Take 5 with Ahmed Sidky

17 July

An interview conducted by Shane Hastie, Agile Practice Lead, Software Education.

 

Q.  Welcome Ahmed! We are very pleased that you will soon be in Australia to deliver your 2-day Agile MasterClass ‘Changing the Mindset: Achieving Organisational Agility’. For those of us who are being introduced to you for the first time, are you able to tell us a little about yourself and your background?

Thanks, Shane. I’m really looking forward to being in Australia next month and having the opportunity to train people on something I am very passionate about.

To give you a little bit of background about myself, I am a very multi-cultural person. I grew up going back and forth between the USA and Egypt. My professional career started at a very young age as my father had a software company and a CD manufacturing factory which meant I literally grew up surrounded by technology. I started programming when I was in 6th grade and went on to lead entire development teams and start my first company while I was still in high school.

I studied computer science for my undergrad, Masters and PhD and throughout my undergrad and graduate studies I never stopped actually working – whether programming, managing teams or as an entrepreneur. That was very important for me because I never lost touch with reality and I could differentiate between good textbook ideas and what could actually work in real life. My Doctorate was in Agile transformation and Agility assessment. I was one of the first people, as I know, around the world to earn a PhD in Agile.

 

Q. When did you first come across Agile?

As many would say, I was doing Agile before it was called Agile – it was just common sense. I first came upon the official term “Agile” while finishing my Master's degree. My Masters was actually in Requirements Engineering and I had a roadmap to also do my PhD in the same field. I remember going to my advisor after finishing my masters and telling him that I can’t proceed because what I was learning was just so far from reality – it actually hurt me! I told him I would love to create, invent or just discover a way of working that was aligned with my experience and the way people actually work. I remember him looking at me and saying “Good Luck.” Anyway, at that point, I stumbled upon Agile and immediately fell in love with the mindset.

 

Q. You got your PhD in Agile – what was the topic of your research and can you briefly share what you discovered?

The topic of my research was actually how to help organisations adapt and transform to Agile. I created a model for Agile transformation called SAMI. The key learning from the research was that Agile transformation requires Executive buy-in because you are not simply changing a process, you are changing an entire culture to support a new way of working. Also that you don’t have to “go all Agile” to see the benefits of agility, and that starting with enhancing communication and collaboration within an organisation will reap massive benefits, even if everything else remains the same. There is a lot more from the research, but I’ll leave that for people to discover.

 

Q. What are the realistic outcomes that organisations can expect from Agile adoption?

It all depends on what they think they are adopting. If they see Agile as a development or management process then they are just adopting a new process. We have all tried that before. It’s beneficial but many times not sustainable or just viewed as the “process of the month.” However when organisations and executives view Agile as a different way of thinking about how to work, lead and manage (a mindset), then they are essentially transforming the culture of the organisation. When the organisational and personal habits of people, regarding what they do to get work done, changes and becomes inline with the Agile mindset – then and only then has the organisation achieved sustainable organisational agility and will reap the benefits that I have titled I-FEEL;

  • Day to day Innovation
  • Disciplined Flexibility
  • Organisational Efficiency
  • Product and Service Effectiveness
  • A Culture of Learning

 

Q. What are the most common challenges that organisations will have to confront in order to achieve these outcomes?

I think it is the understanding of what Agile is and why it is critical today. The world has shifted from the era of task work and assembly lines to knowledge work and constant innovation. However, the way we think about work, the terminology we use, our processes and tools are all still very assembly-line, task work, oriented. The problem is that we have figured out how to “game the system” and produce results even though we are still using the assembly line mindset. So the biggest problem is for companies to identify the need for the shift of mindset and culture, not just view Agile as a process that will be more efficient and effective than the previous ones. If they view that the problem is the process that will be all the change. If they view the problem as a mindset problem, that will be what they will change. But honestly, how many organisations and leaders admit that there needs to be a shift in the mindset?

 

Q. It seems that Agile has “crossed the chasm” and is accepted as a valid way of working today across many industries and organisations, however many of them are not achieving the advertised outcomes – do you have any insight into why this might be?

Let me give a short answer for a change … my observation is that most companies are doing Agile not being Agile.

 

Q. What are the most significant challenges that Agile needs to overcome moving forward?

When we associate Agile with software development and I.T, it tends to do something for them [I.T] and not for the rest of the company. CEOs not CIOs should be leading the change to Agile. Actually for me when I see that only the I.T organisation has “become Agile”, it is a sign to me that they haven’t really absorbed the mindset. Part of the mindset shift is to realise that it really requires true collaboration between I.T and the business to produce products that will WOW the customer. If only I.T has the mindset, then how will the rest of the organisation think in a way that is value-driven. That is when we see partial benefits of Agile and again the culture of “assembly line silos” prevails – unfortunately.

 

Q. You were one of the founders of ICAgile – why did you decide to design an Agile certification?

As Agile started to gain popularity, more people wanted training. Whether people agree or not with the idea of certifications, lots of people and organisations want certifications associated with their trainings. At the time, the Scrum Alliance was the only organisation offering certifications. The Scrum certification is based on the Scrum methodology – not on Agile. As you can see from all my responses I am very passionate about Agile and agility, not just Scrum or XP or any of the Agile methods. They are all great and they are just processes and methodologies. As more and more people went through Scrum training, Agile was becoming synonymous with Scrum. People boiled the Agile mindset, values and principles down to the Scrum methodology. I personally believe that trend will kill the whole idea of organisational agility.

So we created ICAgile to help the industry focus on Agile and agility at an organisational level, not any particular Agile methodology. We created a roadmap that highlighted what each discipline, not role, within an organisation needs to be to learn to become Agile. We created learning objectives for Agile project management, not Agile managers.
We created learning objectives for Agile coaching and facilitation, not Agile coaches.  We think project leaders need to learn both – how to coach and facilitate teams, as well as how to manage projects. Then depending on the needs of their teams and projects, they need to be “Agile” enough to apply the right skills.

There is a lot more to talk about with regards to ICAgile but I hope this sheds some light on the motivation behind starting ICAgile and interests people to learn more about it.

 

Q. Thanks Ahmed, we’ll wrap it up now with one final question – What is your vision for ICAgile?

Simply put, to become THE accrediting body for any Agile education and learning worldwide.

Ultimately the idea of ICAgile is to create an accreditation body that provides students with a learning roadmap and protects their learning experience. We want to make sure that students are learning what they need to be truly Agile, not just to do an Agile methodology. We want to make sure that they understand what it takes to become an Agile Expert or even a Master Agilist.

Essentially certifications are a way to give people confidence in the learning and competency of others. Agile certifications should be no different. ICAgile’s mission is to design Agile curricula, accredit courses, and provide certifications that recognise both competency and knowledge acquisition.

 

Ahmed Sidky will be in Sydney 19-20 August, 2013 and Melbourne 22-23 August, 2013 to deliver his 2 day MasterClass; ‘Changing the Agile Mindset: Achieving Organisational Agility’. Please contact us with your interest to attend.

 

Posted by Shane Hastie

Thank you!

Your details have been submitted and we will be in touch.

CHAT
CALL