Wipro's agile practice transforms service delivery

Wipro, the third largest IT services company in the country, has set a new benchmark in service delivery by bringing in the agile movement, which seeks an alternative to traditional project management, among 80% of its employees.

“We have provided a basic training course on agile for 80% of our employees. A majority of our customers are requesting us to make it available, as part of our solution offering,” said Wipro GM and Head (Continuos Improvement) Rituparna Ghosh, in an interaction with DH.

Besides computer-based learning, Wipro has brought in gamification as part of agile methodologies, which is an alternative to the waterfall, or traditional sequential development in the IT organisation.

“If an employee is in the agile project, he/she will have to undergo a specific course. The coach or scrum master will spend time with them to clear doubts. These coaches give specific training, both in the process and behavioural aspects,” said Ghosh.

When asked about the number of trainers, she said, “Apart from practising (non-dedicated) coaches, at present, Wipro has around 50 dedicated coaches. Some senior employees will end up as coaches, as a part of a grooming programme that we run.”

To become a scrum master, employees should have participated in agile projects earlier. They will also need to undergo 25 hours of online learning, followed by a two-day internal certification course. For a select set of high performers, there is a two-month boot camp. As part of this, the organisation has undergone some restructuring.

“We have made our organisation flatter as we moved away from the traditional project. Now, we have scrum master, product developer and coders in one layer without any hierarchies,” she said.

People don’t report to traditional managers, as the scrum demands that the team should be self-organised.

Wipro started the specific Organisation Change management initiative — Enterprise Agility — a year-and-a-half ago, by piloting it in some of its large programmes, covering more than 3,000 odd people.

According to analysts, about 40% of TCS and Infosys employees have adopted agile methodologies in the organisation, and will have to go a long way in its adoption.