Experience Report by Vaibhav Gandhi:
As a senior coach working in a large financial institution that is on a continuous improvement journey it is key to understand what does “good look like” from an organizational perspective. I tend to have these deep conversations with my coaching partner George Pefanis. One of his suggestions was to come meet Craig Larman. This started my journey towards understanding true enablers for creating a learning organization. During his course Craig emphasized having a common goal. This goal could be aligned at the organizational level, system level and/or product level. Keeping this goal at the forefront I received a tactical skill named system modeling. My interpretation of this skill is a new way of thinking and articulating my deep thoughts. It was a very eye-opening experience. Using system modeling I intend to create a shared understanding of our current reality and factors that will support our optimization goal. In addition, I found Craig’s discussion around “Owning vs Renting” very insightful. Any change you desire within your organization has to be thought and executed by the actual folks in the system; meaning the actual Developers! This also means doing more with LeSS. So it means no outside consulting change groups, no PMO, no Center of Excellence structures.
