“Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and the support they need, and trust them to get the job done” Pardeep Dhanda
Interviewer: Khouloud Béheiry
Brief Biography about the Interviewee:
Pardeep (aka Paddy) Dhanda comes from the city of the popular TV programme, The Peaky Blinders, Birmingham (England). He has been a practitioner in Business Analysis and Agile for almost 20 years working for large blue-chip organisations and regularly presents at conferences around the world. He is the former Head of Agile Learning for Deutsche Bank, where he was responsible for rolling out Agile education to over 100k agilists. He currently heads up the Agile Practices for the largest technology learning provider in the UK at QA Ltd.
Away from the office, Pardeep is passionate about innovation education and is the creator of Jungle Scrum (a fun and interactive innovation workshop for children and students), and has launched his personal blog paddydhanda.com and podcast. He also tells really bad jokes according to his two young children.
1- HR Revolution Middle East: Since “agility” is a new trend that still some professionals do not completely understand, can you please elaborate more on the idea of being Agile? What does it mean? And how does it have an impact on the business effectiveness?
Simply put, being Agile is the ability to respond to change quickly. In the current age of digital chaos, it is more important than ever for organisations to be nimble and be able to switch direction. The Agile movement was started in 2001 in software development. The early adopters sought competitive advantage, but now it is no longer a nice to have. In environments where there is a large amount of uncertainty and the right solutions are unknown, then it is imperative that everyone must embrace an Agile mindset in order to survive.
2- HR Revolution Middle East: You have been working in business analysis since the early 2000s. How did it help you in agile learning? And what introduced you to agile learning?
I stumbled into the Head of Agile Learning role by chance, as it was never a role I had worked towards as a goal. My former boss, Gabby Patrick, was starting a new team to setup an Agile Centre of Excellence. I had been inspired by Gabby as a leader and was desperate to be part of her team. The rest, as they say, is history.
Being offered the Head of Agile Learning role for a large global bank was exciting yet scary. Although I had been a practitioner and subject matter expert in Agile for many years, I felt completely out of my comfort zone and knew very few people that had rolled out Agile education at such a large scale. Thankfully, my natural instincts as a Business Analyst kicked in and enabled me to take a structured approach backed by empirical research. One example that comes to mind was when we first launched the Agile University, offering courses to our employees. Gabby had given a hard deadline to launch within 3 weeks. It would take us 3 weeks to build a single course, never mind building an entire Agile curriculum. Instead, I decided to launch 2 core courses and invited learners to register their interest for all of the others. This enabled us to analyse the demand, so that we could make informed decisions about which courses to actually build, and de-prioritise the others. Three years later, and there were some courses that we had never actually built since the demands had been low, thus ensuring we didn’t waste effort on low value products.
3- HR Revolution Middle East: After experiencing different business field, what is the most valuable thing that made you specialize in ‘Agile Frameworks’?
The biggest aspect that has always attracted me to Agile ways of working is the relentless focus on people and human relationships. Many of the Agile values and principles specifically call out these aspects, but the one that always stands out for me is principle 5; Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and the support they need, and trust them to get the job done. The 13th State of Agile report found that team morale was one of the top 5 benefits of adopting Agile. Being able to help teams build better relationships and help make their work more fulfilling is an extremely rewarding position to be in – that’s why I love my work.
4- HR Revolution Middle East: Over 18 years of experiences in business analysis and agile coaching, can you simplify the most important keys and skills needed in order to achieve the maximum agility, regardless of the industry or the type of work?
To achieve maximum agility requires organisations to make changes at many levels. For example, there are the skills needed by the teams, the tools that will help the teams, the leadership styles, the organisational culture, etc. Even when all of these elements are right and we are able to be more Agile, we are never done. We must strive to embrace a culture of continuous improvement. The most important aspect to develop is our mind-set, to change our way of thinking. Rather than being afraid of uncertainty and trying to research every possible detail before acting, follow the scientific method, an approach that has been adopted for many centuries. Formulate hypothesis and create small experiments to validate our assumptions. Taking this approach within a corporation takes courage, but it allows us to quickly learn and make better more informed decisions for future initiatives.
5- HR Revolution Middle East: How can agility be applied in a non-technological work?
Effective Agile thinking can absolutely be applied within non-technological environments, some interesting examples include fighter jets, education, law, etc. However, not all of the Agile practices within a framework may be applicable to all types of environment. Therefore, bringing an experienced Agile coach to help is often a good idea for teams that are new to Agile. One tip I would recommend is to start with visual techniques such as Kanban to help teams embrace transparency and focus on fewer work items – this helps us build less more quickly, so that we realize value at speed.
6- HR Revolution Middle East: Can you describe the challenges you face while applying agility? How did your employees see it at first, considering their cultural diversity?
A common pattern I see is teams pushing to implement agile ways of working because they see the value it can bring to their work, but the leadership are disengaged. Teams in this position find themselves in a false sense of security. Whilst they are able to make progress, this can be short lived if they have dependencies on other teams or require senior leadership to help unblock issues. Another interesting observation I often have is where new teams decide to skip certain practices since they believe Agile means flexibility. However, frameworks such as Scrum require an immense amount of discipline. Skipping the Daily Scrum can destroy the very essence of agility. It is an opportunity for the team to synchronize and support one another. As teams become more and more experienced, then it’s absolutely fine to adapt the processes to suit your needs.
7- HR Revolution Middle East: You mention in your BIO that you have recently launched your very own podcast. Can you tell us more about that?
I have a passion for learning and engaging with interesting people so I woke up one morning and thought I’d create a podcast. I had some fun with the name and called it the Peaky Agilist podcast since I don’t take myself too seriously and it’s based on the name of a well known TV series that’s set in my home city. The podcast is about all things Agile and so far I’ve had two phenomenal guests including David Marquet (the well-known author of Turn the Ship Around and more recently Leadership is Language) and Ninder Johal (serial entrepreneur who launched a Punjabi track into the mainstream music charts and hit number 1 in 9 countries). I’m looking forward to many more episodes!
8- HR Revolution Middle East: Going back in time, what piece of advice you had wished to be given to you when you were younger?
I wish I hadn’t suppressed my culture in the workplace or within the corporate world that I worked. Being born as a second generation Indian in the UK, many Indian parents would talk about the importance of trying to fit into the British culture. A few years ago, something remarkable happened. I was delivering a workshop in Romania and had been told Romanian people love Indian music and dancing. So I decided to energize the audience with a Punjabi Bhangra track by getting everyone to dance along. It was at that moment that I realized being different is more impactful than trying to be the same as everyone else. Now whenever I present at conferences or conduct public speaking events, I make an extra effort to share something personal and cultural to be able to connect with the audience. So my message to all of your readers is to be proud of whichever background or culture you are from and share it with the world so we can all learn about one another and build meaningful connections.
THANK YOU