Lindsay Velecina: 0:03

Welcome to the scrum.org community podcast, a podcast from the home of Scrum. In this podcast we feature professional scrum trainers and other scrum practitioners sharing their stories and experiences to help learn from the experience of others. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Dave West: 0:20

Hello, and welcome to the Scrum.org community podcast. I'm your host, Dave West CEO here@scrum.org talking to you from sunny Boston, Massachusetts, which is, which has been unusual. It's been raining a lot here. Now today's podcast I'm really very excited about because we're talking about a topic that really does interest me, you know, over the last 20 years or so since I've been involved in the agile movement. Japan has always loomed in the psyche of agility because of lean manufacturing Toyota Production System, God design system, the ideas of that new new product game that was written by the same authors that talked about the Toyota the Toyota way. So Japan has been this very interesting topic. So today's podcast, we're very fortunate that we have a professional scrum trainer based in in Japan in Tokyo, Gregory Fontaine. So I'd like to welcome Gregory to the to the podcast today. Welcome to the podcast, Gregory.

Gregory Fontaine: 1:26

Hey, Dave. Welcome, everyone. Yeah, I'm calling from a rainy Tokyo late evening. But yeah, happy to be here.

Dave West: 1:34

It's great to have you. And so you're not Japanese. You weren't born in Japan. Right, Gregory? So tell me a little bit about your journey to Tokyo and to Japan and during agility in Japan?

Gregory Fontaine: 1:49

Sure. So I'm 38. I came to Japan six years ago, when I was 32. I was already a scrum master and a consultant at the time. And as I was consulting for one of my clients in France, in Paris, they had an office in Tokyo, and they were looking to implement some of the things that were working well for them in France, also in the Tokyo office, or at least explore. And when they heard that I knew some Japanese just a little bit at the time, but some Japanese, they said, why don't you come over? And that's what took me and my family to Tokyo six years ago.

Dave West: 2:35

Wow. That's, that's a big, big, big move. So I guess, you know, we'll start with the elephant in the, in the room, there was a recent survey that you shared with me, IPA survey 2021, that does not paint a particular great picture of agility in Japan. What's your take on that? And you know, how is agility in Japan?

Gregory Fontaine: 3:05

Yeah, that's a big, big one. I don't know if we can explore it exhaustively in 10 minutes, but but I can try and share with you your perspective on that. Yeah. So there's this great paper from the IPA in Japan, a white paper they published a couple years ago, and which I think they're going to be keeping on updating every now and then. And they asked questions to people in different industries in organizations in Japan and the US. And let me share just some of those questions. One of them was for instance, how much progress have you made with design thinking in your organization with Agile development in your organization with DevOps in your organization? And possible answers were from we do not know what it is all the way through, we are using it company wide. And the difference between US and Japan is is is mind boggling. To say the least we can see for instance, that agile development is according to the respondents in the US used company wide by 25% of the organizations. And that number is only 4.3% in Japan. For DevOps, that would be 3%. Design. Yeah. 4.5%. So now, you might argue that maybe it's just that they are not familiar with the term or the concept or or the tool or the technique, but the underlying principles are already in place. But there are other questions that clearly tell us that this is not the case, for example, and Michelle just one, one more item In the report, the question was in your organization, IT systems can be updated quickly and securely in response to changes from not achieved at all, not, we are not able to do that at all or all the way through, we can do that easily. And in the US 35.8% of the respondents said, yeah, we can do that. And in Japan that 3.6%. That's very worrying. So, other questions in the report very, very, to the point as well, regard, but anyways, they all kind of paint the same picture, those questions in the report, which is Japan, organizations, for the most part, are not where the US is. And it's not just a difference in the techniques that are used or the practices are in place. It also impacts the ability to respond to change and, yeah, agility. So I think it doesn't matter. And it is an important question for anyone who cares about the future of Japan economy.

Dave West: 6:21

It is interesting, because obviously, we don't do Agile to be agile, we do it to deliver more value faster to respond to the environment we're at to create an environment where teams are empowered to deliver value, etc. So do you think that these survey results, you know, obviously, the time to market kind of thing, which you described as when there's a problem can how quickly, you know, can we fix that sort of stuff? Do you think that this, the survey results are illustrative of that? Let's let's just pick on innovation, for instance, do you feel that Japanese companies have an Innovation Challenge? Do you think that

Gregory Fontaine: 7:07

maybe I'm going to contradict myself a number of times during this this this podcast, because some people are too pessimistic. And some people are maybe just not seeing how big the opportunity. So I want to speak to those two populations. So when it comes to innovation, I think I think there are some innovating innovative companies out there in Japan, and innovative products are being developed. Not just 3040 years ago, even today, it's happening in the gaming space. Of course, you've got products that everybody knows about Sony's PlayStation five and Nintendo Switch. You've got Toyota and Nissan and Honda investing in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, maybe not commercializable product yet, but it's definitely promising technology and those companies are at the forefront of it. You've got companies innovating in the robotics field as well, like as big Softbank robotics group. They are number one globally in sales of professional facility robots. Maybe you've seen them as one of your McDonald's in the US, I think, one of their clients, yeah, you've got FANUC in the industry field as well, industrial robots that are also blood vessels in the field. You've got Fujifilm with advanced diagnostic imaging solutions. You've got pharma companies as well. Takeda in the oncology space, for instance, asi chugai are still us at Sankyo, so you get and then you've got space as well. So JAXA is big in space, you've got some startups in space, as the Japanese startup called eyespace. Just failed to but at least they tried. And they were almost there. Yeah, to land a rover on the moon just a few days ago. So yeah, it's wrong. It's incorrect to say that Japan is not innovating thing at all. And 111 More piece of data for everyone. If you look at the number of patent applications, Japan is is number three behind China in the US. If you look at, well, you're gonna say that's just investment, just input. But r&d investment is huge, huge in Japan. So I see potential, I definitely see potential. You've got also the GI Global Innovation Index, which is an interesting piece of data. It ranks Japan as number of Thirteen's in the world in terms of innovation. So yeah, it has some potential. Now. Could you do better? Yeah, I think so. And could agility help? I also believe that strongly Yes.

Dave West: 10:08

And do you think that really this sort of like these kind of opposing ideas of agility is, obviously we have some data that shows that Agile is not that successful organizations aren't on doing that. And then we've got all of these amazing innovators around, you know, that Japan is delivering to the world. So do you think that it is more mainstream companies in Japan are having a really hard time doing innovation, doing agility becoming more? Do you think that's the case? Gregory?

Gregory Fontaine: 10:47

Yeah, I think that's definitely happening. That you can't develop a product that has the kind of, like Nintendo Switch with the kind of user experience that it has without using an empirical approach, obviously. So that know how of developing something empirically exists in Japan, obviously. But it doesn't seem to penetrate all the industries. And that's the same.

Dave West: 11:18

Yeah, and we saw the same, I describe agile adoption in the US as really late majority. Now. You know, if an organization hasn't got some sort of set of capability around agility, I'm surprised. And the ones that tend not to have or doing early adoption now tend to be in that sort of like late adopter paradigm that might be because of the economics of the industry they work in maybe it's a slow industry, it might be because of the limited use of technology in that industry. Maybe it's construction, though, construction, interestingly, now has become technology crazy. The use of planning, the use of material science, the use of technology is sort of like skyrocketed, rocketed just to get time to market, but it the digital footprint of these organizations, or these industries tend to be low now in Japan. And it seems to be that the early majority is still it's more in that stage. Is that a right hypothesis? Do you think? Oh, no.

Gregory Fontaine: 12:25

Yeah, yeah. And I want to bring one more point here. I'm not, I'm not sure. To what extent this is true, but it feels like Japan is doing okay, in terms of innovation still. And it still does good in r&d, and patent applications and so on. Not because it's great at agility, but because it has other assets, very smart, well educated people, really hardworking people, great institutions. If efficiency, effectiveness, the ability to execute, these could be assets, that they have that compensate for the lack of agility. Of course, they would want to leverage Julie while preserving those other assets. But but it could be that the belly, the belly managed to be innovative enough to to stay, you know, in the top 50 of the most innovative countries, because of those other assets. Possibly.

Dave West: 13:31

That's, that's interesting. So ultimately, the things that make them awesome, obviously, create that innovation and do stuff. But unfortunately, they could be even more awesome is what you're saying if they thought about just some of the ideas of agility. So let's, let's lean into that a little bit draggy, in sort of late last section of this podcast, and this is obviously an introduction, I think there's going to be opportunity for several more, but it is this lean into culture, because I think that's where I've seen and we have PSATs in Japanese organizations that I've been invited to. And the one thing that is starkly different from, you know, going into these kinds of organizations compared to go into the traditional US organizations is the culture you you can feel it's a different company, when you when you go in and even though these have all been based in the US the ones I well, and Europe where I visited, so talk me for a little bit about culture.

Gregory Fontaine: 14:35

Yeah, yeah, um, the way that I look at it, nothing in Japan is going to be a showstopper for agility. There are going to be delays or different obstacles, but but I'm very confident that they are going to be unique assets as well. And I've seen enough Um, Japanese organization be successful at adopting new ways of working. And I've seen in worked with successful Scrum teams enough to be able to say that it can happen. Yeah. So yeah, let's see, what are some of those obstacles to Agile adoption, cultural obstacles, let's say. So, Japanese, let me just name a few. And if you want to explore more happy to do the dive deeper, but there's more rules and more warnings here. What could go wrong, at least everything that could go wrong, and let's have a plan for all of the things. They like that I normally they like rules, but they have a high tolerance for rules. And much more than the French people. For instance, I can't speak for the American people. But I know I know that the French don't have that, that tolerance for for rules and warnings. They also take pride in careful planning. A meeting, a successful meeting is not necessarily going to be a meeting where a lot was learned and uncovered. It's more like a meeting where things happened as planned. Yeah. And if as a facilitator, you haven't, you haven't planned everything and controlled everything, then you haven't done a good job is how people are going to look at you as the facilitator or the owner of a meeting. Yeah. Risk aversion is a big topic depends on what we mean by it. But generally speaking, I think Japanese people Yeah, risk averse. The incentive for doing something new, that might fail, like, even if, like, let's say you, you have a bet, and it's 55% Likely to Succeed and 45% likely not to succeed. You should in the long run, always be making that bet, right. Except, except if if you're risk averse, if you feel like the price of failing is higher than the reward for being successful. And I think that's kind of how it is here. In many organizations. They don't reward risk takers. And if you fail, sometimes you go on TV, you apologize and things like that. So risk aversion. You know, they are detailed, detail oriented as well. So these things don't help.

Dave West: 17:39

So tell. And hierarchy. I've always been very struck in the organization's I've gone into that there's a there's a heart a hierarchical element that, that I barely understand being a sort of Englishman in in America, who seems to Yeah, so I sort of go in there. My usual bombastic way. So it's quite a hierarchical culture. From what I've observed from these organizations.

Unknown: 18:09

Yes, there are things that Berea has an o yorkeys. between people, right from the get go, such as the kind of grammar and language and words that you're going to use depends on who is this more senior person? Or who's the boss? So yeah, those things don't help. That's for sure. But but but but, but but I'm not so sure. It has a big impact on how decisions are made. For instance, I think. Yeah, I think I think I think in the US, your leaders, you you appreciate a strong leader who makes bold decisions and everyone's followers, right? They as the Steve Jobs skilled,

Dave West: 18:54

yes. The Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. These sort of guys. Yeah,

Gregory Fontaine: 19:00

exactly. In a sense, in a sense, an organization that values consensus based decision making might, might be better off when it comes to adopting Django ways of making decisions, so I'm not so yeah. There are different ways to look at it. Now, when you want one more aspect is that you said that agility is at a stage here in Japan, where only the early adopters are doing it? Many of whom they don't know that they are doing Agile development. But yeah, I think you're right. Those companies that are really hierarchical, where as soon as senior person comes in the room, then everyone changes their attitude, those organizations. I'm not I'm not too interested in those organizations yet, because I know they're not going to be next to adopt agility. Yeah, I'm more interested For the next few years to come in helping organizations that are not familiar with agility, but that have a culture that is suitable for different ways of organizing, working, making decisions and so on. So, and many organizations are like that, I think.

Dave West: 20:18

So, Gregory. So ultimately, there are some challenges in culturally, it's funny, it is impossible to totally generalize. You know, there's companies in the US that are very different from other companies in the US, there's companies in the Netherlands, there's companies in France, Germany, England, wherever it is, these these generalizations are interesting, though, they're not necessarily always accurate. However, I have to say that the Netherlands is a great example of probably one of the most agile places I've ever been, you know, in terms that you go to, you go to Starbucks, and the person opposite you, as you're wearing your scrum.org T shirt, and somebody goes, I've got a PSM, you're like, Well, okay, hi, nice to Nice to meet you. It's I've never been to a country. And to some extent, many of the things that you described are the opposite in, in the Netherlands, for instance, they don't really hierarchy, hierarchy is not really a challenge everything, they're always looking for delivering value. I mean, if you build a country below sea level, you there's always going to be the need for empirical feedback, data, checking things continue, though that sort of small bets, because you know, there might be a flood tomorrow. So I think there are some, some interesting learnings from the culture of Orgonite of kind of countries and the way these organizations or these teams reside. However, obviously, we always have to look at it with a little bit of a, you know, the, it's, it's, it's interesting, it's not necessarily always accurate. So tell me, and just in this final few minutes of the podcast, and I think I'd love to lean in a little bit on some of these more these topics. So how, when you've been working with these organizations, how have you encouraged them to change some of these behaviors? What what's the way is it the classic model, which is the US model, which is small success leads to big success, prove, prove it over and over and over again. And slowly people start to pay attention to it? Or is this some different formula in in Japan and Tokyo, where you are?

Gregory Fontaine: 22:38

Not that I have seen in all cases, it's been, as you describe, start small, usually, with even if you start small, with sponsorship at the highest level. And then from there, I can tell a couple of stories, maybe here, art is just one when I was a consultant, a few years ago, one of our clients with large Japanese insurance company, very traditional one that has existed for centuries. And and they decided they realized that there was a market opportunity with customers in their 20s or 30s. And that they were late compared to their competitors in that particular segment. And the main reason for them being late was their lack of digitalization of many of their processes, and marketing channels, and so on. So they decided to tackle that problem using the tackle that problem. And so after a few weeks or months of discussing how they were going to do that, and what kind of team they needed for that. Everyone was on the same page that they needed a cross functional team that was able to test ideas super quickly. And so they staffed a team of financial planners, and IT folks and designers and so on, and all those people will be put into one big team room that was just before COVID. And they were able to design new features and push them to production. On their website, they were able to design us scripts for the financial planners, and the next day the financial planners would test those scripts on the phone with the customers and come back to the teams and debrief. And all of that was made possible because of that high level was sponsorship from there and the organization learned and they learned the day they would benefit from a similar approach elsewhere in their organizations as well. I've got other stories that are very similar start small yet with a strong level. All sponsorship and expand.

Dave West: 25:02

Yeah. And I think that that's the key really. And that's the key and in the US as well, it's, I think it's, this is no secret sauce. I think it's the worldwide model. Start small get that executive sponsorship, get those get those wins, demonstrate that value persuade those cynics get them as advocates and then slowly slowly you you the adoption grows and and it can even if it doesn't at least you've managed to do one thing well at the end of the day, right? Exactly. Okay. Steve it is. It is always interesting. I'm, I'm super excited about the Japanese market I, what we didn't have chance to talk about today, which I really would like to spend some more time on is a little bit more what what is different, I think we should explore that in a little bit more detail. And also this connection with lean and, and how relevant Lean is to the agile movement, but also to the culture of of of Japan. So I'd like to put a little pin in that. Let's come back to that in a future episode. And thank you for spending the time. Gregory with us today.

Gregory Fontaine: 26:28

Thank you, Dave for asking great questions as always, and happy to have another session later. Later.

Dave West: 26:35

Brilliant. All right, everybody. I'd like to thank Gregory Fontaine. We'll put a link to that survey that we were talking about in the notes to this to this podcast so you can have a look if you're interested. This is the scrum.org community podcast. I was I guess I've still am your host Dave West here@scrum.org. We were fortunate today to have Gregory Fontaine, based in Tokyo talking to us a little bit about Japan and agility. Really interesting topic. We could have gone on for hours, but there'll be future episodes about this and other topics that the scrum.org community and maybe you will find interesting. So thanks for listening. We really appreciate you being there. Have a fantastic day and Scrum on everybody