry their laptops and

their BlackBerrys, what cars to drive, which clubs to join,

where to be seen and with whom.

3. They use words like ‘value enhancement’ and ‘on the same

page’ and ‘synergy’ and ‘win-win’.

4. In other words, they know the behavior that projects them

as ‘Coaches’, but they have no clue as to what coaching

actually means.

Develop Coaching Competency

1. Be ready to take orthodox forms

2. Expect that the transformation will

pose huge challenges

3. Think out of the box

4. Hypothesis based approach

5. Move from “Design to Test”

mindset to “Learn then design

Mindset”*

6. Take different forms with different

customers

*Ref : The Lean Machine

Evolution of a Coach

Parashurama -Discipline

Rama – Rules and Principles

Krishna – Bend rules Budda –

Detach

Kalki -Destroy

Coaching Challenges

Letter of Dharma

Sp

irit

of

Dh

arm

a

Ravan Duryodhana

RamKrishna

Letter of Transformation,

Sp

irit

of

Tra

nsf

orm

ati

on

,

Pri

nci

ple

s

Letter of DharmaLetter of Transformation,

Practices

Q&A