On today's Exo on the Couch, we introduce Exo Digital's founder and director, Rob Wijaya.

Rob has been in love with technology and the internet, developing chatbots since he was 11 years old. That’s a lifetime of tech and design experience!

Today, Rob is raving about this year's growth and successes even though it hasn't been a typical year for anyone.

Agile vs Waterfall

Agile requires the whole team to have a common goal, and then creating a ‘how might we’ statement, where we identify what the deliverable is so we can work together to achieve the end result. As it is iterative, projects run in an agile way can move faster and pivot if needed in order to achieve the end goal.

Waterfall on the other hand makes it very difficult to change direction if the project needs to be modified to achieve the end goal. As waterfall runs in a linear fashion, if changes are required, it’s extremely difficult to manage, as the whole project is then called into review. This costs valuable time and resources.

How Exo Digital works

With agile, the Exo Digital team can deliver on projects in a highly iterative way.

We use two week ‘Sprints’. Each sprint begins with sprint planning, whereby each member of the team commits to a set priority for that sprint and to establish whether any tasks from the previous sprint needs to be carried forward.

It’s a great opportunity to check in with all of the team, make sure they are comfortable with their workload. At the end of the 2 week cycle, we go to a Sprint Retro, where we look back and see what worked, what didn’t and how we can improve.

Every morning at Exo begins with daily check-ins. If you have worked in an ‘agile’ set up before, you are likely familiar with ‘daily stand ups’.

Rob tasks himself with removing blockers. To do this, the team needs to identify them and then they can be removed. This could be through removing unknowns by doing additional research, allocating more resources, reprioritising other tasks or providing additional support from other team members.

One of the greatest benefits of working the ‘Exo Way’ on a project is the identification of the business problem we are trying to solve from the very beginning, which we do through workshops.

Once we understand the problem, we can source customer/employee feedback then devise a plan to create a solution.

We are an innovation consultancy, and at our very core is a focus on customers and designing for fantastic experiences. During the workshop and research phase, if we identify any problems or opportunities we can adapt very quickly to maintain the momentum and achieve the project goals.

Being adaptive in uncertain market

With rapid changes occurring in part due to the pandemic, agile allows us and our clients to be nimble. We hope that this mindset is instilled with every member of the team and every one of our clients. We want to support growth and innovation!

Agile is for life not just for Christmas

Rob is so passionate about the agile mindset, he even applies it in his own home.

Rob was first introduced to the agile mindset when he was working with corporate teams that were undergoing a restructure. When projects run for months, if they are not iterative and adaptive, it poses a huge risk to everyone involved.

Agile misconceptions

Rob observed how agile seems misunderstood, that many see it as a process as opposed to a mindset. Any risk can be mitigated through being agile, no matter how big or small the project.

For Rob, it’s not just about ‘failing fast’ - who wants to aim to fail? Instead it’s about the speed of learning and speed of applying the learnings. The key is figuring out how we can learn fast enough to implement our new found understanding.

The path to implementation

Once the project objectives are achieved, we begin implementing the solution and the project moves into ‘Program Increment Planning (PI Planning)’.

Unlike a Sprint, which is typically 2-4 weeks, PI Planning occurs each quarter. This allows any team, project and company to look ahead and figure out what that quarter's goals and missions are.

As designers, we ideally want to be working 2-3 Sprint Cycles prior to PI Planning to get a head start on research and discovery initiatives. We then come together with the team charged with quarterly delivery and work in parallel to support them.

At this stage, Exo Digital is focused on empowerment of the delivery team to participate in planning.

Collaboration tools

Living in a digital age, we rely on technology to execute these planning strategies. Technology has been particularly important during the COVID pandemic, allowing us to continue working without any disruption to our projects. At Exo Digital, we use a tool called ‘Click Up’ to plan our sprints and projects.

Be agile to go agile!

Creating a two week Sprint for your team is a great start! Rob recommends you start it on a Monday and simply begin with a commitment.

Get the team to commit to a goal, and then break that goal down into smaller chunks so everyone on the team can hold one another accountable and ensure each item is delivered. The process creates a highly collaborative environment for your team to work in.

After a couple of sprints, and running retros to look back on how the sprint runs, you will be able to see what has been working, what hasn’t, and very quickly see results.

‍Improve with retros

Retrospectives (Retros) are sessions at the end of your sprint cycles to look retrospectively at your successes and challenges as a team. It’s a space to celebrate one another and to offer support to do better next time.

These meetings are a mechanism that allow everyone on the team to have a voice and get feedback from their colleagues.

Coming together as a sprint team allows different departments to work together and help one another. It allows everyone to feel comfortable coming together to achieve common and agreed sprint goals.

If you would like to learn more about how to incorporate Agile into your business, reach out to our consultants for a complimentary strategy session.