Pakistan: Agile and

Knowledge Organisations

Ather Imran
CEO Sybrid (Private) Ltd,
a Lakson Group Company
&
President, OPEN Islamabad
October 22, 2016

Structuring the Talk

What it means to be a Knowledge Worker?

What it means to be a Knowledge Organisation?

Agile & Knowledge Organisations

Human Psychology & Knowledge Organisations

Pakistan: Cultural Dynamics

Pakistan: How Knowledge Organisations work?

Pakistan: How Agile can help?

Knowledge Worker?

Knowledge Worker

The most valuable asset of a 21st century organisation

will be its Knowledge Workers and their Productivity
Peter Drucker

Knowledge Organisation?

An organisation in which people build, transform, use

and manage, knowledge-based products and services to
achieve organisational goals

Key Aspects of KOs

Most Important Asset: Knowledge Workers

Key Asset on Balance Sheet: Intellectual Property

Productivity of Knowledge Workers

Culture and Environment

Systems and Process that support Innovation

Example: Google

Most Important Asset: Knowledge Workers:

Googlers!
Key Asset on Balance Sheet: Intellectual Property:
Patents, Algorithms, Code base, Data

Productivity of Knowledge Workers

Obsessive focus on Hiring & Growing people

Culture and Environment

Obsessive!

Systems and Processes that support Innovation

20% Rule, Data-driven approach

Googles Hiring

4 Criteria:

General Cognitive Ability

Leadership

Googleyness

Role-related Knowledge

Drucker on Knowledge Workers

Agile Values

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

12 Agile Principles

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and

continuous delivery of valuable software.

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile

processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a

couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout

the project.

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the

environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done

12 Agile Principles

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a
development team is face-to-face conversation.

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and

users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing

teams.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes
and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

Knowledge Organisation = Agile

Power Psychology

Defer to Power

Seek Hierarchy

Influenced by Symbols of Authority

Default to be Followers

Local Power Symbols and Norms matter a LOT

Defer to Power

People do things out of submission to power and

authority, and not necessarily because they believe in
them
Case Study: Milgrans Experiments

Pakistan: A Professional cum Cultural View

Pakistan IT Industry: A Snapshot

Relatively small - $800M Exports in FY 2015-16

Majority organisations are small: <$1M revenue and 100

employees

Majority are services organisations or enterprise back

offices

Localised in Tier 1 cities

Entrepreneurial trend catching up

Local Technology Companies working with Foreign

Clients or Parent companies

Respect, Submission and Deference to Power Figures

Air Disasters in Korean Airlines

A Case Study

Majority companies are Services and Projects based, or

Support centres, heavily influenced by Clients & Parent
organisations

Leadership is not our Forte

We are more vulnerable to becoming Followers and MiniDictators

What to do about it?

Agile is not Default Human Nature

Agile is not how we act by default

The Agile values have to be made Explicit and Prominent,
or the Human Nature would take over!

Model: Parent, Child & Adult

Im OK, youre OK
Model of Parent, Child and Adult

Rule # 1

CEOs: Adjust your Mindset

Culture and Systems establish themselves Top-Down

Rule # 2

Treat Agile as a Culture and Value System

not as a Process

Rule # 3

Everyone is a Founder!
Its not a question of Literal Ownership. Its a question of
Attitude.

Rule # 4

Create a Culture of Short Iterations & Empirical Paranoia

Rule # 5

Transparency:
By default, everything can be shared across organisation,
unless you can justify otherwise

Rule # 6

Be Flexible on the Rules!

Rules and Policies should be used to counter exceptions
or trends, not routine behaviours

Rule # 7

Remove Symbols of Power & Authority

Example: Role of Scrum Master
Remove Flashy Titles, exclusive Perks and Show of
Authority

Rule # 8

CEOs: Get Uncomfortable

Give your People more Freedom and Flexibility than you
are comfortable giving!

Rule # 9

Let People Self-Organise

Give your People more Freedom and Flexibility than you
are comfortable giving!
Case Study: Googles Code Health project

Rule # 10

Engage in Deliberate Practice

Questions?