Aarti

The company hired me to lead their "Agile Transformation." I don't know what Agile means. Nobody does. That's why it works. I make $425,000 a year. To move sticky notes. From left to right. On a board. The board is digital now. The sticky notes cost $80,000 in Jira licenses. Progress. Day one, I said "we need to break down silos." Everyone nodded. Silos are bad. I don't know why. But destroying them is a career. My career. I introduced "squads." Squads are teams. But disrupted. We disrupted the teams into teams. Different names. Same people. Same problems. But Agile problems now. Agile problems are strategic. A senior engineer asked what we're actually changing. I said, "The mindset." He asked what that means. I said, "It's a journey." He asked where we're going. I said, "Toward agility." He asked what agility means. I pointed at the sticky notes. They were moving left to right. That's velocity. We have velocity now. The VP of Engineering said two-week sprints don't fit their work. I said, "That's waterfall thinking." Waterfall is bad. Like silos. I don't know what waterfall is. But I know it's bad. She stopped talking. Waterfall accusations end conversations. We had a retrospective. In the retro, we discussed what went wrong. Everything went wrong. We put it on sticky notes. Then we moved the sticky notes. Into a column called "Parking Lot." The Parking Lot is where problems go to die. It's full. We don't look at it. That's agile. Velocity is up 40%. I defined velocity. I also defined the points. I also defined the stories. We're crushing it. At the things I made up. To measure. Ourselves. The CEO asked for ROI. I showed a chart. The chart went up. Charts should go up. This one did. I didn't label the Y-axis. Nobody asked. Leadership is confidence. We do standups now. Every day. We stand. For 45 minutes. Standing is agile. Sitting is waterfall. My legs hurt. But we're transforming. The transformation is now "Phase 3." Phase 1 was assessment. Phase 2 was implementation. Phase 3 is "continuous improvement." Continuous means forever. Forever means job security. I'm very secure. My contract was extended. Three more years. For "cultural impact." The culture is confused. But impacted. Agile transformation isn't about being agile. It's about transforming. Continuously. Toward more transformation. The destination is the journey. The journey is billable.

For everyone who is disappointed that we didn’t finish Pakistan. I have only one question. What exactly do you mean by “Finish Pakistan”? What do you expect to do? Do you want to do a WW2 style Operation Sickle Cut, launch armored pincer movements, encircle Pakistani armies and annex Pakistan? Why on earth would you want to do that? Do you want to add 300 million hostile people, some of whom already think blowing themselves up is their greatest purpose in life? How will you manage them? Is that how you will finish Pakistan? Or do you want to nuke them out of existence? Because let me give you a reality check here. We won’t do that. We can’t do that. Indian citizens cannot morally contemplate, let alone sanction, nuking 300 million people. So that option is out. Then Someone said, “Let’s split Pakistan into 5 countries”. Now, Pakistan isn’t some Ikea Furniture that you can assemble or disassemble at your will. As hopeless they may be, they still have a functioning military and a working bureaucracy. They will do anything they can to keep the country together. With all our might, with all our focus, we can exploit that Faultline, but it will take a lot of money and energy and 10-15 years. Are you ready to wait that long? Some people said we should do a large-scale attack on all their air bases, military bases, Ports, Military HQ everything. Obliterate them out of existence. Sounds nice if you are movie general. In reality if we do that, Pakistan will launch nukes on Mumbai and Delhi. Simple. Because it will be their last resort and they will exercise it. Obviously, we will retaliate and wipe them out of existence, but are ready to lose our 2 big cities and the lives of 20 million Indians as a price for taking out their military? I don’t think so. Finally, what is War? War is nothing but politics by other means. And War without objective is pointless. Any battle launched should be with a purpose. Our purpose in this strike was two-fold 1. Send a message to Pakistan that for every Indian your terrorist kills, we will kill 100 of your terrorists. We will take you out even if you are ensconced in the heart of your country. We will come after your terrorists like a wrath of God. 2. If Pakistan retaliates, not only can we handle them, but we will also hit and twist the knife if it comes to that. We have achieved it. In fact, we have more than achieved it. We have put the fear of God in the terrorists. Obviously, they will try again, but this time they know we will hit back. And we have clearly shown Pakistan that we can penetrate wherever we want into Pakistan, while the maximum they can do is look up and shake their fists. Some people also speak about India being diplomatically isolated. In this entire exercise, if anyone has been isolated, it is Pakistan. In the olden days, as soon as something bad from Pakistan happened, most countries used to descend on us, asking us to be restrained, calm, resilient etc. This time not only did nobody speak, but they also allowed us three days of complete freedom of action where we stuck fear in the hearts of the Pakistani military. So much so, they had to beg to us to stop. In international diplomacy, no country will come out and say “Please attack someone else. We are with you” . They will support you only when you are being attacked. The fact that nobody said anything when we attacked, is a diplomatic success in itself. Just that we don’t see it. To summarize, as far as Operation Sindoor is concerned 1. We sent 200 jihadis to where they belong. 2. Took out 9 terrorist locations deep inside Pakistan 3. Attacked all major Pakistani Air bases, made a complete mockery of their air defence system. 4. Made them beg for us to stop. I mean if it is a wrestling match, the person who taps out first is the one who loses. Pakistan tapped out. Ergo, they lost. 5. Ensured Indus Water Treaty is now firmly in the dustbin. 6. Have given ourselves the freedom to attack Pakistan as soon as a Terrorist incident takes place. If this is not a win for us, then I don’t know what is. P:S: India wants to be an advanced country and has to provide for 80 crore people who are below the age of 30. We have to focus on industrialization, technological self-sufficiency and agricultural modernization. We have higher priorities than fighting pointless wars against a country who has nothing and can give nothing.