Yusuf Okucu is the corporate profile with the highest commitment to Agile I ever met. Born in Belgium, Yusuf moved to Barcelona five years ago and he is the Talent + Experience Insights Senior Lead in the Spanish branch of Vistaprint.
Vistaprint is one of the most successful stories about Agile implementation within an organisation and they generously share their experience. In fact, it’s very common to see Yusuf as speaker in very relevant events such as the HR Innovation Summit or organizing meet-ups for the Agile community, which grows day by day.
In a time where Agile is in the agenda of most companies, it’s such a pleasure to count on profiles such as Yusuf and organisations as Vistaprint, who help to educate and demystify a methodology which, as its name says, is nimble, practical and with obvious results.
1. Everybody talks about Agile and there’s a wide choice of trainings and implementation programmes … But what’s Agile, indeed?
There is an overuse of Agile as a concept. It should not be treated as a temporary trend. Agile is a way to deliver value to your client in an anticipated, continuous manner. It’s a mindset, that’s all. And it’s supported by a set of methodologies and tools.
2. How did you discover Agile and how did you learn the methodology linked to this way to understand organisations and business?
My first contact with Agile was 10 years ago, in my Lean Six Sigma certification. In my very first Lean Green Belt project, I realized how important it was to deliver proactive, continuous value to the client, with permanent feedback loops. A few years later, I attended workshops with Agile coaches where we were told what’s Agile and what’s not. There I realized, to my surprise, to which extent Lean methodologies go hand in hand with Agile and have a shared common mindset.
Agile mindset is mostly acquired by experiencing it, by living through change. It’s not something you can learn in a course or in one of the many crash certifications available nowadays.
For my self-development, I had to learn Agile by experiencing new methodologies and approaches and unlearning many things I took as granted at that time. For example, I was used to follow the waterfall model to work, but it didn’t mean it was the right way to get things done.
3. According to your experience, which are the main implementation steps and how should the environment be to create an Agile system?
As it happens with most of the changes, it’s about company’s cultural evolution. The first step is to find a sponsor within the C-suit. To achieve this, you need to count on an expert person who helps the exec to envision the benefits an Agile culture might bring to the organisation. Companies facing the challenge of implementing Agile without the full support of the board failed and gave up.
Once your sponsor is in, it’s time to educate. As I said, there are many misunderstandings about what’s Agile. Having an Agile coach onboard to educate and give support during the implementation is crucial. At Vistaprint we do have a team of Agile Coaches and we offer education to all of our co-workers in their professional development curriculum.
Having a deep knowledge of the business teams so that we identify those who are ready to change is an absolute must, since they will be the ones with whom we will start the project.
As per the HR team, we must lead by example and embrace an Agile mindset in our everyday work.
4. Break a cliché about Agile, please!
There is a common belief that Agile can only be used in IT/Software development and it’s not true. Agile is a way to deliver proactive, continuous value to your client, so the methodology can be applied to all disciplines and functions. Day by day, more and more organisations and even HR departments evolve towards an Agile mindset.
5. From a corporate perspective, how do you recognize a good product or programme to implement Agile?
A good Agile product or programme is articulated so that it’s easy to achieve the board’s support. On the other hand, it has to be focused on fostering customer centricity. Nowadays’ organisations are obsessed about understanding clients and working with them.
6. In your organisation’s case, which have been the benefits of implementing Agile?
A very positive one has been reduced lead times by up to 90% for certain value streams, which means significant time savings in delivering value early and often to our customers!
It also fostered more collaboration amongst teams, psychological safety being a priority, with thousands of employees trained on Agile fundamentals.
Today, Agile is applied in all functions of the company. We are happy to tell and share our success story!
Many thanks for sharing your passion for Agile, Yusuf!
