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In this week\u2019s episode of Agile Coaches\u2019 Corner, Dan Neumann is joined by two of his colleagues at AgileThought \u2014 the Vice President of Build Practice, Taylor Howard; and the Vice President of Transform Practice, Steven Granese.

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Taylor\u2019s work with Build Practice involves supporting the absolute best practitioners in the business \u2014 including Data Scientists, Architects, Delivery Leaders, Engineers, and Analysts with multiple technical competencies and domain experience. Taylor and his team translate business strategy into a technical roadmap, delivering cloud-first and hybrid solutions at a global scale. Steven\u2019s work with Transform Practice is focused on organizational consulting. They help their clients figure out the right way to work, the right product to build, how to implement Agile ways of working, and DevOps (i.e., how to get that software that the teams have created to the production environment and make sure it\u2019s stable, scalable, and secure).

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Today, Taylor and Steven will be discussing the challenges with large-scale software delivery and how to overcome them. With scaling comes a whole different set of challenges so Taylor and Steven not only outline many of the challenges their clients are facing today but some of the challenges they\u2019re facing internally, at AgileThought, as they scale themselves.

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Key Takeaways

• Challenges with scaling:
  • Understanding what the business outcomes are that the client is looking for
• • Aligning the stakeholders to make sure that they truly understand each other\u2019s vision and are speaking the same language
  • Making sure that the teams are coordinated (i.e. everyone is headed towards the same goal and they\u2019re being measured in the same way)
  • The danger of issues getting buried
  • The ways teams interact (or don\u2019t interact) with each other
  • Getting connected to your customer
  • Making sure there\u2019s alignment with the objective that\u2019s to be achieved
• How to address these challenges:
• • Implement Agile ways of working
  • Look at areas that need improvement and have active feedback cycles
  • Use data to support all the teams (to either replicate the good or improve the not-so-good), bringing them to the same level with more predictable outcomes
  • Be transparent, inspect, and adapt
  • Embrace a culture of curiosity and ask questions about the data
  • Blame the system; not the person
  • Leaders need to make sure the system is healthy so the teams have what they need and can be freed up to do what they do best \u2014 build software
  • More time needs to be spent communicating the dependencies
  • Lots of feedback loops and channels for communication
  • Be pragmatic in delivery
  • Align to the larger vision
  • Moving from an \u201cus/them\u201d mentality to a \u201cwe\u201d mentality (amongst the teams)
• Mentioned in this Episode:
  • Taylor Howard (LinkedIn)
  • Steven Granese (LinkedIn)
  • Agile Manifesto
  • Podcast Ep. 12: \u201cThe Importance of Embedding a DevOps Skill Set into Your Team\u201d
  • Podcast Ep. 02: \u201cWhat is a Full-Cycle Developer?\u201d
• Taylor and Steven\u2019s Book Picks
  • The Age of Agile: How Smart Companies Are Transforming the Way Work Gets Done,
  • by Stephen Denning
  • Scrum Mastery: From Good To Great Servant-Leadership, by Geoff Watts
• Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?
  • Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!
  • Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!