The design of your development org might affect the quality of its output

I (and my colleagues at the time) presented this experience report at an event hosted by the National Payments Corporation of India. It's thesis is that orgdesign can influence the quality of work accomplished.

The team in question claimed to be following Scrum but were struggling with the issue of lots of defects surfacing at a late stage of the release. The presentation shows how factors other than software development practices contributed to the situation.

Some people object to the conclusions I draw here. They say I'm blowing the issue out of proportion and ignoring the issue of individual responsibility. And my point is that systems influence behavior. Agile and digital transformation efforts are not doing as well as expected because there is not enough recognition of the type of issues highlighted here. When faced with a systems problem, it is not enough to focus on individual capabilities and behaviors. We have to evaluate the whole operating model. My book on agile operating models provides the tools to do exactly that.

Update: June 2022

Here's a more recent take on this case.