POST CONFERENCE REPORT

ACP2016, ISLAMABAD PAKISTAN

www.agile.org.pk

October 22, 2016

ACP2016 Report

Contents
1 Event Summary

2 Overview

3 Conference Program
3.1 Agile Transformation versus Adoption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2 Strategies and Recommendations to manage Agile transformation .
3.3 Agile Transformation Success Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4 Agile and Knowledge Organizations in Pakistan . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5 Leadership in Digital World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.6 Succeeding with Agility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 Online Resources

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5 Special Thanks

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6 Contact Information

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ACP2016 Report

Event Summary

Event Name:
Agile Conference Pakistan (ACP2016)

Theme:
Agile Transformation in Pakistan

Date:
October 22, 2016

Organizing Committee
Sohail Iqbal (Chairman Agile PK) www.agile.org.pk
Dr. Imran Ghani (Founding Chair Agile PK) www.agile.org.pk
Najam Alvi (Founding member Agile PK) www.agile.org.pk
Naveed Ramzan (Founding member Agile PK) www.agile.org.pk
Adeel Iqbal (Senior Developer at Zeropoint) https://zeropoint.be
Junaid Ali (Senior Developer at Zeropoint) https://zeropoint.be
Sajid Badi Uz Zaman (Senior Developer at Zeropoint) https://zeropoint.be
Jawad Nisar (Senior Developer at Zeropoint) https://zeropoint.be
Khurram Shahzad (CEO GoldBar Tech) http://www.goldbartech.com
Babar Ali (Engineering Head GSM Nation LLC) http://www.gsmnation.com
Qambar Rizvi (QA Manager BroadPeak Technologies) http://www.broadpeak.com
Jawad Hussain Shah (IT Executive PIA) http://www.piac.com.pk

Event Sponsors:
Platinum Sponsors
S&P Global http://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence
Scrum Alliance https://www.scrumalliance.org/
Smart IS http://www.smart-is.com
Zeropoint.IT Pvt Ltd https://zeropoint.be
Elixir Technologies http://www.elixir.com
PMI Islamabad Chapter http://www.pmiislamabad.org/
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ACP2016 Report

Gold Sponsors
DPL IT http://www.dplit.com/
Hostanic Pvt Ltd http://www.hostanic.com/
Discretelogix http://www.discretelogix.com/
Broadpeak Pvt Ltd http://broadpeak.com/
Marketing Partners
Open Islamabad http://www.openislamabad.org

Event Affiliation:
Tesla Amazing https://teslaamazing.com/

Venue:
Laraib Hall I-8 Markaz Islamabad, Pakistan

Participants:
324 Professionals registered for the event and 244 attended the full day session.

Figure 1: Participants of ACP2016

www.agile.org.pk

ACP2016 Report

Overview

The Agile Conference Pakistan (ACP2016) was held in Islamabad on October 22, 2016. The conference
was an outcome of the efforts of Pakistan Agile Development Society (www.agile.org.pk) working for the
betterment of Pakistan IT industry by promoting Agile development practices, sharing experiences and
collaborating for new ideas for better project delivery by using Agile development approach in Pakistan.
The theme for the conference was Agile Transformation in Pakistan. The Conference program addressed the core issues faced by different organization while transforming themselves into a true Agile organization. The requirements, issues and hurdles faced by organizations while transforming were well addressed
by all the speakers. They also shared their success stories about Agile transformation.
Delegates from different industries showed their interest by participating in the conference in a great
number. As compared to last year (140) conference this year 244 people attended the session.
Participants included the researchers, project managers, developers, testers and students. Representatives
from the major IT companies across Pakistan proved the people interest for learning, sharing and fixing the
problems faced by organizations.
The objective of the conference was well achieved by knowledge sharing through presentations but also
by attracting good number of participants and a networking session during the lunch & tea breaks.
Participants List
Company Name
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Smart IS
AgilePK
Broad Peaks
Paid Individuals
Elixir Technologies
Discretelogix
Zeropoint IT
DPL IT
Business Analytical
Progos
EnterpriseDB
Altair Technologies
Gold Bar Tech
PMI Islamabad
Renegade Furniture
AKSA SDS
XFlow Research
Bentley Systems
Walk In/Individuals

Participants
55
25
21
20
18
17
14
11
10
8
8
6
5
4
4
4
4
4
3
3

Table 1: Participants List

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ACP2016 Report

Profession
Project Management
Product Development
Software Developers
System Analyst
C-Level personnels

Participants
25%
10%
35%
25%
05%

Table 2: Participation by Professions

Experience
Less than 3 Years
3 - 8 Years
8+ Years
Fresh graduates

Participants
30%
45%
25%
05%

Table 3: Participation by Experience

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ACP2016 Report

Conference Program

In total six presentations were delivered by speakers. Variety of topics were covered by speakers, covering
all aspects of the conference theme. The detail of topics is as follow:
Agile Transformation versus Adoption
Strategies and Recommendation to Manage Agile Transformation
Agile Transformation Success Story
Agile and Knowledge Organizations
Leadership in Digital Area
Succeeding with Agility
Key note speaker included:
Syed Ahmad (Ex Chairman PASHA and CEO DPL-IT)
The session was started with opening note by society Chairman Suhail Iqbal. While highlighting the
importance of such events to raise the capabilities of people to perform better, he highlighted that the
Agile movement arrives late in Pakistan and this is the right time to step forward and get hold of it.
He appreciated the Societys efforts to spread awareness about Agile in local professionals and continuous
bringing more people in Agile conference.

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ACP2016 Report

3.1

Agile Transformation versus Adoption

The key note was delivered by Syed Ahmed CEO DPL-IT and ex chairman PASHA. He shared his own
success story while going through the transformation towards Agile few years back at DPL-IT. The first
priority towards Agile transformation is to identify the organization DNA type. This will help to constitute
the training requirements based on a process centric or people centric DNA.
Agile suits well for a people centric organization as people are centric to organization success and process
are there to support the people, to bring the best out of them. Agile moves around the core values of self
organizing, commitment, trust, transparency and truth. Its more about the mind set change instead of
adopting few rituals as being Agile.
He also shared the difficulties faced by DPL-IT while transforming into Agile organization. People were
skeptical about the new ideas in the beginning. Frustration, anger, uncertainty and resistance were major obstacles during the Agile transformation initiative. At this time higher management commitment and
determination was the key to successfully sail through the difficult time. Transparency, training, communication, motivating and inspiring people were the key aspects which help them to do the need full. Their
efforts and commitment start paying back and people started enjoying flat structure and fun environment
and the ultimate result was much better performance by team.

Figure 2: Syed Ahmad discussing about Agile transformation vs adoption

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ACP2016 Report

3.2

Strategies and Recommendations to manage Agile transformation

While addressing the audience Mr. Javad Ahmad COO at Oracular IS LLC discussed about the strategies
and recommendations while organization want to transformed into real Agile organization. Agile should not
be mixed with six sigma. Agile is an ideology rather than methodology and to transformed in to Agile,
one need to go through the process of mindset change and major responsibility lies on the shoulder of
management.
He recommended that projects should be prioritize by business value and the best suited projects for Agile
are innovative in nature. Those should be divided into smaller tangible outputs and assigned to smaller,
empowered cross functional teams. While adopting a framework, we shouldnt ignore the simplicity and
power of SCRUM framework and we should use it effectively.
Failure of agile is not in the development, but adoption and much responsibility of the success lies
on the shoulder of management. The Recommendation for management are to favor collaborative work
environment, provide adequate resources for caching and counseling, allow teams to provide true and honest
progress and it should be measured via burn down charts.
Recommendations for Agile Adaptation:
Get the management buy-in
Create dedicated teams
Estimate projects based on Release Planning
Educate the teams
Hold daily SCRUMS
Manage Functional Requirements as Product Backlog
Clearly defined DONE state
Make use of Burn Down Schedule
Hold Retrospectives
Incorporate the Design Phase within the sprints, together with Architecture and Development
Focus on QA

Figure 3: Javad Ahmed speaking about Strategies and Recommendations to manage Agile transformation

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ACP2016 Report

3.3

Agile Transformation Success Story

Then Afif Zaidi and Mujeeb Zahoor shared the story of Agile transformation at S&P Global Pakistan office.
After a brief introduction about S&P Global as an organization who achieved remarkable results after
implementing Agile into their organization. The successful Agile transformation at their Islamabad office let
them replicate it into 57 Scrum teams across the globe. Self organizing , empowered teams and passing on
the vision were key factors to achieve the results.
S&P Globals success was achieved by incorporating following strategy:
Successful rapid and iterative product releases of high value within established time-lines
Enhanced product quality through continuous feedback
Effective collaboration between business and technology
Flexibility in changing priorities based on user feedback
Establishing clear project time-lines and estimations
Shared sense of ownership and accountability across the organization
Improved motivation through reward and recognition

Figure 4: Agile Transformation a Success story

www.agile.org.pk

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ACP2016 Report

3.4

Agile and Knowledge Organizations in Pakistan

After a luxurious lunch & refreshment break the session started with Ather Imran talk about Agile and
Knowledge Organizations in Pakistan.
By defining a knowledge organization he said that An organization in which people build, transform, use
and manage, knowledge-based products and services to achieve organizational goals. While establishing the
link between Agile principles, he concluded that a knowledge organization is actually an Agile organization.
While discussing some of the hurdles faced by an organization while fully transforming into an Agile
organization he brought in an interesting fact of power Psychology. People tend to be followers by default.
They are more submissive and influenced by symbol of authority. Where as Agile promotes self organizing
teams with ownership and self accountability. The real challenge is to change the mind set of people to be
more open, transparent and self accountable.
Further, he shared 10 rules to be followed while transforming an organization. The transformation
begins by managements commitment and involvement and they have to adjust their mindset. Agile is not
a process rather its a culture and value system. Create a culture of small iterations with ownership attitude
with super transparency throughout the organization. Flexibility in rules to counter exception or trends,
remove symbols of power and authority, give people more freedom and Flexibility than you are comfortable
giving. Give away your control, delegate to the people and establish trust withing team to be successful.

Figure 5: Ather Imran presenting about Agile and Knowledge organization in Pakistan

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ACP2016 Report

3.5

Leadership in Digital World

After have networking session while enjoying a cup of tea the session started by Mohsin Lodhi a well known
corporate trainer. In todays world of fast paced technology driven world, leadership is a key to success.
Technology transformation is taking place at fast pace with a lot of innovation. More demanding changes
are happening which demands to be more Agile. Under such situation we need Agile leadership, a leadership
capable of navigating at fast pace.
While discussing about the process, he explained that the instead of investing into process we should
invest and change our culture which has a direct impact on results. While backing his statement he shared
the results of a famous social experiment done with five monkeys and suggested not to react to the shower
of culture.
At the end he explained the change equation. Big ideas, buy in, skills and tools, risk management couple
with an action are the change ingredients. Create a culture of experimenting, learning and applying.

Figure 6: Mohsin is presenting Leadership in digital world

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ACP2016 Report

3.6

Succeeding with Agility

The last speaker of the conference was Nabeel Ansar. He delivered a speech on Succeeding with Agility. He
started the talk with when and how Agile fails. He emphasized on the conditions in which you apply Agile
to be more responsible for the failure.
While sharing his personal experience of Agile Transformation in few organizations, he recommended to
be a self starter and then ask for others to help. He recommended a use of pilot project where a team should
learn and adopt accordingly. This team later can be split into two or more teams to educate people within
organization.
A proper framework like Scrum will really help to set the things straight. The resistance while applying
Scrum should always be properly dealt by identifying the types. A well managed and properly prioritized
backlog and a proper retrospective session after each sprint is a key to success. Involving people and giving
them full confidence will improve their performance. This will give them a sense of ownership. Aside from
investing into people and making them more involved, investing into engineering practices is also important.
Fast delivery which is one of the core principle of Agile can not be achieved without proper automation,
testing and other build processes.

Figure 7: Nabeel discussing about Succeeding with Agility

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ACP2016 Report

Online Resources

You can find all the resources related to conference at:

Conference day photos ACP2016 Gallery
Speakers presentations ACP2016 Speakers Contents
Blog posts Post 1 and Post 2

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ACP2016 Report

Special Thanks

We (Pakistan Agile Development Society) are thankful to the speakers, organizers, sponsors, participants
and affiliates.
We would like to specially recognize our platinum sponsors for their full support and provision of resources
to make this event successful.
S&P Global http://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence
Scrum Alliance https://www.scrumalliance.org/
Smart IS http://www.smart-is.com
Zeropoint.IT Pvt Ltd https://zeropoint.be
Elixir Technologies http://www.elixir.com
PMI Islamabad Chapter http://www.pmiislamabad.org/

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ACP2016 Report

Contact Information

You can reach the author of this report at Author and Pakistan Agile Development Society at AgilePK
Contact

www.agile.org.pk

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