The term “agile” has been widely discussed by organizations nowadays to mean the ability to move quickly and easily. Started in the software development companies, the use of agile methodologies helped employees to be more collaborative, adaptive to change and flexible. With the emergence of organizations such as agile and scrum alliance, one of the popular agile methodologies – scrum, has started to gain its recognition in other industries as well. However, there is still not many research done on the effect of this agile methodology on business performance. Thus, in this study, I conducted interview on the first scrum team within the Roche Foundation Medicine (RFM) unit in Roche Taiwan. I examine the application of the four values of the agile manifesto in the scrum team, and analyze the successful application and challenges that they face while implementing the agile values in scrum within the pharmaceutical industry. I also compared the difference between the standard scrum frameworks used by the software development and examine the differences observed when it is adopted by the RFM scrum team. Apart from that, I also examine the effect of cultivation of agile mindsets and behaviors among employees while they are applying scrum in their work process. It is believed that the agile mindsets and behaviors could help improve the company’s business performance. Based on the outcome of the research from the beginning of the first sprint until the end of the second sprint, we observed improvement in terms of trust & transparency, empowered team, collaboration and experimentation & fast learning, although there is still room for improvement in cultivating these mindsets and behaviors among employees. There is still no clear focus in terms of defining the targeted customer of the team. This is worth our further consideration on the suitability of scrum in projects where members are unable to identify relevant customers. Based on the outcome of the interview, it can be concluded that only collaboration is achieved with great success. The local affiliate emphasizes more on the agile practice than change of mindset and behavior as compared to the global affiliates. It is believed that the Roche group is moving towards the right direction in its agile transformation, although it takes time for both leaders and non-leaders of the local affiliates to truly embrace agile mindsets and behaviors in their daily work. It is believed that the use of scrum will improve as employee learn from error, understand what scrum is about, apply scrum in their work and eventually tailor made the scrum framework that meets the need of the team.
The term “agile” has been widely discussed by organizations nowadays to mean the ability to move quickly and easily. Started in the software development companies, the use of agile methodologies helped employees to be more collaborative, adaptive to change and flexible. With the emergence of organizations such as agile and scrum alliance, one of the popular agile methodologies – scrum, has started to gain its recognition in other industries as well. However, there is still not many research done on the effect of this agile methodology on business performance. Thus, in this study, I conducted interview on the first scrum team within the Roche Foundation Medicine (RFM) unit in Roche Taiwan. I examine the application of the four values of the agile manifesto in the scrum team, and analyze the successful application and challenges that they face while implementing the agile values in scrum within the pharmaceutical industry. I also compared the difference between the standard scrum frameworks used by the software development and examine the differences observed when it is adopted by the RFM scrum team. Apart from that, I also examine the effect of cultivation of agile mindsets and behaviors among employees while they are applying scrum in their work process. It is believed that the agile mindsets and behaviors could help improve the company’s business performance. Based on the outcome of the research from the beginning of the first sprint until the end of the second sprint, we observed improvement in terms of trust & transparency, empowered team, collaboration and experimentation & fast learning, although there is still room for improvement in cultivating these mindsets and behaviors among employees. There is still no clear focus in terms of defining the targeted customer of the team. This is worth our further consideration on the suitability of scrum in projects where members are unable to identify relevant customers. Based on the outcome of the interview, it can be concluded that only collaboration is achieved with great success. The local affiliate emphasizes more on the agile practice than change of mindset and behavior as compared to the global affiliates. It is believed that the Roche group is moving towards the right direction in its agile transformation, although it takes time for both leaders and non-leaders of the local affiliates to truly embrace agile mindsets and behaviors in their daily work. It is believed that the use of scrum will improve as employee learn from error, understand what scrum is about, apply scrum in their work and eventually tailor made the scrum framework that meets the need of the team.