Scaling IBM Garage with Methodology
The IBM Garage is an experience, approach, and methodology for going from an idea to a production pilot in 4 to 8 weeks. We have expanded IBM Garage and the methodology significantly and scaled it across IBM and with hundreds of clients. Learn how we are scaling through our methodology.
I co-founded the IBM Garage in April 2014 in the startup community Galvanize in San Francisco with the goal to make clients successful adopting IBM Cloud. We believed that disruption occurring across most industries would increase the imperative of companies to innovate rapidly and would drive the next wave of cloud adoption — we were right.
We co-create with clients to go from an idea to a production pilot in 4 to 8 weeks by gathering user feedback and testing key hypotheses. We engaged with over 500 clients in just the past year and, over the past five years, have expanded to 16 purpose-built locations around the world. We just launched the Milan Garage this week.
We first published our prescriptive Garage Method in October 2015 by combining best practices from Enterprise Design Thinking, Lean Startup, agile, eXtreme Programming, and devOps with our experience in leading new technology adoption for enterprise clients. We developed a compelling experience for our clients combining (1) the method (2) purpose-built collaborative spaces (3) use of IBM Cloud services including multicloud (4) talented and diverse designers, developers, and architects with (5) a culture that focuses on partnering with our clients to deliver rapid outcomes. You can learn more about how IBM Garage helps clients transform their business using IBM Cloud here and our overall Garage approach here. In recent years, we have been applying the same core MVP approach to modernizing applications, cloud operations/management, integration etc, and to a variety of technologies including blockchain, IoT, AI, etc.
This week we have announced the IBM Garage as a significant expansion of our Garage experience, approach, and capability. We have combined our proven MVP focused approach with expertise from across IBM on scaling innovation capability and cloud transformation. The new, expanded the IBM Garage Method for Cloud covers the full innovation/application lifecycle across the many dimensions needed to drive business value from innovation. We have 3 main aspects, sometimes called phases — co-create, co-execute, and co-operate.
While it is natural to use the term phases, I don’t want you to get the impression this is a waterfall approach or that there is only iteration within a phase or an activity or that you always start with co-create. This is not the case. Once you have a Garage capability established, all of the phases should be running in parallel and iterating at many points including across the phases. And while the Garage Methodology covers a complete innovation lifecycle, you may choose to only apply the method to parts of your own lifecycle — though we definitely recommend trying out the full method and experience. More on that later.
Culture and Principles
The driving force behind the IBM Garage Methodology and IBM Garage Method for Cloud is a set of principles published on the methodology site. We consider them to be additive to the classic Agile Manifesto. The principles form the foundation of our IBM Garage culture that is then adapted for local culture and client realities. Our consultants, and often clients, are trained on the method and internalize the principles through bootcamps that provide simulated project experience and through immersive experiences being on Garage squads. We have a set of practices focused on culture.
Co-Create
To co-create, we bring extensive expertise from IBMers and ecosystem partners to define the hypothesis for the next big idea that will drive business success, delight the customer, and change the market. We ideate using Enterprise Design Thinking, analyze business processes, and assess where AI and analytics can bring value to develop a candidate list of ideas — all done collaboratively and co-located with a client. Co-Create uses prescriptive practices for conducting in-depth user research, ideation, developing a minimal business cases, defining gates that assess and rank ideas and determines which ideas should be built into an MVPs — plus many more practices. There are many valuable insights and alignment gained in co-create with the concrete outcomes including a backlog of ranked ideas which will progress to be built into MVPs.
Co-Execute
The entry point for co-execute is an idea you want to test and decide whether to invest in based on end user and market feedback. Will end users adopt using the MVP and does the end user testing results support the business case? In co-execute we define or expand upon hypotheses to test, define the MVP, and design just enough delightful UX and architecture to start building the MVP. In addition to determining the minimal viable user stories to be built, we also focus on minimal viable non-functional requirements — security and data residence are always closely evaluated. With a cross-disciplinary, co-located squad staffed by IBMers and client experts, we iteratively develop the MVP using practices including pair programming, test driven development, ranked backlog, CI/CD, build to manage, and many more. We also have deep expertise on IBM Cloud technologies that we include where appropriate. Most of the time, the MVPs we develop are production pilots to get the highest fidelity end user feedback, so production quality code is developed.
Co-Operate
Co-operate is fundamentally about delivering value at global scale: driving market growth and scale around a proven MVP — creating resilient and scalable applications, integrating solutions into business infrastructure, and scaling adoption. The starting point is having at least 1 MVP you want to scale. We use the ‘MVP build’ practices and workflows from co-execute to continue to more features to grow the capabilities of the MVP. To put in place a scalable environment and/or modernize to cloud service management and operations, we apply a similar iterative approach building MVPs with a focus on adoption of specific scaling and management practices such as auto-scaling, circuit breakers, chatOps, site reliability engineering, and many others. We find more up-front architecture and coordination with other parts of IT are often needed and adapt for that.
To successfully scale a business innovation requires changing the business organization and processes to embrace the innovation. We develop new target operating models, change business processes, and determine how to best go to market. To scale most often also means scaling the organizational adoption of the Garage Methodology — setting up new metrics of success, establishing cross disciplinary squads, becoming user centric and design driven, changing leadership style, building new skills, and more.
For more information on Mueller’s story, see this case study and video.
Prescriptive, Iterative, and Adaptable
While our method is highly prescriptive with a set of workflows that provide the steps and use of practices to get to specific outcomes, we also believe in adapting the method for the realities of each client situation. An example: if you have parents on your team, you may need to adapt for a developer who leaves early to coach his kid’s soccer team, so the squad could decide to plan for some chores that they are comfortable with one developer doing or decide to write a simple user story without pairing that gets closely reviewed the next morning.
We apply the method with a strong emphasis on iteration. For example, a new security rule is passed, and you go back to ‘just enough architecture’ and write some new stories and prioritize those stories. Maybe you develop a prototype and the user feedback is ambiguous. Do you do another iteration of prototyping and testing? A production incident occurs, you recover and then write an automated test to catch the problem and refactor the code to correct the problem.
Bringing the Garage to our clients
Beyond our 16 purpose-built locations, we have trained consultants around the world who can execute Garage projects in other IBM collaborative spaces such as our IBM Studios. We have a program for partnering with clients to setup their own Garages to establish a sustainable innovation capability. And we have a range of programs to partner with our business partners. We are expanding the method with new workflows and practices frequently — some weeks daily. Our clients can also directly enable themselves on the method on our public site and earn our IBM Garage Method for Cloud badge .
As the IBM Garage teams work with our clients, we seek to have enduring partnerships. We also strive to make IBM Garage projects, teams, and locations great places to work!
I invite you to come visit one of our locations, check out our method site, and hear from our clients in their videos and case studies. Try out the IBM Garage to deliver an innovation app in 4 to 8 weeks and experience a new way of working!
Bring your plan to the IBM Garage.
Are you ready to learn more about working with the IBM Garage? We’re here to help. Contact us today to schedule time to speak with a Garage expert about your next big idea. Learn about our IBM Garage Method, the design, development and startup communities we work in, and the deep expertise and capabilities we bring to the table.
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