A brief note on my Agile journey:

I adopted Agile in the year 2007/08 when I was leading the development effort with a small team for developing Cash Trading System for Putnam. I adopted the methodology out of the need at that time. My project before trading system, I adopted a standard Iterative Development methodology to develop components (now called Micro Service). During this effort, we developed each component independently, and then integrated them after they were developed. I had been successfully developing product in this fashion until then. However, that time, it did not go as planned. I along with a friend, end up working nights to get all components integrated. This experience basically led me to find and use a methodology that allowed incremental development, Agile.

At this time Agile was on its early stage. What draw me most was starting with Minimal Viable Product (MVP). Thus, when I took the Trading system project, I basically sold to my bosses and business that first week, they will see “Hello.” The second week, they will see “Hello There.” The idea was build small vertically sliced features so that each week, business would see progression of the product. I also conveyed to business that they were in the driver’s seat, and could change functionality as they wished as we developed. So, started my journey with Agile.

Fast forward, last year, at SSGM, my boss asked me and my team to develop Post Trade Reporting for the MiFID II. This time, I took one more step forward and implemented Test Driven Development (TDD). We were the first team to implement TDD successfully in the corporation. We were also a chosen pilot team.

Having said that, I am technologist (Dev Lead/Solution Architect) at heart who when needed gets hands dirty in writing codes but also lead team as Scrum master, and Agile Mentor for the team and help guide the team to be the most efficient and successful in delivering highest possible quality product.