2017 agile for execs
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Transcript of 2017 agile for execs
Riina Hellström, twitter @extemporea [email protected] www.peoplegeeks.net
How does it feel being the emperor without clothes?
Because that is where many executives are
heading towards in the midst of your
Agile Transformations.
You. Have.
No. Idea.
Whatsoever. What. Agile.
Means.
You are trusting your experience and management
skills, which brought you this far.
Of course you are. Who would not?!
Guess what?
The exact thing you regard your strength,
your long business experience and through that,
the behavior based on that experience is what is breaking the
agile system.
Obnoxious, you say?
Ignorant, I say.
I am sharing some thoughts here.
What I am learning… listening to most Agile coaches and agilists…
Is that many people talk about “Agile”
But very few have deep understanding of
what it means
And guess what I heard, too?
You are making large-scale
organizational design decisions on the basis of that
(limited) knowledge.
Whoops.
My question for you is…
Would you want to have a strong common understanding in
your executive team about agile, before deciding on
organization restructuring, investments, infrastructure for work and management roles?
Agile is not…
Faster
A methodology
A form of organization
“Not planning”
“Working as you want” Unstructured
Without controls
“modern offices” or “working distantly”
I dare you. Try this out:
Ask your Executives to explain Agile in 10 sentences
or less, individually, in writing.
Are you getting a coherent answer?
I thought so.
Still want to make long lasting plans on how to build the organization
based on your common (mis)understanding?
Maybe time to revise your way forward?
Agile is different than you are used to
Agile is a different way of
being, thinking, behaving, acting, working, agreeing, planning, deciding following up, investing time & money, communicating, reporting, resourcing
managing, leading, following.
Agile is holistic
If I told you Digital & Agile
is the biggest change in organizations, management and
work behavior….
… Since the year 1911…
Would it change how you approach this?
Would you stop to learn?
You can’t delegate it.
You have to understand agile to
lead it.
You can’t ask fish to make plans on how to climb up a tree
Because the fish have never seen a tree
or never been climbing.
You have very talented fish
Smart fish
Who have been swimming and have been amazing fish
all their careers
You are hearing that that all the other digital fish are
starting to climb trees now.
Companies are going “agile”
But that fishy experience of yours is of no good use for climbing trees.
You’ll go visit companies and see artifacts of agile work.
Whiteboards
Burn-down charts Org talk about “squads”, “chapters”, “trains”, “PI-planning”
Coaches Post-its Demos
Executives explaining how “agile” their organization is
Looks good from the outside.
Now your brain wants to tell you that you get it. Because you saw the
whiteboards and the big four* corporation slides on
the Spotify organization model. (*The consultants who you expect to sort this out for you)
“Now I know what agile is about”
you say.
But there is so much more to it, than
The “Spotify” organization or
SAFe® as a scaled agile framework
Tampering with organizational models
or frameworks is just your usual way
of thinking about changing behavior.
The big four consultants (*) are playing a cheap trick on you.
They are showing you the large scale artifacts of truly agile organizations.
But what they are not telling you…
* Exaggerated and dramatized a bit, to induce emotional reactions, good or bad.
…is that these organizations have been building
the agile culture for YEARS.
I haven’t seen a McKinsey-, Deloitte-, EY- or BCG speaker in a single agile conference I attended.
In fact – I met my first (and only so far)
Deloitte agile people in an agile conference in Toronto 2016.
In 6 years.
Well enough about that. Let’s get to the point.
For me, it sounds like many organizations and
executives are…
… driving head on into the usual
traps of agile transformations.
The one where the word “agile” is used everywhere.
But where it means…. absolutely nothing.
Or, even worse..., “Agile” means anything.
Such as “flexible”, “fast”,
“reactive”, “customer focused”, “unstructured” “self-organized”, “empowered”, or a new organization model.
(It does not)
To understand AGILE…
You have to STOP
(Because, man, you guys are overloaded with unprioritized
projects clogging your organization.)
Take out focused time
And learn.
No. I’m not talking about the “management bullshit bingo-”
level-learning
Where you sit in a boardroom, listening to a consultant
showing you pretty slides for two hours.
You giving smart comments
and nodding your heads.
Nothing ever changed with that learning.
And will never change.
Learning agile takes you 3 years of mindful practice.
And even then you will continue to learn.
I’m talking about
Learning as you learn to play a new sport. Playing the piano. Learning to build.
It includes taking out time. For learning.
Daily. Weekly. Experiential insight.
Really understanding.
I’m talking hands on. Common understanding.
Clarity.
Focus.
Priorities.
Fun!
Aha-moments!
Pain of letting go of certain things, you considered “normal”.
Transparency so it hurts your head.
Letting go of you status, building it up again with new pieces.
Ouch. I know.
It does not sound tempting seen from the corner room.
Realizing the options.
What is agile for?
What is agile NOT for? (Just as relevant, if not more important)
Ask yourself…
How will I, as an executive / director / manager,
change my behavior now when we are going to “be agile”?
Only when you know the concrete* answer to that
(*Concrete = You know which behaviors and choices change in your
daily and weekly schedules and actions)
…Only then you can lead
agile.
Agile is a learning journey
You need to learn how to climb the tree
by actually climbing.
Understand WHAT
Agile is on team level
Understand WHY
Agile exists
Understand HOW
Agile changes management…
And Then TRY.
PLAN. DO. ACT.
LEARN ITERATE. REPEAT.
Peoplegeeks are happy to support you on this learning journey.
Because you know what?
It will be awesome.
Mostly tough.