The Flip Effect: Shifting Our Way of Working

With Shirley Rompis, Shita Maharani, and Rangga Bayu Triachyani

What factors make a great digital product?

It’s not just about having top-notch talent or using the latest technology. A great product is also born out of a different way of working, one that fosters creativity, collaboration, and innovation. But it doesn’t stop there.

In order to succeed in the long term, this approach must also enable a sustainable culture of innovation that can adapt and evolve as your organization grows. This means implementing a way of working that is not only scalable but also able to keep pace with changing customer needs and technological advancements.

With this vision in mind, DKatalis began a gradual transition to LeSS, with each Clan adopting this new way of working over time. This approach has enabled them to take a more holistic view of the development process, better alignment of the teams’ efforts, improve collaboration, and ultimately deliver better outcomes for the users.

A Brief explanation of LeSS

Just like its name suggests, LeSS takes the popular Scrum framework and scales it to meet the needs of larger organizations. While Scrum tends to focus on a single team, LeSS takes a more holistic approach, considering the entire organization with more than 200 people in its implementation.

“LeSS is Scrum applied to many teams working together on one product.” -LeSS website

At its core, LeSS is built on a set of principles that cover a wide range of topics, from collaboration to development practices. And while there are many aspects of LeSS that are worthy of discussion, this article will focus specifically on the LeSS implementation for the DKatalis engineering team.

One of the key areas where LeSS emphasizes excellence is in technical practices. By focusing on technical excellence, the team can improve their product development process and increase the effectiveness of their improvement iterations. This approach allows the team to not only focus on delivering practical solutions but also prioritize maintainability, reducing the likelihood of preventable blockers slowing down delivery progress.

Flip, the LeSS implementation

Imagine a small ripple in a vast ocean, slowly growing and spreading its reach until it touches every corner of the sea. This is exactly how the LeSS implementation started at DKatalis, and it’s been making waves ever since! Instead of having company-wide training, DKatalis decided to conduct the implementation per Clan, making the transition from Scrum to LeSS much more manageable and efficient.

The implementation process itself is called a “flip,” and it’s comprised of a series of ceremonies and workshops that truly transform the way teams work. One of the most exciting aspects of the flip is self-designing the team.

While most teams are pre-assigned by companies, during the flip, the existing teams within the Clan are disbanded, and the members are required to form a new team themselves. This means they get to choose their own team members while still ensuring a balance of capability, experience, and skills. This newfound freedom leads to a higher sense of ownership and a more improved dynamic within the team. Plus, the team size is cut down to almost one-third of the previous one, allowing for more effective communication and collaboration.

Then, come the LeSS in Action workshops, which aim to improve the engineers’ capabilities by introducing them to the latest trends in software engineering, such as CI/CD, Clean Code, and Test Automation. The most experienced engineers from each clan attended these workshops first, with hopes that they would later help the other members to transition smoothly.

The LeSS impact

LeSS implementation requires a significant investment of time and resources, and the leaders at DKatalis knew they were taking a leap of faith when they decided to adopt it. But the question remains: Was it worth all the hard work? Partnership, being one of the early clans to undergo the flip process, can attest to the change LeSS brought to their workflow.

Before the implementation, the Partnership Clan operated like any other team in a tech company. Each team had almost 20 members, and they focused on one specific partner in the Jago App ecosystem. They operated independently of one another.

However, this arrangement presented several problems that might undermine the clan’s success:

• Imbalance in team: The team composition was uneven, with an overwhelming number of mid-to-junior engineers compared to the senior members. However, the seniors tended to dominate the conversation and take on the more interesting projects, leaving the mid-to-junior engineers with limited opportunities for growth.
• Working in silos: Although the Partnership teams had a common goal of integrating all partners into the Jago system, each team operated in silos with little communication or collaboration. Different backlogs and ceremonies made it difficult to track each other’s progress, and when similar projects arose, one team would often create a solution without realizing another team had already done so. This resulted in conflicts, duplications, and unexpected breaks that caused chaos and delays.
• No knowledge sharing: Despite the common goal of integrating all partners into the Jago system, each team was like a puzzle piece that fit only within its own defined space. They had a narrow understanding of the partners other than the one they were handling, even the senior members of each team. This lack of collaboration and communication resulted in a high reliance on one expert member and an operation halt when that member was absent.

Then, the team was flipped, and the Partnership Clan was “born.” The teams were rearranged to only consist of 5 members and no longer solely handle a single partner. The noticeable changes that answered the problems before:

• More equal growth opportunities: The team size has been trimmed down to a more balanced and manageable number, providing an equal chance for every member to take on more challenging tasks. There’s also the democratization of team leadership, where juniors and mids can initiate sprint planning and retrospective sessions as ceremonies are no longer solely the responsibilities of the senior members. Moreover, LeSS promotes pair programming, providing an excellent platform for knowledge sharing and growth within the team.
• Safe environment to grow soft skills: Some individuals struggle with expressing themselves in large group settings, especially in a crowded room filled with senior colleagues. But, when such individuals aren’t given a chance to share their thoughts, it can stifle their growth and prevent them from realizing their full potential. LeSS allows the team to operate in a more intimate setting, fostering an environment where individuals feel comfortable expressing their ideas and concerns. This nurturing atmosphere provides ample opportunities for the team members to sharpen their communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills.
• Better knowledge sharing: Instead of per team, the backlog is now assigned per Clan, which every member grooms together during refinement sessions. This way, the team can avoid duplications, conflicts, and delays. Furthermore, the entire Clan now handles all the partners, which pushes members to share their experiences and knowledge to help others understand the bigger picture. This allows for greater flexibility in problem-solving, as any available team member can step up and solve the issue at hand. Furthermore, by sharing partner management responsibilities, engineers now have a better work-life balance.

What’s next?

The implementation of LeSS has shown a significant impact so far. However, there is always room for improvement, as growth is rarely achieved in one giant leap but rather through incremental steps.

• Bringing the confidence to a larger scope: While many team members have gained confidence in sharing their thoughts and ideas within their teams, some still struggle to do so in larger Clan settings, such as during Backlog Refinement sessions. Creating a sense of ease and comfort within these larger group settings is critical to fostering true collaboration and unlocking the full potential of the team.
• Enhancing capabilities: LeSS operates on a highly democratic framework, giving each team the freedom to design and operate their processes while still being guided by an Agile Coach. This autonomy is empowering, but it also requires team members to effectively assess the effectiveness of their processes, identify areas for improvement, and take action to address them. The skills and capabilities to do so need to be fostered.

Continuous improvement is a never-ending journey that requires constant refinements along the way. However, it’s an essential process to deliver exceptional products and services to our users. So, stay tuned for future updates as we continue on this journey of growth and excellence.

And if you want to be part of a self-designing, self-managing, and continuously growing team, we’re hiring! Take your chance and join us!