“People over processes” Tathagat Varma

Sr. Director Business Operations

Yahoo! India R&D

Let’s understand the ‘craft’ first…

•  Sheer joy of making things

•  Pleasure of things that are useful to other people

•  Fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles

•  Joys of always learning, which sprints from the non-repeating nature of the task

•  Delight of working in such a tractable medium

The Mythical Man Month – Fred Brooks, 1975

Pace of innovation is accelerating…

1975-2000 • 2000: Baidu • 1997: Yandex • 1994: Yahoo!, Amazon, NetScape, • 1986: Pixar • 1984: Sybase • 1983: Intuit, Borland, • 1982: Sun, Symantec, Adobe, EA • 1980: Informix • 1979: EMC • 1977: Oracle • 1976: CA, Apple • 1975: Microsoft

2000-2010 • 2010: Pinterest, SnapDeal, • 2009: Square, Quora, Sina Weibo • 2008: Groupon, AirBnB, GoGo • 2007: Dropbox, Zynga, Flipkart, InMobi,

Hulu, Tumblr, • 2006: Twitter, SlideShare, Badoo Spotify • 2005: YouTube, Renren • 2004: Facebook • 2003: Myspace, Skype, Rovio,

Gameforge, • 2002: LinkedIn • 2001: StumbleUpon, Mail.ru

2011 - •  Instagram

Sadly…None of this came from…

Frameworks, Standards and Certifications

Agile Manifesto brought people back into the equation…

But…Did that solve the problem?

•  “…In looking back, [Kent] Beck finds that while each segment of the Manifesto was a giant leap forward in 2001, the language no longer reflects the challenge of launching successful innovation in the marketplace of 2011.”

•  Beck’s Beyond Agile Manifesto - •  Team Vision and Discipline over Individuals and Interactions

•  Validated Learning over Working Software

•  Customer Discovery over Customer Collaboration

•  Initiating Change over Responding to Change

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/05/04/innovation-applying-inspect-adapt-to-the-agile-manifesto/

What is the most important part in these two machines?

The Brakes…They let you go faster!

And…The Man!!

So, what are we learning?

•  Innovation is the game •  More of same is not enough!

•  ‘Startups’ breed innovation

•  No risk, no reward!

•  Invest on smart people

•  Let them break stuff !

•  Don’t impose a process

•  Let them self-organize!

•  Don’t confuse means with ends •  It’s not about the tool!

It’s not about the tool!

A photographer went to a socialite party in New York. As he entered the front door, the host said ‘I love your pictures – they’re wonderful; you must

have a fantastic camera.’ He said nothing until dinner

was finished, then: ‘That was a wonderful dinner; you must

have a terrific stove.’ – Sam Haskins

http://www.haskins.com/ImageShop/Image_Shop_60s/60s_Books_A.Image_01.html