Leading and Optimizing Product-Focused Technology Organizations

Hi there! I’m Yuval Yeret.

I spent the first half of my career leading product/tech organizations in hybrid product environments.

While I half-joke that we were practicing DecSecOps in mainframe system networking space in the 90s, my first formal exposure to Agile was in 2006, when my organization struggled to get its act together.

I learned about Scrum and Kanban, and we leveraged them to improve our ability to build a quality, valuable product and improve our time to market.

I realized that I was good at and passionate about figuring out how to apply agile techniques to help stabilize and scale product-focused technology organizations, so I essentially pivoted from the field of computer operating systems to human/organizational operating systems.

I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with world-class thought leaders in this space and helping lead technology companies, future and current unicorns, and future-leaning IT organizations improve their ability to innovate, their time to market, and the value they create for their customers.

Along the way I’ve become a Professional Scrum.org Trainer, a SAFe SPCT and Fellow, and a certified training partner with Sense and Respond Learning. Leaders I work with appreciate the renaissance view I bring through these deep connections to a diverse set of agility and product patterns and communities.

Collaboration, Speed, and Impact Breakthroughs on New Frontiers…

My work helping leaders of complex multi-disciplinary organizations leverage agility tackle a diverse set of constraints and challenges has resulted in several breakthrough advancements:

• Helped enterprise companies worldwide use Kanban as a faster more effective path to organizational agility (some call me “Mr Kanban Israel” due to my involvement in creating a thriving enterprise kanban ecosystem in the Israeli tech sector and for Holy Land Kanban)
• Replaced theater with real flow in dozens of teams and companies and amplified the theater to flow movement by co-creating Professional Scrum with Kanban
• Championed safer more sustainable transformation approaches in the SAFe world through invitation/pull-based change.
• Brought real agility and flow to marketers worldwide by co-creating the icAgile Agile Marketing curriculum and establishing best practices for applying Agile Marketing at scale.
• Helped leaders leverage agility on new frontiers (think the latest Gillette razor) in the trenches and by documenting key insights in case studies and industry conferences.

Business Impact Through Scalable Agility

• Accelerated innovation cycles by up to 80% through the creation of strategically focused multi-disciplinary teams of teams, leveraging extreme transparency to rapidly inspect and adapt, turning multi-year efforts into nine-month wins and replacing years of frustration with visible progress and pride.
• Leveraged radical flow diet and derisking through fast feedback to restore 90%+ delivery predictability so executives stopped apologizing for delays and started trusting their plans again.
• Realigned product and tech spend to strategic priorities, transforming budget anxiety into confidence that investment drives impact.
• Replaced “Agile Theater,” with a context-appropriate agility operating model that teams and leaders are proud of. A scalable and sustainable process and structure that works for them instead of one they’re enslaved to.
• Cut months of downstream time to market delay and achieved up to 50% improvement in first-year adoption and impact of new products/features by unifying product, engineering, and commercial/revenue teams and developing go-to-market aspects using business agility techniques. 

To AI (Agility and Improvement :-) and Beyond …

Here’s what I’m up to these days:

• Using Agility to accelerate and improve the impact of strategic business innovation – leveraging agile ideas for organizational health/scaling – e.g. through frameworks such as OKRs.
• Leveraging product and agility in the search for AI Gold.
• Reintegrating agility and leadership.
• Explore more efficient and stickier ways to support leaders and organizations on their agility journey (e.g. through immersive group coaching ) – Enabling me to accelerate the replacement of agile theater and factories with impact-focused agility.
• Help agile practitioners and leaders thrive by connecting agility interventions to business outcomes and metrics that matter.

Check out my latest thinking and insights