The Inner Building Blocks

A Novel to Apply Lean-Agile and Design Thinking to Digital Transformation

Abhishek Rai

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781637422205
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Gestion de projet

Agile is the ability to quickly and naturally adapt to respond to changes. Most companies are inherently fragile and not agile – when they are hit by new developments, shifting consumer behavior or fast-moving competition, they struggle and even cease to exist!

Inner Building Blocks is a novel about Neil Frost, a Director of Digital Transformation and Agile Centre of Excellence at Walkers Mart. The company is already grappling with a failing transformation and on the verge of bankruptcy when COVID-19 strikes!

Sid, the Coach instils constructive discomfort through a series of probing questions to:

• Rethink agility and reimagine the future of work with hybrid operating models.
• Launch a series of experiments to reinvent the Building Blocks (e.g., strategy, talent, culture, structures, practices and digital technologies).
• Discover twenty-six solutions to embrace lean-agile mindset for strategic agility.

Could the company survive amid the global pandemic and ensuing supply chain challenges?

A compelling storytelling approach and provocative dialogues provide relatable context to adopt the concepts. The principles and techniques are delicately camouflaged within the underlying characters, their conversations and situations.

CHAPTER 1

The Discovery

Background, Key Players, and Situations

Thursday, January 23, 2020

It’s 6 a.m. on another cold and foggy morning in Spring Green, a small Midwestern town in Wisconsin. I stretch my right arm out across the satin beige sheets to grab my phone and snooze the alarm. I decide to take a sneak peek at the texts sitting on my home screen, after hearing multiple dings. Could it be Richie this early, I think.

Sure enough, it is Richard Parker, my boss and our CIO. I quickly open the messages, thinking it’s unusual for Richie to start the day so early in the morning. Half awake, I struggle to read with half-open and blurry eyes. I bring the phone close to my face as I read the text messages.

Figure 1.1 Text—Richie and Neil

I look at my inbox with an influx of e-mails coming in on my phone. I notice 50 more unread e-mails since I had last checked around 7:15 p.m. I recall having wrapped up earlier than usual in the office, and I didn’t check my e-mails as our little one Tina was down with the fever.

While it is common to see a dozen of those e-mails each morning in my role as Director of Digital Transformation at Walkers Mart Corp, where I work closely with various global teams in India, Philippines, Poland, and the United States, looking at the sheer number gives me goosebumps.

Damn, I sigh and quickly slip on my glasses. I start reading them, and many of them are short two liners on our international supply chain issues being driven by coronavirus-related challenges. I am copied in along with five to six other leaders.

Lately, I have been more attentive and sensitive to e-mails where Richie is copied in, and as I scroll down, I see he is indeed copied in most of these. Something critical was going on.

Although the Walkers Mart conglomerate is an established and diversified global retail group, it is no secret that our retail chain, which was once one of the leading corporates with high market capitalization, is struggling like never before. Our finance division is considering options like restructuring our debt or cutting back on costs to meet our long-term financial obligations. It seems like we are on the brink of potential bankruptcy if things do not improve soon, especially with significant fluctuations in the market value of the firm. The customers are scaling back on new orders and international suppliers are lately changing their terms of delivery due to red tape in our supply chain processes. This is coming much sooner and much faster.

In the last few years, we have had a monumental ambition for enterprise-wide digital transformations focusing on e-commerce, enhancing online shopping experiences with seamless home deliveries of our products, and embracing newer ways of working and leveraging agile. But we haven’t been so lucky when it comes to delivering our ambition.

Figure 1.2 E-mail—upgrade

As I continue to scroll through my e-mails, I find the e-mail from Richie. It was sent just minutes after I went offline, when Tina wasn’t feeling too good.

I mutter to myself “the writing is on the wall.” And these stores too will shut down for good. Now we have shut our doors at 200 locations out of 406!

As I mentally add up numbers while recalling the 70 stores that were closed earlier in the summer, I start to wonder which stores had made it to that list.

I have been with Walkers for the past 15 years, who used to be among the top five largest retail groups in the country. I had been doing reasonably well in my previous position as the Senior Manager of Corporate Information Technology before I got promoted to a new role as Director of Digital Transformation with enterprise-wide agile adoption responsibilities. To think of it, that was almost three years ago now that I reflect back on the journey. Essentially, I was asked to spearhead the largest transformation in the company’s history, to re-invent the customers’ digital experience.

However, last summer, soon after the initial wave of store closures, for the first time in 65 years of monumental history, the company has initiated massive layoffs across the board, especially in the Merchandizing and Store operations group.

The Digital group was not in the initial wave of those impacted by the last layoffs, although deep down I fear that it is only a matter of time when we could inevitably become one of the casualties. Here comes the second wave of store closures.

I sigh, not looking forward to what today had in store for me after starting my morning with that sort of news to digest.

I pull myself out of bed and start brushing my teeth. I begin to think about how I could have done things differently. I was one of the architects and champions of the enterprise-wide digital transformation leveraging agile ways of working. In fact, I had named it FA@ST which stood for the “Framework for Agile@Scale Techniques.”

Although Walkers Mart has been transitioning to digital and online sales, it still has over 80 percent of its revenues coming from brick-and-mortar stores.

I rinse my mouth, frantically weighing different scenarios in my head. I look at my reflection in the mirror, reminding myself of the greater goal ahead.

After wrapping up reading and responding to other critical and time sensitive e-mails, many of them from Gus, my old boss and our Head IT Operations and Infrastructure, I take a brief shower thinking about what Richie has in mind and urgently wants to talk about. The steam building up in the shower eases my mind and brings me back to a state of calmness.

I make it downstairs to the kitchen in our four-bedroom home on Green street and join my wife Cindy and our two daughters Ami and Tina over the breakfast bar. I pretend as if it was a usual workday like any other and put a brave smile on my face, trying my best to look cheerful.

“Good morning dad.”

I see Tina is giggling and cheerful about something. I kiss her cheek, giving her all my attention.

“Dad I have my story telling contest today. I am going to tell a curious monkey story,” she mentions while having her favorite Frosties cereal.

I touch Tina’s forehead and try to make eye contact with Cindy.

“She looks totally fine, right?” I worry.

Figure 1.3 Neil’s introduction

I sigh thinking about how today will be another long day after checking my e-mails.

“Hey Cindy, it seems like there’s going to be some action today at work.”

I explain, frantically scrolling through my work phone as the influx of e-mail notifications pop up.

“I think I’ll stay at the office late today, is that ok?” I apologetically look at her.

Cindy looks at me, with a surprising look that reminds me of her follow-up doctor’s appointment today that I completely forgot about.

She has been avoiding going to the doctors for a year after seeing abnormal changes to her body with unusual symptoms, but last week she finally went after much persuasion from our family and friends.

I look at my calendar on my phone for a reminder.

Ah, it seems like Becky, my assistant, did not update my calendar. I sigh, mentally shifting my schedule around. I will have to come back home early.

I look at our two beautiful daughters having Frosties for breakfast.

I laugh out loud when Tina cheers me, “Dad you know why I like Frosties, because they have our last name!”

“Bye Tina and Ami, I love you girls.” I blow them kisses before leaving.

As I approach the parking lot, I can see the Pearl Green Lexus, which is Richie’s car. Richie is early today and has even skipped his golf hours. Something must be up.

As soon as I enter the building straight to the sixth floor, I take a left instead of heading to my floor, to meet and greet Richie. I got the sixth-floor office over a year back. We have a sixth-floor mentality. Climbing the corporate ladder means climbing the floors. The promotions literally mean getting an office on one of the higher floors.

“Hello Tammy,” I meet his assistant.

She is filing a pile of paperwork from last week’s divestiture deal. Legal experts from Hana’s team are due to meet with our lawyers to discuss the future terms of our contractual agreements.

“Is Richie in?” I peep at her calendar.

“Yeah Neil. Good morning to you too.” She says with an attitude....