Agile Transformation
On this episode of the Virtual Frontier, we’re joined by Marcus Raitner. Marcus has been speaking and writing about virtual teams and new work since 2010. Marcus is also the founder of openPM.
You can read more from Marcus on his blog.
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CHRIS REEVES
Hello, and welcome to the virtual frontier, the podcast about virtual teams created by virtual team. I’m Chris and I’m part of the team here at Flash Hub. On today’s episode, we are very excited to be joined by Marcus Raitner. Marcus has been speaking and writing about virtual teams and new work since 2010. Marcus and Manuel had an excellent conversation that I’m very excited to share with you. So here is episode eight of the virtual frontier, featuring our guest, Marcus Raitner.
MANUEL PISTNER
Today we have Marcus Raitner on our show today, and I’m happy to have you here so Marcus, introduce yourself to the audience, please.
MARCUS RAITNER
So thanks for having me. It’s great to be here. Oh, actually, it’s my first podcast in English so I think it will work but let’s see. So I’m I’m Marcus. I’m currently working for the BMW Group IT.
So but I have a very different history. So I studied computer science or which originally did a PhD in computer science and then did what so many people do working IT consultancy. Then in 2010, we founded our own startup, still doing project management, consulting, and stuff like this doing project management. But after five years, I had to rethink everything. And the startup didn’t work very well. For me at least it worked well on a financial basis, but for me, there was not enough in it and not enough purpose in it.
So I switched to my customer finally, which was BMW with from 2005 until 2015 and then I switched as an internal … to BMW where I actually started as a IT project lead, but then eventually got into the agile transformation thing. Because I was always trying to improve the organization, was always trying to find all the IT projects where we do agile already what we can learn from them. And then I, I try to link the people together and to learn from them. And this eventually got me in a in a in a more more and more strategic position where we and then I finally in the heart of these agile transformation thing where I’m right now already.
MANUEL PISTNER
That’s pretty interesting. So you started as a founder, and then you got some experience in this startup and then you moved over to BMW your current employer. And What was the base for the decision to switch to BMW, which is not a startup? It’s a big corporation or worldwide one.
MARCUS RAITNER
No, no, we we just turned 100 years right, and it’s a big corporation with about 120,000 employees worldwide. Yeah, this is … I recently reflected on this a bit why this transition happened and what it made so hard for me, right. So, so basically it was because this startup thing didn’t work for me, because there were two founders. So two people in charge and we we couldn’t agree on what the purpose of this organization should be. Right? So for not for me for the other one, it was more about profit. And and I was still looking for what is the purpose for this organization, so if you do IT project consulting, so what is the purpose of these people coming together in an organization besides from making profit? And this is a question that is not so easy to answer. And I was trying to answer it, but but we couldn’t come to a common denominator, right. So it was, it was we just broke up, right?
And then I, and then I got a got an offer from BMW and this is what happened. So I just choose this offer and then switch to the customer. This was not a very deliberate process, right? This was just the first best offer I got.
MANUEL PISTNER
And now you help BMW to transform to an agile organization. I mean, that sounds really huge. But you need to go step by step. And how does your startup experience helps you to do this job and to tackle the corporate challenges.
MARCUS RAITNER
well, Firstly, it helped me in as much as I didn’t want to fit as, just some cog in this big machine. But water I wanted to, to work to improve the organization and the way that people are working there. So I always had this mindset to improve things not just to, accept the job I’m being offered. And just to feel my role as a cog in a huge machine. I always was looking on the things how to improve them. And I often didn’t ask for permission to improve things. So I just did them. And this eventually got me in a position where I was working more and more on this system instead of working in this system. So it really helped me this mindset of I have to and I’m allowed to improve the organization. This is not this is not but not so many people in big corporations really have, because they are used to fill in their role.
MANUEL PISTNER
Absolutely agree. So what you brought from, from your experience, as a founder of a start up to big corporation is that sometimes you just see problems and you solve them instead of going through all the slow processes of a corporate organization, right?
MARCUS RAITNER
Absolutely. You just do it and you don’t ask for permission. I mean, there is basically no one you can ask for permission if you’re the managing director of startup. #
MANUEL PISTNER
And this is the kind of individuals that bring an organization forward. What would you say? Which personal attributes does an employee need to act like this?
MARCUS RAITNER
Well, I think it takes courage.
And and it takes more of course creativity and you have to imagine a better future right. But I think courage is the most important thing. Because it’s it’s always easier to just do what you are asked for to do your job and not to make any problems so to say. Because if you challenge the status quo, you’re always making problems but you’re causing a huge problem for someone at least. And this, I think, takes courage and I think also a bit of idealism right to to strive for a better organization. It I think it takes a little bit of idealism.
MANUEL PISTNER
In your recent blog posts, and then your general posts that you spread on social media, and on your blog, you talk about personal or even working sustainability. What do you mean by that? Can you talk about this topic?
MARCUS RAITNER
Yeah, yeah. So absolutely, sure. This is something that has challenged me for for a very long time right now. Because when I look at how people work in those big corporations and when I look at their schedules, and it’s, it’s very common to see schedules, like from 7am to, let’s say, 6pm. Right. And they are meeting after meeting, right and this is how these people tend to work. At least this is what they call work. I don’t think that this is very sustainable in the sense that, you’re looking after your own resources. So it’s just, a hustle, right?
So people go from one meeting to another meeting. And I, in my opinion you can’t get much work done in this schedule. So this is something that is really intriguing me, because I don’t work in such a way. So I always so I personally have believed that it’s not about the hours you put into it. So it’s more about the outcome. And the whole and the whole system is, based on the hours you put into it. So we measure the hours that people are in the office and we think there is a correlation to the output, which I simply don’t believe that just being in the office is not output is not outcome.
They’re just input. It’s just ours you are present. And this is what I’m always thinking about because if you look at the things I’m doing so I’m very present on social media, I’m writing blog posts, and so I’m often writing blog posts on our agile transformation. And at least on things that are related to our transformation, and I’m not even sure if this is work or not. So, um, and for sure, I can’t measure this thing. So it just doesn’t make sense, right? So I don’t have this distinction between work and life. So for me, at least since his startup years there is no longer distinction for me between work and life.
MANUEL PISTNER
And that doesn’t mean that you work the whole day?
MARCUS RAITNER
No, absolutely not. So I have a very, very strict rule. So on three days a week, I take our two children to the kindergarten, which means that I’m rough roughly about nine o’clock in the morning in the office. And I have a strict rule that I’m home for dinner. So because I want to have dinner with my children, and this is about 6pm. So I’m always trying to limit the time in between because this is a very agile principle. If you limit things you will get focused and if you have focused you will get things done. Yes, it’s not that if you have more time, it’s not that you get more things done, you will just use more time.
MANUEL PISTNER
That’s a good hint for our audience as well. And for me, it’s very interesting. If you limit things, you will get better results. That’s what I experienced in the past, but I was not really aware of that, that this correlates with each other. That’s a really smart thing. We keep that in mind. Thanks for sharing. So when you experienced that it’s possible to work from home and you can get more things done with less time. And I experience that working with virtual teams is possible. Like we have more than 150 people spread and all across the world. Chris is one of these virtual team members. He sits in the US and he is working with us. That works very well and we just care about the output. I don’t care about his stress. I don’t care about what he does when he’s not online, we just agree on a result or on an output. And that works. But what do you think? Why do so many people have to go to the office? Why do so many people have to commute two or even three hours a day? And why do we have to build so many office towers? If this is just not necessary?
MARCUS RAITNER
Well, so it’s, I think it’s a relict from the industrial age. So because in the factory, you just have to be present on the shop floor, right. So it’s, there’s no option of home office in a factory. So and from time to time, the work changed, the nature of work changed and it’s not not no longer just factory work, manual work on our shop floor. But it’s more knowledge work and, but the time schedule and being present in one place. This was just, no one questioned it right? So, they just transferred it to the knowledge, knowledge work area. And that’s how it is at the moment. So people are commuting. And finally it’s about control, right? So if you have all the people that work for you in one room, you can control them, right?
MANUEL PISTNER
At least you have the illusion you can.
MARCUS RAITNER
Yes, yes, it’s an illusion because what you only can control is that they are present, that they are sitting there, but you can’t control if they are really producing something they are producing output.
MANUEL PISTNER
And if you could control that, and they work digitally They can do it from everywhere in the world. That’s that’s the thing, as what do you what do you think corporations need to understand or to do to make this shift to get rid of all these borders and barriers that limit themselves in growing on the one side because of huge gap of talent. And that limits individuals from growing personally and from aligning their personal life with their professional life. What do they need to understand and do?
MARCUS RAITNER
Well, I think that as I said before, it’s about control and control is just the other side of distrust, right. So, I think we should all question why we don’t trust the people that work for us. Or at least don’t trust them so much that we will let them work in home office, which is possible. BMW by the way, but it’s not that you work every day in a home office, it’s it’s more or less the exception, right? So, it’s all about trust.
So giving the people it’s more about what we how we conceive human nature, if we it’s more about to rewire see how it reacts. So, if we think more about people being self motivated and trying to give the best on the one hand, then the system the organization we build would look differently, than the organizations we have at the moment which are built basically on distrust. So people these are these organizations we currently see are built on the on the paradigm of distrust, so we have to control people we have to motivate people because if you don’t, they will not work. This is the paradigm we have at the moment
MANUEL PISTNER
And if you see that more and more people or the workforce is shifting to a freelance culture much more in the US were 2020 there, I think a forecast of 50% will be freelancers in Europe it will be 25 up to 30%, which challenges will organizations face when they see the strength?
MARCUS RAITNER
Well, I mean, the first challenge problem will be you won’t get any employees so because they will be freelancing and you have to make this useful for you. You have to make this work for you.
And I mean, knowing our IT landscape and regulation landscape in Germany.
I can say there are a lot of hurdles at the moment. Because these organizations are not just not built for dealing with so much freelancers. So, and our laws, by the way, are not built this way. So I think Germany will be the last country, where we will see this trend, because all the politics are on, not in favor of it.
MANUEL PISTNER
But do you think that’s real, reality that all our legal circumstances and the things how we do and work in Germany will really prevent us from going virtual or work with freelancers. I’m not talking about hiring a freelancer so that the freelancer will sit in your office the whole day. This is what some do and they get punished by the government because it’s not aligned with our law. But if we are talking about open up your borders for international freelancers, and don’t hire them to sit full time in front of the camera and work for you but just buy a piece of something from them, buy an output from them, and then maybe let them move away to another job and hire another one. So like a liquid or fluid workforce. I think this is not against our law. It’s more against the way how we think.
MARCUS RAITNER
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if we if we already discussed on employees, so we probably won’t trust any freelance, right. Is just an illusion. This is all about how we look at people, right? And how we think they are motivated and how we look at the purpose and not Yeah, this is I think the most basic thing is trust.
MANUEL PISTNER
So it’s trust. Control. It’s being afraid of the flexibility that you have. And it’s against what we’ve learned and experienced in the past. Now let’s go back like 10 or 15 years, I think only 10 years is enough when this cloud trend appeared first time. And today, if organizations don’t have a cloud strategy, they are considered to be dead in like 10 years. And in the very beginning, it was always necessary to have your server below your desk. And then it was okay if it is in a data center, but it should be in the same city. Then it appeared to be okay if the data center is in Germany, and then it was okay to move over to the cloud. And a I know BMW works with AWS, for example, which is neither below your desk, nor is it a data center in Germany. Some parts it is, but it is an American organization. So there was a shift in the mindset. And there was a shift in how people think about cloud. Do you think in the next 10 years, the same shift will happen for you work virtual teams, remote organizations and all these things related to people?
MARCUS RAITNER
I think that So, at least for the area, I’m working because I’m, basically doing software development, right. And good software developers are a scarce resource. So they are not easy to get and definitely, they are not easy to get in Munich. And which also goes for any other big area, they are not easy to get in Berlin either. So I think and on the other hand, most of the things that make a difference In the future will be made of software. So even if we, if you look at our cars, more and more of the things that the customer really customer really sees that is a difference will be made out of software.
So it’s autonomous driving, for instance, it’s basically software, right? So to get these scarce resources you have, you can’t have them traveling to your office, you have. I think it will be necessary to have a virtual collaboration between this people like we have in open source communities like many other software companies are doing. Yes, I think this is the these are the main two trends we have more and more things are made out of software and they are just few people that are able to do software.
MANUEL PISTNER
And now the challenges that organizations need to attract good or even excellent people, they could either do this by shifting their workforce to virtual teams, or they can do it in a way that they are very attractive not only for customers, but also for talent. And what do you think how does an organization need to look like in the near future, so that is really attractive for top talent.
MARCUS RAITNER
So, this might be just my opinion and, and how I want to be attracted. So what I conceived is an interactive workplace. So but flexibility is key for me. So I want to choose where to work and when to work. This is absolutely key for me. So, and I want to have on to have the flexibility within our offices that to choose my desk, if I need more like a library atmosphere where no one is talking about just can focus on getting stuff done. And on the other hand more a let’s say cafeteria style and to choose is flexibliy. So, for me, I I take the freedom so I just go where I want and work where I want. So if I feel like I go to Starbucks and work there, so even if I am an employee of BMW i, I choose my workplace relatively freely. So, if I want to work somewhere else I will do so. And I think this is key this flexibility in working when and where is key.
MANUEL PISTNER
Yeah. So what You need to be happy in your work is what organizations and corporations have most managers are afraid of. This is the high flexibility and that you can work where you want, when you want with whom you want in which environment you want. And this is only one thing because you want flexibility with an organization that you work over years. So they know you, they could trust you, they are able to grow a relationship to you, or with you in like, two years or more. So they know people they are working with them. On the other side, if you are talking about Flash organizations, where you don’t even know the people personally, we, for example, even build trustless teams to build a team where people don’t know each other so that there is a high interest in quality assurance because if they don’t know each other They don’t trust each other. That means it’s good for the project because they really look deep into what was done. And they take their job serious because they are not part of a corporation. They are all freelancers and they want to do their job good. Hmm. Do you think it will ever happen that corporations use this form of virtual teams? Like, here’s a project, get your virtual team in a day work with this team? And if it’s not required anymore, shut it down. Like cloud technology, you know?
MARCUS RAITNER
Yeah, I know. Well, I don’t think so. Personally, I don’t think so. I think there will be very successful companies built on this model. I totally believe in this. So it’s not that this model is not working. It is and I have seen it working. It is Working, but
I just can’t think how a big corporation will make this shift to this kind of organization.
MANUEL PISTNER
Yeah me too.
MARCUS RAITNER
I’m, no I can’t just imagine it.
MANUEL PISTNER
So now the challenge of a big corporation is that they need to transform to digital, to agile to virtual, which one is the most important from your perspective?
MARCUS RAITNER
Well, like I said, I’m in the heart of digital transformation agile. Agile is for me, I’m at the center, because digital and digital business models and stuff like this, they follow they need the agile software Development. They need an agile organization to be able to, try out new business models to try out new stuff. So I think this is the most important enabler, to have agile teams that are able to try out new stuff in very short cycles and to learn very quickly.
MANUEL PISTNER
So it’s a it’s not about technology. It’s about the way people think in the organization that they don’t have safety and security first stick to what you are used to do because then you will not make any mistakes. But be flexible and try things out and allow mistakes and then correct them and continuously learn. Absolutely, technology will will follow. So because if you give people this idea that being a agile, being adaptable is the most important thing at the moment. If you tell them like we did, it’s not that we want to have two releases a year. We want to have 50 deployments a day. This makes something that the people, they have to rethink the way they are building software, there’s just no such thing as manual testing, then if you do it 50 times a day, you have to automate everything, right? Or you have to even get rid of testing and and say like monitoring is the new testing and stuff like this. So people have to really make a shift in their minds. So this is so what I mean, first comes the mindset, and then the people will find the right technology.
Yeah, that is what I experienced as well. And on the other side, people that have an agile, mindset, they can really imagine how virtual teams work. So the basis thinking agile. Do you think that in cooperation as BMW, it’s possible that all people working there will do this transformation, this agile transformation in their mindset?
MARCUS RAITNER
Well definitely as at least for the IT, we are definitely working on this stuff. So and I can say we are really on a good way and even there are, It’s not the freelance stuff you you mentioned before, but a lot of our work is virtually. So you probably have have read in the press. So we have a software development company in Portugal, which is critical tech works. We have bought it. So we have a lot of developers sitting in Portugal. So and they are really collaborating virtually with our teams. We have this within our company. But not in the sense you mentioned before I go hire a freelancers and to bring them on board.
MANUEL PISTNER
But that means you give away a little bit of control. Even if you have people sitting in Portugal, there might be a manager that keeps control of what happens there. But it’s less control then if all people would be in the same headquarter. So this could be a step forward into more flexible workforce, right?
MARCUS RAITNER
Absolutely
MANUEL PISTNER
So more and more small teams across the globe, for example. And then they these teams prove that it works, that they deliver results even if they are not in the headquarter and after that the next shift could be people who work from home and then people become freelancers. This could be a transformation.
Marcus Raitner
Absolutely. And and this agile transformation has Also one benefit that you don’t need so much control on the input anymore, because you see output every three weeks. So, you can control or you can check all three weeks whether you are heading in the right direction or whether stuff is is getting done, and then you are looking at the outcomes and the output and not just look at the people sitting in your office, right?
MANUEL PISTNER
Yes, absolutely.
MARCUS RAITNER
This really is a benefit in goes in the right direction.
MANUEL PISTNER
So there are currently many organizations that say agile, of course we do that, but it’s just the buzzword on their wall on their next agenda for the next meeting. They are not agile. How can organizations check if they are agile? If I go to an organization, how can I see is this organization really working and thinking agile?
MARCUS RAITNER
That’s not easy.
So what I’m looking at mostly is if they are just agile in one small part like say they are just doing the software development in a agile way, but in front of it there is one year writing some paper and then after it, it’s getting integrated in a software release and a half a year later it’s it’s released. So they are not agile in a end to end fashion, but they just doing some software development in sprint’s but this is not the same thing. And and one question I normally ask is, why they think they want to be agile? So and the people tell you different things, then. It depends on whether they have understood it or whether they don’t. What agile really means, and the most common question is they want to be more efficient and they want to be fast ans stuff like this.
And, but this is, in my opinion, not the core of agility. The core of agility is adaptability. So it’s about being flexible, being able to change direction, very fast. And this is not per se, efficient. It’s, it’s not efficient, but it has to do with not knowing where to go. It has to do with uncertainty. And if you ask for the why, basically the people have to admit somehow that there is uncertainty. And if they if they have understood this uncertainty, they are in the right direction. But if they are still plan driven are still thinking they can plan for like about two years in in advance, and then tell me they are doing this in a agile way, this is a contradiction.
MANUEL PISTNER
Absolutely. This even made it much more clear for me, what is agile or what is the difference between agile and efficiency you can be efficient if you plan a year and then implement for two years can be efficient. But if you want to be agile, it’s more about flexibility and adaptability. That is very, very good to hear. And that make something more clear too. And that’s a huge goal for organizations to be more flexible because the world changes every day fast. So if we face organizations be not agile today. What can an organization or a manager do tomorrow, to get one step closer to be an agile
MARCUS RAITNER
Hmm. Well, this, of course depends of the organization and what they are doing. But I think the most important thing is to leave behind this plan driven paradigm. Most people have this thing we have to plan out like for a year or even two years in advance and then just implement stuff. And this is not like the world is working at the moment. So they have to, rethink. I would suggest that you rethink this plan driven paradigm and go more to a value driven paradigm so not to plan everything for the next three years, but instead, have a bold vision like we want to fly to the moon. But then focus on the next steps for the next three weeks and get those done. And then see if you’re one step closer to the goal or if you aren’t, so it’s about getting feedback in short cycles towards a bold goal.
MANUEL PISTNER
I think going bold is what many organizations really miss. Because if you don’t go bold, you will not make mistakes and you are always moving in your comfort zone. And that feels good for people.
MARCUS RAITNER
Yeah, of course,
MANUEL PISTNER
They want to move forward faster flexible, but they want to stay in their comfort zone and do you have something like a training or an advice how people can train to leave their comfort zone to be more flexible in their mindset and move to an agile direction?
MARCUS RAITNER
Well, not not, not really. Um, what we recently tried to is to work more with objective and key results, which came from Google, which wasn’t not invented at Google but more detail. What which is about setting bold goals right. But then if you talk about goals in a large corporation, your top you probably always talk about bonuses you always talk about all these mistakes you have in the system, which are built on this paradigm that of the lazy human right. You always have to motivate people.
You build organizations that you give bonuses to getting those to those goals. But this is will not get you the bold goals and we will not give you the vision and the direction you need. So you have to come up with these things. But objectives and key results is a great method for setting goals.
MANUEL PISTNER
But doesn’t this require more transparency, if you really want to set key results and go bold, that means that if the organization wants people to move into a bold goals direction, they need to be able to see and understand how their daily actions influenced their way to this goal. Doesn’t just require much, much more transparency than organizations have today.
MARCUS RAITNER
Absolutely. But what what is the sense in in setting goals without transparency, but I mean, but what is the sense of a goal that is just in just in a few managers heads, but not in the hands of the people that are doing the work, right It just doesn’t make sense to you. You need this transparency.
So yeah, definitely advocate is that we need this transparency. Yeah. And it’s If we’re talking really about radical transparency. I mean, making everything open. Make salaries open, make your financial statements of the organization open, make really everything open so that each and every smart mind in the organization can understand what’s happening everywhere, and act to solve problems where they appear.
MANUEL PISTNER
What do you think is necessary to move into this direction of radical transparency?
MARCUS RAITNER
Well, I have no answer for this. I tried this in the startup years, and I even failed in the startup, yes, on this point. So we had a lot of transparency. But we had we didn’t have this radical transparency and I wanted it but we couldn’t agree on it, basically. So I even didn’t manage it to get this transparency in this startup. And I have no idea whatsoever, how to transform a corporation in this direction. I’m not sure this will be possible.
MANUEL PISTNER
Maybe it’s because not all people have the same interest working in this organization.
MARCUS RAITNER
Maybe but then we should ask why? Why is it that they don’t have the same interests? So why is it that they don’t feel the same purpose because they have lost it somehow. And they don’t see their contribution to this purpose anymore because either they don’t know the purpose or they don’t feel the connection to their contribution and so on. So, well in the end, it’s a it’s a deficit in leadership, right. Don’t get across this purpose. If you don’t, if you have people that don’t feel this purpose, you have a leadership problem.
MANUEL PISTNER
That’s the next problem now we have leadership, agile, digital, virtual. So there are definitely many many challenges and challenges that corporations are facing. To sum it up, it was a great conversation with you it was very valuable for me as well to understand how things are going at the BMW, how you think and how you define leadership and agile culture. I will definitely follow up on your blog post and social media if others want to follow up on your latest content. Where can they contact you and reach out to you?
MARCUS RAITNER
Um, the best thing is to to, like you mentioned to read my blog posts in my in my blog where I publish it originally. The blog is called “Führung erfahren”. And you will probably link it in the show notes anyway, for because for the English speaking people its not so easy, and I never translated the title. But the blog posts are in English and in German. So this is the best place and then LinkedIn and Twitter are the second best places, I think. Yes.
MANUEL PISTNER
Okay, perfect. Then, thanks a lot for having the time here on the show. It was very valuable, again for me to understand what’s going on there. And I hope it would stay in contact. Thanks for being here.
MARCUS RAITNER
Of course.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you.
CHRIS REEVES
I’d like to thank our guests Marcus Raitner for joining us today. You can find out more about Marcus on his website using the link in the show notes. You can subscribe to the Virtual Frontier or leave a review on Apple podcast, Google Play Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere else podcasts are found. If you’d like to learn more about using virtual teams as a service, visit flashhub.io. On behalf of the team here at Flash Hub, I’d like to thank you for listening. So until next episode, keep exploring new frontiers.
