It was our great pleasure to have invited Mr Steven Koh, the Deputy Director of Government Digital Services (GDS) at Govtech, to update us on the journey that his organisation is currently in, with regards to practicing agile within the various teams.
He gave a quick overview of the various products which GDS has implemented for the past 2 years, for example the Business Grants Portal, the OneService app, the myResponder app, Beeline etc. He also elaborated to us in depth how the teams in GDS collaborated when they were building these applications, and some of the challenges they have faced.
Some of the key points he shared were quite enlightening. He has a strong view on how an individual has to make one’s own deal, if one is to thrive in the technology industry. One can be at the top of the crop today, but relegated to the bottom the next day. One has to continuously strive to prove one’s value everyday.
He also shared, based on his past experiences, how companies with a long history can tend to be narrow minded when it comes to agile or digital transformation. He observed that these old companies are inclined to view technology as a hammer, to nail each and all kinds of problems with it. The truth is, he elaborated, not all problems can be, or needs to be solved using technology. One should understand the problem and the context fully and apply the right solution to it.
Another aspect of experiences he shared, was in the light of product development. He advised that one should choose one’s Product Owner wisely — in the case of his organization, the Product Owners are operational people from the various government agencies.
A good Product Owner, he elaborated, needs to have good business acumen, and a good domain knowledge to be able to prioritize what tasks are important. A Product Owner should not be invoking the “boogeyman” tactic to scare developers into getting things done, and needs to listen to inputs from others, before deciding and forming one’s own opinions on what are the right things to do. The Product Owner should be given the autonomy and power to make decisions since he/she is responsible for the product. The Product Owner needs to be the person who steers the product.
While there are these many expectations from a Product Owner, Steven also highlighted that the product at hand has to be important and high-valued enough, so as to get the Product Owner to be deeply invested in it.
Product Owner needs to figure out what are the right things to do.
The development team needs to figure out how to do the things right.
Our discussion then moved on to the development team’s component in an agile team. In terms of hiring, Steven advised that hiring via the traditional method of putting JDs in job portals is no longer enough to attract talent. The organisation needs to proactively attend events and network with individuals to promote the visibility of the organisation.
He added on that since there is only a finite pool of talents in the local market, instead of adopting agile for all the products — which means dedicating specific human resources for one product, be strategic and choose the products that require greater focus wisely. Also, even though an agile team is laser focused in delivering the end product, he reminded that it is important to have incorporate slack time for the developers, so that they have the bandwidth to think, reflect and innovate in their work.
It was really a wonderful morning session, learning these tips from an agile coach who has been there done that — and is still practicing — agile. Hopefully we are able to invite more thought leaders and practitioners to come and share with us their enlightening ideas and experiences!