So I am here today to share with you, some insights into what you can do with agile in regulated industries.So, what I will be sharing, assuming that this share is the right thing, yes, is my personal experience with walking through what people can do to make milestones work for them instead of against them and, how you can still be agile in that space. So shall we get started? Alright. So who am I? Of course, this is going at a different speed than I would like. Come on. Work with me, not against me. Okay. So, here on the screen, you can see that I have a QR code to take you to my LinkedIn. I am a Agilist, aka somebody who enjoys agile, works in the agile space. And my current role is as a release train engineer at finance company. So, you might expect that that is a regulated industry here in The United States.

I have also worked with Boeing, and, of course, that again is another highly regulated industry. So who is this cute little guy in my picture? His name is Quincy. He is my special little buddy, and, unfortunately, he's not gonna make any, cameos today, but that's okay. It'll be fun without him anyway. So what has agile done in the regulation space, and what is agile? So agile practices are development methodologies. And the thing that I like to say is agile really helps us try to deliver value fast and so that we can get feedback as fast as possible. So we can get people what it is that they want or at least what we think they want based on what they've told us, and then we can go from there. So that's really one of the ways that I like to define agile. There's a lot of different methodologies out there.

There's a lot of different takes on what exactly it means. But to me, that's really what it is. It's about getting to value as fast as we can so that our, stakeholders, customers, clients, whoever it is that we're working with has the ability to give us that feedback. So I really want us to kind of keep that in mind as we're going through the rest of this because it is about that value and making sure that we're getting things out there as quickly as we can. So regulation is typically set up by governments and agencies that are part of the government, or something like that that protects people as well as make sure that we're not doing, to be blunt, stupid stuff. Right? So, we don't have doors flying off of airplanes, and we have consumer protections in place for things in the finance industry so that you're not getting taken advantage of, if you will.

So it's really about making sure that things are we can trust them, that there's safety, and then also so that you go from one bank to another, you're going to have a very similar product experience. Their specific offerings obviously are going to vary, but the guidelines that they have to offer with they have to operate within are going to be consistent. So one bank can't be predatory while another one is not. The whole goal is to make it so that no banks are predatory and that we can hold them accountable when they are. So it also puts that onus back on that institution to not only meet those regulations, but also be held accountable to them so that they can incur fines or harsher punishments if they do not meet those. So we wanna make sure that that's why we're following those regulations. So it's really the three big ones are aerospace finance and health care in my mind.

Obviously, there's probably many others. Right? Like, energy networks and power industries and stuff like that. Probably should be if they're not. But, really, it's about making sure that we're staying true to a set of rules. So where do we go from here when it comes to agile and the milestones in our framework? So milestones are a, we have this conference on this date, and we're going to meet this deliverable. I had to create this presentation and meet this deliverable. That was my milestone that I had to get it done by. So it's really a checkpoint for a timeline. And when I was working with Boeing, I was working on a development program.

The government has very specific gates that you must meet, and that meant that at this specific point, we had to have this documentation ready for the government. And we had to have specific safety requirements met at this point and those types of things. So it was very much a, hey. This is what you have to end with, and it actually helps you kinda get there. So, that's really what it is when you're talking about a milestone is it's a point in time that you have to meet or there's deliverables that have to be met at a specific point in your development. So, some people also can call those things like MVP most valuable product or point, and also minimum viable product. So it is a lot of different things that you can throw out this, but, really, if you think about it, they're all kind of the same thing.

It is something to give you a landmark that you have to meet. So one of the things is that they're rigid. And I absolutely personally challenge that. I say, no. They're not. They're not super rigid. They can be if you allow them to be. But, ideally, what you're saying is to meet our next deliverable, we need to have x, y, and z done. Potentially, that date is movable. On the other hand, maybe your milestone is the opposite where your date is inflexible, but what you can put out at that date is flexible. So it could be either one. With a lot of the government stuff, you incur fine after that specific point. A milestone could also be where you are turning off software with your company.

You're no longer in that contract, and so everything has to be out of that software at a specific point. That is your milestone that you need to track to, and it really helps you set guidelines about what it is that you're gonna put out there at that point. So so that's kind of one of the biggest misconceptions that I hear is that they're super inflexible. They're very rigid. There's nothing you can do with them. They don't mix with agile because agile doesn't have milestones or timelines, and that's not actually real. So it does require some thought. It requires planning. You can't just go through a normal scrum where you're working for two weeks, putting something out, working for two weeks, putting something out without a plan ahead of it. You have to have a plan, and you have to know where you're going. So I've mentioned that minimum viable product, the MVP.

Maybe that's what it is that you were setting as your first milestone. That's my first milestone. After that, everything is sprinkles in loveliness. It could be that it's a specific regulation has to be met by a certain point, and you know that you don't have to do anything other than just that regulation. So it's really about making sure that you are doing the right thing at the right time, which is very in line with agile and why we want to use this methodology where and when we can to make sure that we're doing the right things at the right time. And we're learning from our experience of that. Hey. You know, we didn't actually need to have all of the sprinkles on top of that. We're gonna not put sprinkles on next time. Right? So it really helps you get down to what you actually need instead of layering on all of this other stuff. So where do we go from here? We are looking at how do we do this in regulated industries.

So there is a lot of places actually in aerospace today where agile is being used. So you can see on here, it mentions NASA space launch system, f 35, which is one of our defense products, for The United States that Boeing makes. And, of course, now they sell them to others too. But, there's a lot of places where agile is in place, and it really helps to make sure that we're doing the right thing at the right time. And we're delivering value all the time instead of waiting to the end and going, hey. Don't you like this rocket? Isn't it great? And we go, no. That kinda looks like a donkey, actually. Donkeys don't fly.

So we wanna make sure that we're doing the right thing at the right time for the right customer and that we're getting value to them. And, also, as you see here, it also talks about adhering to stringent regulations. We've gotta make sure we meet those. Right? We wanna be safe, put all the bolts in the door, so that it doesn't cause harm or issue to a physical person or to a reputation or to somebody's livelihood, right, when you're talking about, finance. If you're talking about health care, right, that is hugely a big deal. Don't leave pieces of things in people's bodies. Kind of a big regulation that you probably shouldn't do, and you're gonna get sued. So let's make sure that we're hitting those things as well. So what have we done in finance? So Goldman Sachs is doing this. My company is doing this. I'm not gonna tell you who that is.

But, if you check out my LinkedIn, you can find out. And it's really about making sure that we are meeting the requirements of the governments at the appropriate time. So, of course, this is gonna be much more complicated if you're working in more than one government. I personally have not had that experience yet. Maybe maybe soon. But I it's really about making sure that if the government says jump, we say, when? When do you want us to jump, and what does that jump look like? So it's really about making sure that we are doing that compliance and that we are protecting data, especially in the IT space. Data regulations obviously are very big. We do not use a lot of AI currently because it all has to be vetted and made sure that it is taking just from internal sources and not going out to the web and making things up, because we do know that AI can imagine things at times. Obviously, we wanna make sure that we're pulling in correct things like stock prices.

But at the same time, we wanna make sure that we're not providing bad information that has been out there somewhere or the AI is just hallucinating. So how can we make all of this work? It's really pulling them together and saying, hey. This team is going to work on this piece of this. This team is gonna work on this piece of this, and at the end, they're gonna come together, and it's gonna be like this graphic. Everything's gonna work together, and that means that we are going to be able to meet the deadlines that have been set by those regulations and that compliance. So we gotta make sure every year that we're doing our annual training, those types of things. But it's also making sure that we are not losing the people in that too. So take our endpoint. Hey.

We have to have, for example, this regulation met with stocks. We can't hallucinate what that looks like. It has to be the specific thing. So how do we get there? What is required for that to happen? What systems have to be updated? How does that work? So it can be as simple as understanding what that endpoint is and the requirements around that endpoint, and then just making sure that you have a plan to get there by that point. Because, potentially, you get to that point, and you start getting a massive fine from the government by not here by not meeting that. Or you start to lose customer trust, and that's also not good. So it's really about making sure that we are not giving our people punishing schedules to make that happen by understanding the basics of what that is and not layering the cake yet if we don't need to layer it and not adding in the sprinkles.

We wanna make sure that we are only doing what is required at each point and no more. Great to do more as you're going along, but not at the expense of meeting that timeline or meeting that regulation. You potentially can overregulate yourself by doing too much too soon. So you wanna make sure that you're meeting what it says and no more. No less, but also no more because it can actually handicap you in the end. So I know I've been talking for a bit. We're almost done. I promise. And then I hope to have some time for some questions. So how can we foster innovation? We wanna make sure that companies, entities are taking the time to really think and integrate as they can. Right?

So we know recently, Tesla pulled back a bunch of cars and said, hey. We gotta do a massive software upgrade. Right? We have stuff like that. That happens all the time. If you check a application on your phone, it is getting rolled out with different updates all the time. If you are an Android user or a iPhone user, you know that you get security updates all the time as well. Same thing with Microsoft. All of those companies are doing this as we go. It is no different in a regulated industry. We wanna make sure that we are doing things that help our people and not hinder them. If we are offering a new product, what does it have to meet at the end so that we know what we gotta do today?

So you can see here that there's an example from SpaceX and also making sure that, like, fintech companies are working alongside the regulators to understand what it means, but also to potentially impact that and say, hey. That doesn't make sense for the customer. Why would we do that? So let's make sure that we're doing what we have to, but also keeping our people safe and keeping our customers safe. So it's really amazing when we have the opportunity to partner directly. As somebody who worked at Boeing, we did have FAA people on-site. They were working with us daily. They were coming out and they were inspecting things if there was a problem. They were answering questions. They were helping to make sure that the plane was doing what it was supposed to do, and that something that potentially needed to be altered was not out of compliance with the regulation.

So we wanna make sure that we're doing those things as we go. And lastly, we have future trends. Right? We're using AI a lot more. We're using machine learning. And we're trying to use those to help, one, make the things that we're doing on a daily basis easier, better, and not have to do them manually, but also making sure that we are taking stuff out there as quickly as possible so we can say, does this meet this requirement? Does this not meet this requirement? If it doesn't meet this requirement, what happens? And understanding, maybe, in 2025, it is a good time for us to also have those conversations within our own companies and within our with our regulators to say, hey. You know, in 1999, this may have made sense. But in 2025, it really doesn't. So how can we help to evolve those practices as well, not just in our companies, but also with our regulators? So I clicked and I shouldn't have.

So with that, what questions do you all have? Did this bring up any questions for you? We got about two minutes for questions. Wanna make sure that I'm not, leaving you out there going okay. Hold on. But what about my specifics use case or whatever the case is? So, let's go to questions, and I'm gonna try to pull up this one. So, please connect with me on LinkedIn. Would love to hear from you about how this session was for you. Please make sure that you're giving, feedback. I would love to meet all of you virtually, and I'm not seeing any questions come in, so I'm going with I was amazing, and I left you with no questions. But, you know, absolutely here for you to answer questions. So if you come up with them later, feel free to send me a LinkedIn message, and let's talk.

Would love to work with you, would love to hear what's going on, and how I can potentially help you with what this looks like in the future. So, you will see on my LinkedIn that I just added that I am starting a company, called JS Consulting, and I will be based out of Amsterdam. So, just giving you a heads up that that's what's coming for me. And, it's so nice to have you here today, and I'm so glad that we could spend this time together today. If you have any questions, let me know. Thank you, everybody.