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Before Making the Plan, Describe Where You Are Going

All too often I am asked to help with a business change or transformation after it has started and is not going well. In almost all cases, a major reason it is not going well is no one described where they wanted to go, or if they did the destination was poorly defined.

These are not well-defined destinations:

  • “We want to be a more effective organization.”
  • “We want to be Agile.”
  • “We want to be collaborative with our customers.”
  • “We want to provide world-class support.”
  • “We want to be a Lean Startup kind of company.”
  • “We think we should be communicating better.”
  • “We are going to roll-out Scrum to the whole organization.”

In fact all of these statements are solutions for some perceived problem that is not described. Since we do not know what the problem is, we do not know if any of these is the right solution, nor will we know if the problem is solved.

I always ask WHY. Why do we want to do these things? What problem are we trying to solve? What challenge are we facing? What result will we get if we apply that solution?

Here are some examples of concrete problem descriptions that will allow us to determine a well-defined destination.

  • Our cycle time from proposed change to release is 6 months but the average in our industry is 3 months. We are losing business and our research suggests it is because we are often too late to market.
  • Our product sales are steadily decreasing compared to competitors. Feedback from our customers is that they find our product to be harder to use than similar products.
  • Our markets change quickly. We need decisions at least quarterly (monthly would be better) about product direction, but our leadership team takes 6-12 months to make a decision.
  • We are getting a lot of feedback on social media that our support team members are often not solving the customer’s problems.

Can you see that with a good description of the problem or challenge that describing a destination becomes much easier?

Once we have a clear description of the problem, we want to describe relatively short term goals. What can you do this quarter or by the end of the year? This will allow us to get feedback on whether or not the solution is working, and allows us to change the approach if it is not (or we discover the solution is not sustainable over the long term).

  • In 12 months we will reduce our cycle time from proposed change to release to a maximum of 5 months. Though it is infeasible to reduce the cycle time for everyone to less than that in a 12 month period, we will find one product where reducing the cycle time is likely to improve sales, and we will reduce the cycle time for that product to 3 months.
  • In 3 months we will release a new version of our product that fixes the top 3 usability problems.
  • We will select a product that is particularly market sensitive and work with the leadership team to get decisions quarterly throughout the coming fiscal year.
  • Every month in the coming fiscal year we will provide a solution to the current number 1 problem customer support has been unable to solve. By the end of the year we will have solutions to the top 12 problems. Either they are no longer problems or we have trained our support team members in how to solve them.

With a clear description of the problem or challenge, and a clear description of the destination, we have a way to measure if we got the results we were looking for. We still have to work out how to get from problem to destination, but once we know where we are going we can find a way to get there.

In order to get to a solution, we often have to do deeper analysis of the problem. This is because the problem that we see comes from some place in a overall process that may be quite large.  What part (or parts) of that larger process is causing the problem?

Let’s take the example of the cycle time from proposed change to release. Many people will assume it must be the implementation team that is not efficient. We can hire some coaches and teach them more efficient practices and that will solve the problem. But will it really?

We need to take a deeper look at the whole process. The implementation team is just one part of it. Is the problem convincing someone to fund the change? Is it how long it takes the delivery team to implement a solution? Is the problem how long it takes to release the solution once it has been implemented? Is there a quality issue?

This deeper analysis of the problem is very important or we risk applying the wrong solution. We waste time and money and still the problem is not solved.

At one company where I consulted in the past, my client had just this problem – the cycle time from proposed change to release was far longer than their industry average. They brought me in to help the delivery teams work more efficiently in order to reduce the cycle time.

I did some investigating and found that the delivery teams were already working very efficiently. The problem was in two other places. The first problem was that once a change was proposed, it took many months to get it approved and funded. That part of the process took as long as implementing the solution!  The second problem was that to release the change took many months. That part of the cycle was also as long as implementing the solution. The whole focus of the process improvement work had to change, and the nature of the solution had to change.

(If you are wondering what happened … changing the release process was a long, difficult effort because there were a lot of things causing the release process to be long, each of which had to change. It was done over a period of years and the overall cycle time was reduced a lot. Changing the funding process was not even addressed until the Board of Directors fired the CEO and there was a big shake up at the top of the company.  It was actually a pretty easy process to fix once there were people who wanted to fix it, and was done in a couple of months. And fixing that process had a much larger positive impact on the efficiency of the whole company.)

In conclusion: To be able to measure the effectiveness of a solution, we have to first clearly describe the problem we are trying to solve, then describe what things will be like when the problem is solved (the destination). We then do some deeper analysis to determine the actual source of the problem, and propose a solution to try. We apply the solution in a small way and measure to see if it is moving us toward our destination in a manner that is sustainable and able to be applied on a larger scale. If the answer is yes, we expand the solution to a larger part of the organization, and again measure the results. If the answer is no, we can try a different solution to see if it works better. We can also review our analysis to be sure we are solving the right problem.

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Business Transformation Digest: November 29, 2015

An article this week in the Harvard Business Review discussed what is a great company culture. If you want to transform your company, you have to know where you are going, and being able to define the culture you want is a great place to start.  The author suggests that a company with a great culture maximizes good motives for working and minimizes bad motives for working. Good motives are play, purpose, and potential. Bad motives are emotional pressure, economic pressure, and inertia.

How company culture shapes employee motivation

From The Economist I learned about the changing corporate culture in South Korea. The leaders of the big corporations are finding that their younger employees are not interested in the traditional Korean corporate culture, so to retain that talent, companies are relaxing their demands on employees’ time. It will not happen overnight, but change is necessary.

Loosening Their Ties

This intriguing article from the blog Innovation Enterprise suggests how the CFO can be deeply involved in a business transformation effort.  Thought provoking ideas here.

CFO Role in business change and transformation

Is “Facebook at Work” the way to go for better workplace collaboration? The BBC explores this topic.

Online chatting at work gets thumbs up from bosses

Finally, my latest article reminds us that if we are going to do a business transformation we should have a goal in mind.  If you do not know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?

http://www.tomandgeriscrum.com/2015/11/30/before-making-the-plan-describe-where-you-are-going/

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Business Transformation Digest: November 13, 2015

The BBC this week explores what having a manager like Steve Jobs can do to the workforce. This is important to think about if you want an empowered engaged organization.   Could your behaviors as a leader be preventing the very culture you are trying to achieve?

“So does being rude, ruthless and self-absorbed give you an advantage when it comes to getting ahead in business? Quite the reverse, according to Professor Christine Porath, at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. She says uncivil behaviour from bosses and colleagues affects sickness rate and mental health, stifles creativity and above all affects staff retention. None of which reflects well on those in charge.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34604387

The Economist explores the break up of HP. They point out that HP in the past was the original startup, but now is seen as stodgy and uninteresting to young engineers. And they point out that breaking the company in half does not change that image problem.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21677635-hps-break-up-will-not-solve-all-its-problems-growing-old-not-together

Does your company or organization have an image problem? What kind of transformation could help change that? Renaming or reorganizing your group is not sufficient.

Harvard Business Review gave us three thoughtful articles this week in the areas of leading transformation, building culture, and being a high performing leader – all important parts of a business transformation.

First they explore Marissa Mayer’s recent actions at Yahoo. Ms. Mayer is leading a turnaround at Yahoo and asked for her leadership team to pledge to stay at Yahoo for 3-5 years to effect that transformation.  Some of her leadership team quit. But that is actually a good thing because now she has a leadership team committed to change.

In any transformation it is important for the leadership team to work together. While a pledge is not always needed, it was an effective means in this case for Ms.  Mayer to assure she had a committed team.

https://hbr.org/2015/11/marissa-mayer-was-right-to-ask-executives-to-commit-to-staying-at-yahoo

Employee engagement is a clear competitive advantage for a corporation, but how do you create an engaged workforce? One key component is to have a clear, compelling mission that people can rally around. This is especially important as companies grow.

This article has some practical examples of practices companies have used to engage the people who work there in the mission and vision of the company.

https://hbr.org/2015/11/how-upworthy-gets-its-staff-to-bond

“Leadership is messy, it is relational, and it happens in millions of interactions every day around real work. … You have to understand the social system you’re working in first.”

Not only do you have to understand the context you are working in, but high performing leaders also have regular ceremonies or routines. Identifying a few key ceremonies (such as one-on-ones or team meetings) and doing them well is a foundational skill for a high performing leader. The article has practical suggestions for how to do this.

https://hbr.org/2015/11/what-separates-high-performing-leaders-from-average-ones

My own offering this week encourages us to really look at the people we work with as individual people. If Steve Job’s management style tends to stifle creativity and engagement, what is a different way to work. This article explores some practical approaches to engaging people at work.

http://www.tomandgeriscrum.com/2015/11/03/people-are-people-not-objects/

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Business Transformation Digest: November 6, 2015

Malcolm Turnbull, the new Prime Minister of Australia is calling for corporate Australia to develop a more open and flexible culture that embraces change:

“That means organisations need to be much less hierarchical, they cannot be blame-based,” he said. “You have to, as chief executives or senior executives; you’ve got to encourage the people that work for you to challenge you.”

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/nov/06/malcolm-turnbull-woos-business-call-embrace-rapid-change

Though not a new post, this one makes an important distinction between a discrete change and a business transformation and argues we need to treat them differently.

https://hbr.org/2015/01/we-still-dont-know-the-difference-between-change-and-transformation

While it starts off suggesting that firing the leader when a transformation fails is a really bad idea, the post closes with 17 action items to minimize the risk that the transformation will fail. Some good advice in here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terri-wallin/if-something-goes-wrong-f_b_7999166.html

Finally my own offering this week which reminds us that if we want to change people’s mindset and approach to work, we have to also change the environment they work in.

http://www.tomandgeriscrum.com/2015/11/02/to-change-a-mindset-change-the-environment/

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People are People, Not Objects

I was recently reading “Leadership and Self-Deception” by the Arbinger Institute. Fundamentally, this about the two mindsets we have when interacting with others. We either see the other person as a unique individual or we see them as an object (problem, hinderance, annoyance, etc.). We go back and forth between these two mindsets all day every day, even during the same conversation, and they color the effectiveness of our communications.

I got a personal taste of this when returning home from the business trip where I was reading “Leadership and Self-Deception”. Since I live a 4 hour drive from the San Francisco airport, I had left my car at the airport parking garage for the return trip. When I got to my car, I discovered the battery was dead. I was a little annoyed by the delay, but someone from airport parking authority came right away, jump started my car, and I was on my way.

I got on Highway 280 and headed north to San Francisco. Just after exiting on Highway 1, the heavy traffic slowed to a brief stop and my car died. I was in the middle lane with no power in the car. No flashers, no lights, no starter. I was on a flat spot of the road and could not get the car rolling. There I was completely stuck with heavy traffic all around me.

I called 911 and a kind woman in dispatch took my information and forwarded it to the San Francisco police department. Meanwhile, people all around me were shouting at me and honking, but there was nothing I could do. I was feeling pretty miserable and I was afraid I might be hit by a car trying to go around.

Then a nice gentleman in a car on my left asked if I wanted help pushing the car. I replied that I thought it was probably too dangerous with the traffic. His companion pulled off the road and the gentleman carefully got out, paused traffic, and came to my car. He talked me gently through what to do as he held out his right hand to pause traffic to the right. People actually stopped and let us in!!

The next lane over was an exit to another road, and again a polite hand gesture stopped traffic to let us through. He pushed me past the exit to the right shoulder and said:

“A while back my car died on the Sacramento Bridge in heavy traffic. There was nothing I could do but wait for help. For 2.5 hours I was the most hated man on the bridge. So I had to stop to help you.”

People who were angry with me were treating me as an object, and it was a pretty miserable experience. I was upset and not thinking very well about what to do. The gentleman who stopped to help saw me as a human being in need and it changed my whole day. I still had a problem with the car, but I was able to resolve the issue (and get home) quickly, easily, and in a positive state of mind.

It does feel different to the receiver of your message when you view them as an object or an individual person. When you view them in any way as an object, no matter how kindly, they will tend to resist you and your message. When you view them as a person, unique and special, they will tend to be positive and receptive.

In business, we have to work hard to get over the people are objects mindset. How often do you hear people referred to as resources (you mean like paperclips?) or they are the “offshore group” or the “contractors”, but certainly not people like the employees right here in the room. How often do you refer to the people working for you as “my directs”?  Of course sometimes we need a shorthand way to describe a whole group of people, but if we get into the habit of doing it all the time, we stop seeing the individuals and just think of the group, and the group is usually “them” not “us” or “me”.

Language is a huge indicator of our mindset toward others. Being aware of and changing the language we use when thinking, writing, and speaking is a big step toward seeing others as people.

While reading “Leadership and Self-Deception”, it hit me hard that one of the business situations where we most often treat people as objects is when giving a presentation. The other people are “students”, “employees”, “delegates”, “congregation”, etc., but we are not thinking of each person as a person. They are not people “like us” because we are the “teacher”, “boss”, “expert”, “minister”, and so are in some way “better”. This us-versus-them mindset is treating others as objects. We are less effective at communicating our message when other people feel we are treating them as objects.

Interesting, in 2009 I took a workshop with Edward Tufte on data visualization. During the workshop he mentioned that he hates using PowerPoint. He says the word power describes precisely what happens – the speaker is in a position of power over the others in the room. He does not use presentation software in his workshops; he makes use of posters and other objects to illustrate his points, and he spends a lot of time walking among the people attending the workshop.

Over the past few years, I have worked with a small group of consultants on creating professional training that does not involve someone presenting at the front of the room.  Making the training more interactive is another way to get past the “I am an expert, you are not” mindset that creeps into typical training.

I have been doing something similar with progress reports. Instead of creating a typical report, I create some kind of interactive tool to help people get engaged with the information and make it their own. For example, after interviewing a lot of people on a particular topic, I created a poster that looked like a bunch of sticky notes with statements gleaned from the interviews. Then I invited the leadership team to not only review the suggestions, but cross off the ones they disagreed with and create their own stickies for things they thought were missing. This provided far superior feedback because the leaders were engaged with the information in a way they had never been when reading a report or seeing a PowerPoint presentation.

If you are paying attention, you will see that this article itself is not very personal. As an example, I will rewrite the previous paragraph using names of people instead of referring to them generically.  See how this changes the feel of the information for you.

“I have been doing something similar with progress reports. Instead of creating a typical report, I worked with George to create an interactive tool to help Helen, Mike, Sarah, Jason, and Henry get engaged with the information. After interviewing Mike, Sarah, Jason, Henry, Bob, Joe, Liz, Mary, Susan, and Paul, George and I created a poster with sticky notes that had statements from the interviews. Then I invited Helen, Mike, Sarah, Jason, and Henry to review the suggestions, crossing off those they disagreed with and creating new stickies for information they thought was missing.”

Now instead of a generic “leadership team” reviewing the information, we have Helen, Mike, Sarah, Jason, and Henry reviewing the information. It is easier to see them as people when they have names instead of a generic description.

It is real work to change a mindset from viewing people as people instead of objects. No one is perfect at it. But when we really try to think of the actual people, then not only do we communicate better, we also create a work environment that is a much more pleasant place to be. I think you will find that when you really focus on thinking of the individual people working for you, instead of thinking of them as “my directs” or “my resources”, you will become the kind of leader that everyone wants to work for.

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To Change a Mindset, Change the Environment

An important thing in any kind of business transformation is to keep people as people in the front of your mind. We have a tendency during business transformation to think of people as “resources” rather than individual human beings. But people are not machines, they are individual humans with motivation and free will.

Real business transformation comes when we change people’s mindset. That means changing what is going on inside someone’s mind. You do not do that by telling them, exhorting them, or yelling at them. People change their mindset because it is in their own best interest to do so.

Look around your organization. You probably see some behaviors that do not make sense to you. Since people act in their own best interest, you can be sure there is a rational reason for how they are behaving. You just need to discover it.

Let me share a typical story about a Program Manager named Susan (this is a composite from many, many companies where I have worked over the years). Susan works for a very large company and is responsible for 50 people. She is typically overseeing 7 projects at a time. Susan regularly assigns each of her people to work on 3-5 projects at the same time.

Susan’s company is in the midst of “process improvement to be more efficient”, and so I met with Susan to work out together how her teams could be more efficient. I know that well-respected studies show that having a person on that many projects at once is very inefficient, so I was puzzled by how Susan was assigning people to projects.

As we chatted, Susan told me she is rewarded for filling up her people’s time 100%, she is rewarded for spending 100% of the budget, but she is not rewarded in any way for being more efficient. No matter what the executives said about efficiency, it was clear to Susan that they did not mean it because they continued to reward for inefficient behavior.

When what you say is opposite of how you reward, people will behave according to how you reward them. Your words mean nothing if the culture and environment do not support them.

If you want to change how people behave you have to change the environment they work in so that the desired behavior is something they see as in their own best interest. This may mean making change to any or all of the physical environment, business processes, metrics, rewards of all kinds including social, and practices. But how do you know what that change needs to be?

You start by identifying the behaviors that you want to change. Let us assume that the executives at Susan’s company are really serious about being more efficient and they select one behavior to change: we want the Program Managers to assign people to 1 or at most 2 projects at the same time.

Now we have to find out all the things that drive Susan to assign people to 3-5 projects. We know a couple of the reasons – fill up their time 100% and spend 100% of the budget. But what else? Why is Susan managing so many projects at the same time? Susan is rewarded by her boss for having a lot of projects in flight. The more she can prove she can handle at once, the more likely she will be promoted. George, the executive in charge of Susan’s division, says she shows she is a good person to promote by taking on every project requested and getting started working on it at once. Hard work, and even heroic efforts, are the things that are rewarded.

On the customer side, Susan’s peer Jeff is also rewarded for spending money as fast as he can. If he spends all his budget, he can ask for more, and so he is incentivized to start a lot of projects at once. He is also pressured by his boss to show he is “doing something” which is interpreted as running a lot of projects at once.

In this kind of environment there is no reason for Susan to change her behavior. Just asking her to do so will not help. Getting her training or a coach will not help. Putting up posters will not help.  Changing the environment is the only thing that will allow Susan to make the change that the executives want.

So what needs to change? One change is to stop rewarding people for spending 100% of their budget. In many companies this is very hard to do because the rewards (and punishments) are coming out of the corporate portfolio and funding process. If George’s division saves money he will find his budget cut the following year because “you obviously don’t need all that money”.  Or perhaps if George’s division saves money it will be taken away and given to another division that is running over budget.

In George’s company, people running the divisions with the biggest budgets are the most likely to be promoted to the C-suite and so having less money in his division is not in George’s best interests. He works hard to be sure all the money his division is allocated is spent every year, and even tries to ask for a little more at the end of the year to justify a larger budget the following year.

So even a “simple change” such as stop rewarding people for spending 100% of their budget is very hard to do. It requires strong support from the C-level executives and possibly the Board of Directors. This change has to start all the way at the top of the company with an overhaul of the corporate portfolio and funding process, and very likely with changes to how executives are rewarded (remember the bigger the budget the more likely someone is to be promoted).

Maybe a simpler change is to stop rewarding people for filling up 100% of their employee’s time. This practice came from a mistaken idea that busy is the same thing as productive. Instead of using hours worked as a measure of productivity, perhaps we could change to measuring cycle time – how long does it take from request to delivery of solution?

This change also has to go all the way to the top. The Board of Directors has decades of productivity numbers based on hours worked and if the metric changes, then they cannot compare the previous years to work going forward. They will have to work this out with the accountants and the legal department. Various US corporate laws make some kinds of changes very difficult to make due to having tax implications and possibly legal implications.

That was just two things that need to change before Susan will be motivated to assign people to only 1 or at most 2 projects at a time. Both of these “simple” changes require support from the top of the company as well as significant changes to how the company is run. And we still have not addressed all of the things impacting that one behavior!

Changing the environment also means the executives all have to model the desired behavior from the top down. Just as children imitate their parents (whether we like it or not), so employees take their cues from those in positions above them. After all, if you were successful behaving the way you do, then obviously the way for someone else to be successful is to model your behavior. The higher you are in the organization, the greater your impact on everyone in the company.

Back to Susan’s example. If Susan works for me and I want her to assign people to one or two projects at a time, then I have to assign Susan to one or two projects at a time, and I myself have to work on one or two projects at a time.

What does that mean assign Susan to one project at a time? Does that mean she has only one project for all her teams? No. Susan is a Program Manager, so she is not working in the projects. The Project Managers directly manage the projects. Her “project” is to oversee the set of projects her teams are implementing (which should be a number that is small enough she can actually oversee all of them). At the same time, I do not want to ask Susan to take on planning the organizational fall fest, and run the company’s Toastmaster’s club, and do that research project and special report I need for the CTO, and, and, and.

I also have to work on my own time management, focusing on one or two things at a time and getting them done before moving on. My personal example will demonstrate to Susan that this really is important to do. It will be far more effective than talking about it.

In addition to the other changes, one of the most powerful things you can do is regularly measure the behavioral change and publicly track progress. This provides a social motivator where people start to compete to do the right behavior.

Determining what to measure can be tricky because numbers are easy to game. For example, if we check the time tracking system to verify that each person is working on no more than two projects, we may very well find that line workers are being directed to only record their hours to two projects when they are actually working on several.

To overcome this problem, you may need to measure two or three different things and cross check them. In Susan’s case, the average project needs a team of 15 -20 people. Since 50 people work for her, if everyone is on one project at a time, she should be running 3 projects at a time. We can verify in the time tracking system that only 3 projects are being reported for her group. We can also estimate how much work 15-20 people can do in a month full-time on one project, then check with each project to see if it has progressed that far in a month.

These are not perfect measures either. At some point we have to spend time on the floor with Susan and her teams to know what is really happening. We cannot rely on metrics and statistics to know what real people are doing day-in and day-out.

To summarize: When doing a business transformation of any size, keep in mind that your people are human beings who will act in their own best interest. To change behavior, you have to find out what in the environment is encouraging the current behavior, and then change the environment to support the new behavior. Sometimes seemingly simple changes have to be made at the very top of the company. One powerful motivator is for executives to model the behavior in their own work that they want others to follow. Another is to use appropriate frequent measures of behavior change and post the information publicly.

If you have enjoyed this article, please share it with others.

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Design Thinking for Rolling Out Change

A recent issue of the Harvard Business Review spotlighted “Design Thinking” with 5 articles on that topic. It appears that many executives are noticing that the practices of designers are being applied to business practices as well.

One use of design thinking they mentioned was the use of design thinking to plan for change.

A number of years ago I got to see this working at a large company that was using design thinking to create the change management plan for the roll out of a significant new software system that would impact a large percentage of the company. Not only was there a lot of new software, many business processes would need to change as well.

We started with observations and interviews of people who would be impacted by the changes to the software and the business processes. From that information, we created detailed avatars. Posters of each of the avatars were put around the building for everyone to become familiar with the people who would be affected.

Then for each avatar, we created a plan for how the roll out would work specifically for that person. We answered questions such as:

  • How would this person be notified when the change was released?
  • How would this person be able to get their questions answered about the impact on them of the change?
  • What training would be available for this person?
  • Did this person just need an informational meeting? Who was the best person to lead that meeting?
  • What if this person would be changing jobs or retiring within a few months of the roll out? How would that change that person’s participation in the roll out?
  • What is the best method to communicate with this person?

With answers to those questions, we could create a detailed change plan that addressed all the needs we discovered during the interviews and the creation of the avatars.

Like other good design thinkers, we did not assume we got it right! And so for any particular group of people, we tested the roll out plan on a few people and made adjustments based on what we learned. Our process was to do a little, test a little, get feedback, adjust, and try again.

By involving the users throughout the process, we had a very smooth roll out of the changes to the system and business processes, and it was accomplished with very little stress or anxiety.  While the new software and business processes were not perfect, the users were invested in making it work and they helped to find solutions. That is the benefit of applying design thinking to business transformation.

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Business Transformation Digest: October 31, 2015

The big story this week comes out of Microsoft, specifically the Visual Studio Online group in the Developer Division. The Visual Studio Online group has 35 teams of about 12-15 people each, about 450 people total and they are Agile. Not only that, the whole Developer Division, about 4,000 people, is being Agile. “There is a pervasive Agile mindset in which respecting, valuing and engaging those doing the work in response to customers’ needs is at the core.”

Particularly notice that they really focused on Agile 5 years ago, they took a test and learn approach, and that the key to the whole transformation was not learning Scrum (relatively easy) but “the shift in mindsets for all involved” which has taken a very long time.

Microsoft is Agile Part 1

In part 2 where they get into details, I loved this description of the new Microsoft “Microsoft is not a giant warship, but more like a flotilla of speedboats operating in sync.”  This is a really important concept when thinking Agile in the large.

I also note this gem of a paragraph:

“The question addressed at Microsoft is: “How do we make the whole organization agile?” not “How do we scale Agile or Scrum?” In answering this question, the methodologies of Scrum and Agile in software development have a huge potential contribution, but they are only part of the story.”

Microsoft is Agile Part 2

In a related post, the author discusses when you should consider Scrum/Agile coaches. He argues that you may never need them if you work with the executives to create the right environment for Scrum.

I find myself in agreement with this approach. Change the environment to change the mindset and doing Scrum is as natural as breathing.

Coaching Agile from the Top Down

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Tips for Job Searches

While not specifically Scrum or Agile related, I know at any particular time many of you are likely looking for a job.  If that is you, read on.

I recently put together a workbook that steps you through using the Strengths Finder quiz to find keywords to use in your resume, LinkedIn profile, and cover letters. These keywords are your strengths, as well as being the search terms that recruiters use to find people for jobs.

Right click on the link to download the PDF.

Using Strengths Finder to Get the Job You Love

I hope you find this useful.

Geri

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Who would win in a fight…

“Who would win in a fight betwen a Moose and a Bison?” says my then-six year old son after our visit to Yellowstone.

Being as this is the 768th question of that type that he’s asked in the last 5 minutes, I’ve had some practice answering.

“Which one is bigger?” I ask.

“The Moose.”

“Yes the moose is definitely taller.   Which one weighs more?”

“The Bison”

“Okay…well then the Bison probably wins the fight.  In animals, the heavier animal almost always wins a 1-on-1 fight.”

30 seconds later:  “Who would win in a fight between a Fox and a Bobcat?”

Rather than subjecting you further to 392 more conversations about animals, I’d like to talk about organizational survival strategies.   Interestingly, they seem to largely match up with animal kingdom survival strategies.

Essentially, animal survival strategies come down to one of the following:

Be big/tough enough that you’re hard to kill.
Be quick enough that the big killer can’t catch you.
Swarm, so that even if some of you die, you still succeed.
Have special skills (poison, shell, etc.)

Making a small nimble rabbit work with a turtle shell just isn’t going to work.

So what about organizations?

Some organizations are like hippos.  They’re just big.  Because they’re big, and strong, and tough…nothing much messes with them.

Other organizations are like rabbits.  They dance and dodge, bob and weave, and move quickly to handle issues.  But they have to, because they’re small.

Other organizations try lots and lots of things.  Most of them fail, and occasionally something works, often very well.

And still other organizations become unreasonably good at one or two things, and focus only on that.

What folks seem to have a big problem with is:   they want organizations to do things that the organization itself isn’t designed to do.   They want rabbit-like fast organizations to be highly resilient.    They want large, hippo-organizations to bob, weave and dance….and implement Agile type speeds.

Have we considered whether if you’ve got a hippo, asking it to dance (on land) is a rather absurd proposition.   If you get the hippo in a tutu, we should probably call that a win, and go home.