MVP

Moving to Singapore – Agile in Practice

It’s been a year I’ve moved to Singapore. Almost 9 months since my last post. Think of it as a release, after many iterations in the making. My first MVP was September 2015 when I tried out 1 month of living in Singapore. The next iteration was November 2015 where I actually stayed for 6 weeks, found a job and started working on a project. And I moved out of Paris and 10 years of my life in an apartment in all but 10 days. And it’s almost 10 months since I made that decision. My life adopting changes in numbers.

Singapore was where I was born and bred, I had studied and worked here all my life before moving to Paris 10 years ago. But Paris was home to me. To move out in 10 days a life I made for 10 years took all the agility in me. I developed a kanban flow of work, mapped out my life in various epics and sliced my first release. Everything else waited till February 2016 when I returned for another 10 days for another slice in release. Let’s take my move as an examination into agile application since I’ve always said, “you can apply agile to anything.” – Probably the most dogmatic thing you’ll hear me say.

Proof of concept – Working Freelance in Asia

To move to Singapore, I needed to proof that the concept works. (Notice I didn’t use the word ‘back’. It’s hard to say there is a notion of moving back since I never really felt at home in Singapore. And it’s just easier to consider it a brand new country move.) As an independent in Europe, I wanted to see if the concept of freelance works in Asia. There was a lot of time spent in front of Linkedin. A lot of skype and email conversations with people operating in Asia in the agile space. And I lined up as many conversations I can get for my September visit. I also wanted to see the appetite of Agile HR in Asia where it has taken me 2 years to build in Europe and only just seeing the beginning of a form of recognition and adoption. In addition, I had lined up a potential business opportunity to practice Agile HR as an independent in Singapore. It couldn’t be more encouraging.

Sept 2015 – My visit has proved wrong a few assumptions. Since I was going back for my sister’s wedding anyway, it was really fail fast and very safe. I had found that independents are still in the budding stage of being recognised in the Singaporean work society. Coupled with a new adoption to agility, being an independent in this area of work meant that work is limited and largely in training areas. In addition, procurement practices in large organisations where there were signs of agile adoption have not evolved to retain independent contractors. Work contracts are still signed through preferred supplier agreements and large supplier qualification exercises. Singapore is also a very expensive city to live in. That meant that without initial work, the upstart cost will meant large investments upfront. My business opportunity also stalled due to budgeting discussions and interventions from HR.

Round 2 – MVP – Minimal commitment move to Singapore

The minimal viable product / solution-more-like-it was designed to be a small test to the market. I was accepted to speak at 2 conferences in November 2015, Agile Tour Vietnam and Agile Tour Singapore. Since they were at the beginning and end of month, I had another 4 more weeks to see if my move to Singapore could be finalised. Both tours gave me good understanding of the agile community in the region and where the standards and appetite was. I was also confirming an offer in the mean time.

Nov 2015 – Minimal commitment / maximum output. In November, somewhere between my travels, I confirmed my work engagement. There was no contract but I had an offer that I could work with. And I found a place that I could rent into. I was travelling with a cabin luggage for 4 weeks of travel and speaking engagements and ended up staying for 6 weeks. I had started and completed a 6 week projects and signed on for a job while I still have everything in Paris to sort out. In 6 weeks, I sorted out all the essentials to give me the move I need.

2nd Iteration – Release 1.0 – 10 days to release

I returned to Paris knowing that I had to go back to my new job in 2 weeks. Excluding weekends and jet lag, I had exactly 10 days to sort out my move including French administration. (If you know about French administration, you will give me a 2nd oscars for lifetime achievement award in doing all these in 10 days. The first was to set up a company in France). It requires extreme estimation and every feature valued to give maximum benefit while the rest would just not cut it.

Dec 2015 – I story mapped my life in Paris and found a slice for release. All others will have to be abandoned or left to next release in Feb 2016. The 2 biggest themes were french administration and my apartment. My apartment were divided in different parts of living epics. Each epic had essentials that I had to take in and others nice to have that I had to abandoned. But I had allowed a few “wow” features that would give my life a sparkle to get over all the nice to have that I had to leave behind. Since French administration has large dependencies and hard to estimate in effort, I had to draw up my risk charts and focused on the riskiest ones to mitigate risks and manage them through a kanban board. The flow method worked better ensure that daily planning and prioritisation can helped when new information comes up. I’ve also added a new column for “pending comments” where there is no limitation on WIP since I can pile as many there as I want pending feedback from all external parties. Some items moved up in level of importance and some had to move down (very painfully but necessarily). I sacrificed a few wows but kept at least 1 box of wows to last me through the new move. I had 3 checked-in luggage, 2 cabin luggage and 2 boxes I can post. Everything else that didn’t fit won’t qualify. On Christmas day, I left Paris and 10 years of my life in 10 days. There were still many things left in the “pending comments” column but largely, my release was secured. Among the “wow”s were 2 boxes of fois gras, 1 bag of champagne truffles, a slice of truffled brie and lots of champagne and whiskey on business class. The most riskiest french administration items were tackled or mitigated with the rest in wait of release 2.

Managing an agile backlog with a waterfall French administration backend was my waterscrumfall release.

Release 2 – Closing my company in France

Feb 2016 – 2.5 months after moving to Singapore, I flew back to Paris to close my company. Release 2 afforded me with some additional wows and must haves. Depending on your point of view, French fashion was on my must have list. My reason, can’t get it here or at the price I can procure. But release 2 was largely for french administration of things. All the items that had large dependencies that I had put in motion had paid off.

Waterscrumfall – yes, we all hate it. It brings goosebumps everything I hear of it. But on hindsight, I had learnt much with my waterscrumfall release 1.0. Release 2.0 was integration with backend some of the front end user stories for a more complete release. I had exhausted cosmetic releases and all “integratable” items. It’s not ideal but it’s how I learn about agile transformation in less ideal places.

• RAID – Risks, Assumptions, Impediments and Dependencies is a very important step and essential in prioritisation.
• Dependencies are dealt with up front and allowed it’s time to complete and to avoid a lot of grief in the future.
• Slicing of user stories include prudent pruning of features with dependencies.
• Don’t focus on just must haves, a “wow” item can be much more valuable than a few “must have”s, it’s all a matter of perspective.

On that last point, think about the new iPhone 7, it has removed a “must have” of the last 10 years, before even smart phones came to the market. The phone jack is gone and the wireless ear phones is finally wireless.

And so is life with its many surprises. I also had to let go of a few assumptions for my move. The most painful was missing 4 seasons and its colours, the most compelling was Asia’s thirst for new expertise and a very very fertile ground in agile transformation. And so, I had left the city of lights for another. From a hunter of work to be a farmer of new approaches. And many aspirations. So release 3 will be brand new, in the making.