By Andrew Park | 2024-09-11
On August 30, I had the pleasure of interviewing Vilasini Neti, a seasoned Product Owner and Director at Freddie Mac with over 20 years of experience in product life cycle management. Vilasini has an impressive background in driving digital solutions across financial, educational, and healthcare industries, and she is a staunch advocate of Agile methodologies. Our conversation delved deep into the real-world application of Agile and Scrum, where she revealed key insights on both the triumphs and hurdles her teams have faced. Through these learnings, her teams have successfully adjusted Agile practices to align with their specific needs, driving better outcomes and business alignment.
1. Cross-Functional Product Teams
One of the standout successes Vilasini highlighted was the implementation of cross-functional product teams, where the product owner comes directly from the business side. This direct involvement from the business side on a daily basis has been instrumental in ensuring that development efforts remain aligned with evolving business requirements, fostering greater synergy between teams.
2. Adjusting Sprint Lengths
Vilasini’s teams have found that customizing sprint lengths based on project demands works far better than adhering strictly to the traditional two-week sprints. By tailoring sprint durations, some teams have seen enhanced flexibility and progress, while others have implemented a Scrum-ban approach to blend the best aspects of Scrum and Kanban.
3. Flexibility with Ceremonies
Rigid Agile ceremonies, such as planning sessions and demos every two weeks, can sometimes feel like unnecessary hurdles when there isn’t much progress to display. Vilasini’s teams have embraced a more flexible approach, adjusting or even skipping these ceremonies when the situation calls for it, enabling the teams to maintain their focus on key tasks without being bogged down by routine.
4. Challenges with Sprint Goals
One of the persistent challenges Vilasini’s teams face is defining meaningful sprint goals, especially for large, complex features that span multiple sprints. Compressing these features into two-week increments often results in goals that feel fragmented, making it hard to deliver clear value in a short timeframe. This is a common challenge many teams encounter when features stretch across sprints, resulting in goals that sometimes feel incomplete.
5. Meeting Overload
Like many organizations, Freddie Mac faces the challenge of balancing productive work time with meeting-heavy schedules. Vilasini noted that while there’s a strong desire to reduce the number of meetings to protect developers’ focused time, cutting back too much can backfire. When key decisions are made without developer input, it can lead to misalignment and rework down the road. Striking the right balance between necessary meetings and preserving developer productivity remains an ongoing challenge.
6. Custom Scaled Agile Framework
To better suit their unique environment, Vilasini’s teams adopted a custom-scaled Agile framework that offers more flexibility. This tailored approach allows teams to make necessary adjustments to Agile practices, enabling them to better meet project-specific needs and team dynamics, while still staying true to Agile principles.
Conclusion
Vilasini’s insights highlight the need for flexibility and adaptation within Agile practices. Her experiences demonstrate that while Agile frameworks provide a solid foundation, it’s essential to tailor them to meet the specific needs of teams and organizations for sustained success.
Since joining G3 Technologies as a startup, I’ve worn two hats simultaneously for 22 years: Engineering Leader and Product Leader. In my upcoming book, Product Oriented Software Engineering, I’ll share key lessons from my career along with insights from many other product and technical leaders I’ve interviewed. If you’re a product or technical leader, I’d love to interview you—feel free to DM me on LinkedIn.
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