Anuj Nayar, Senior Director, Global Initiatives, PayPal
This week, Computerworld applauded the success of PayPal’s agile transformation and selected CTO James Barrese as a Premier 100 IT Leader for 2015.
PayPal’s agile transformation ensures that rapid updates to products occur across the global PayPal network. A team of 110 volunteers helped more than 4,000 product, operations and engineering staff through the transformation. Thousands were co-located into open offices and cross-function team seating, and KPIs aligned across product, operations and engineering. A technology platform conversion (conducted in just seven months), combined with agile development, made production cycles seven times faster.
In just half a year, PayPal had significant momentum in the new working model. More importantly, these newly co-located teams were laser-focused on solving critical customer needs quickly and dramatically improved the organization’s overall productivity.
According to Computerworld, the Premier 100 spotlights individuals who have had a positive impact on their on organizations through technology. These are individuals who manage internal IT organizations, mentor and motivate their IT teams and business colleagues, create a positive work environment, envision innovative solutions to business challenges and effectively manage and execute IT strategies.
That definitely describes James, and I’m guessing he is blushing a little as he reads this. I know he’ll be the first to point out that it’s not his award to receive; it belongs to an amazing team of leaders and thousands of talented, committed technologists working hard every day to deliver amazing customer solutions.