Tathagat Varma, PMP, PRINCE2, CSM, Sr. Member IEEE Head Strategic PMO and Business Operations

Yahoo! R&D India, Bangalore, India

Context Our needs Our approach Results so far The road ahead…

Largest R&D setup for Yahoo! outside Sunnyvale

Established expertize in ◦ End-to-end Product Development, ◦ Research, ◦ Customer-centric Innovation, and ◦ Service Engineering

10/10/2011 Yahoo! Presentation, Confidential 4

Low

Impa

ct d

eliv

ered

High

Strategic Impact

Cost Impact

Business Impact

Year : 2002 – 2005 HC Growth : 0 to 600 Objective : Cost, Training, Learn products and technologies Modus Operandi: Shared projects, staffing augmentation

Year : 2005 - 2008 HC Growth : 600 to 1400 Objective : Efficiency, Engineering Capability, Modus Operandi: Projects ownership, Delivery Leadership, Sustenance, QA

Year : 2008 onward HC Growth : 1400 to 2000+ Objective : World-class Product & Services Hub Modus Operandi: Products Ownership, Innovation, New Product Development, OPD

Create higher value for Yahoo! ◦ Delivery is “necessary, but not sufficient”

Align goals and results to organization ◦ “Brick-layer vs. Cathedral-builder”

Holistic and scalable improvement ◦ “Optimize whole vs. parts”

Create a winning culture ◦ “Sustain through process where required and

cultural transformation where needed”

Just 2% lean programs deliver anticipated results! (and even lesser are sustained!)

6% organizational culture change and transformation projects reported ‘complete success’, and 33% reported ‘somewhat successful’

30% Success rate of Change Management Initiatives

40% of 6σ initiatives yield the desire results

Lack of strategic intent ◦ misalignment with corporate goals and direction

Poor systems thinking ◦ ignoring people and culture issues over process efficiency

goals, optimizing parts but ignoring the whole Weak execution ◦ execution challenges in a matrix organization, prioritizing

horizontal strategic programs vs. vertical delivery goals Inconsistent measurement systems ◦ failing to track the real progress on a periodic basis through a

combination of hard data and insights

Self-improvement is for “self” Define “excellence” to meet our needs Align with top-down and sideways goals Create ‘interlock’ between components Execute as a center-wide horizontal effort Balanced Scorecard for holistic measurement Quarterly rollup and review of results

Consistently delivering world-class performance by applying systems thinking approach to achieve ◦ a winning culture that promotes continuous learning,

personal growth and inter-group collaboration, and makes us “Proud to be a Yahoo!” ◦ an execution system that supports operating as one product

team to achieve agility, faster innovation, meaningful risk-taking and consistent delivery of world-class products with “wow” user experience ◦ an operational model that makes best usage of company

resources to provide a wow experience to employees and leaders

Excellence

Culture

Execution Innovation

Operations

Culture: refers to the sum total of people we hire, how they excel, values we live by, teamwork and how do we create a culture of excellence

Execution: reflects systems thinking in how we operate to achieve world-class excellence in whatever we do or deliver, whether internal or external

Innovation: relates to how we challenge status quo and ‘predictability’ and apply customer-centric thinking to build tomorrow’s winning products

Operations: create a great workplace as a theatre for world-place performance!

Two quarters of results (third due in Oct) Q1: objective assessment of where are we Q2: what is sustaining/smelling Q3: make the call on start/stop/sustain

Spawn new horizontals to focus on critical areas Adjust goals where the bar is currently set low Evaluate consistent low result areas Study causal/collateral correlation with other

engagement metrics

Leadership plays key role in setting the agenda However, program team must work through issues Agency theory is always at work! Strategic PMO must build credibility through periodic

multi-level communication and sharing status and results

When there is no top-down mandate, establishing beachhead and sharing stories works better

Interlock is required to ensure there are no disjointed efforts that don’t support or reinforce each other

Multiple reporting lines, conflicting priorities, competing projects and moving parts in a large matrixed organization – frequent realignment is a must

Achieving scalability and sustainability are significant challenges in a large company setup

Program team needs to be funded full-time Tools is a subsidiary issue!

It’s still about people and culture: even the best of systems can only be effective to the extent that they recognize the local work culture and people attitudes. A long-term excellence program must be based on realistic assessment of individual motivations and team capabilities.

Creating an ‘interlock’ is most critical for systems thinking: isolated and uncoordinated business excellence approaches might only sub-optimize a local problem and will generally only move the constraint out to another part of the organization. It is critical to identify and sustain a holistic framework

Execution is the force multiplier: Having the right strategy is critical, but perhaps even more critical is the right execution – maintaining tight focus and ensuing that all action items are tracked to closure and appropriate measurements are made consistently and reported timely.

Strategic Alignment of Horizontal and Vertical PMO Goals – Tathagat Varma, Project Management National Conference, Bangalore, India Sep 2010, http://managewell.net/?page_id=2

Balridge Criteria for Performance Excellence 2011-2012, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/business_nonprofit_criteria.cfm

EFQM Excellence Model, http://www.omnex.com/sustainability/backup/efqm.html Why Change Programs fail – George Smart,

http://www.strategicdevelopment.com/articles_details.php?articles_id=2 Why Lean Programs Fail – Jeff Liker and Mike Rother, 02-Feb-2011, Lean Enterprise

Institute newsletter, http://www.lean.org/newsletters/02_02_11_newsletter.html Excellence through Culture, Talent and Change – Tjitra & Associates,

http://www.slideshare.net/horatjitra/excellence-through-culture-talent-and-change Why Change Programs don’t Produce Change – Michael Beer, Russell Eisenstat and Bert

Spector, Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec 1990,

The Change Management Lifecycle: How to involve your people to ensure success at every stage, An ESI International whitepaper, 2008, http://www.onlinetes.com/fileuploads/file/OrgChangeWhP_final2.pdf

Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts fail – John Kotter, Harvard Business Review, Jan 2007

Avoid the 70% Failure Rate of Change Management Initiatives – Claire Schooley, http://blogs.forrester.com/claire_schooley/11-08-31-avoid_the_70_failure_rate_of_change_management_initiatives

Where Process Improvement projects go wrong – Satya Chakravorty, 25-Jan-2010, Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574457471313938130.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

How to make cultural change and corporate transformation projects work, effortlessly - Christo, 28-Nov-2010, http://spandah.com/blog/?p=63

Twitter: @tathagatvarma Blog: http://managewell.net

Email: tathagat@yahoo-inc.com Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/managewell