20 principles for an Agile? Transformation

20 principles to consider in an Agile transformation... or for a 21st century organization ??:

 1. ? It's not about "implementing" Agile, it's about the company solving its problems to become more agile and move towards its vision. Therefore, it is better if you do not use Agile jargon, are specific in what to fix and do not create over-expectations (there are many factors behind it: leadership, culture, inertia, complexity, size, ...).

 2. ?? What you do is not enough if you do not achieve an organization capable of maneuvering more quickly to make customers more satisfied and to generate innovation capacity (to adapt continuously and create resilience). Whatever you do is not enough if you don't have motivated people (because motivated people do amazing things).

 3. ?? If you solve people's problems you will have promoters, because these are things that matter to them, for their benefit (less resistance to change).

 4. ?? If you solve the problems of the top management, you will have their support.

 5. ?? People have to feel ownership of the changes, be able to say what improvements they would bring most impact, what bothers them and what is more feasible (ownership and collective intelligence, co-creation, thinking together). It has to be a genuine transformation so that it takes root and can be continued in a natural way.

 6. ?? For team autonomy to work, it is necessary to develop people and provide them with all the necessary information so that they can make good decisions. All this, together with a shared purpose, is what really creates commitment. All this needs trust in people and is facilitated if values are shared.

 7. ?? You must mobilize. It is people who make real change and put energy into making things happen, much more than you can. You have to build organizational capacity for improvement to make it sustainable and make people enjoy it. Make them communicate the small steps to be celebrated (results and emotions) and appreciate how they help each other.

 8. ?? Make improvement initiatives visible and open collaboration so that people can organize around them (beyond "declining" them by areas, no one is the exclusive "owner" of anything). Above all, include those directly impacted (to ensure that they are really helped).

 9. ?? Get clear and common "top-down" objectives, so that you can get the right people around the same table (connecting people), so that they talk to each other and work together. To bring people together, the more inspiring and relevant that shared purpose is, the better.

 10. ?? Don't make "Corporate" changes. Agility doesn't have to be necessary for everyone at once. Nor do you have infinite energy to be able to very quickly change an organisation that took years to create. Start where you need to and with people with the right mindset (with a history of positive collaboration and openness to try things). Listen to the critics and withhold information from those who will fight hard against change. Decide when you want to devote energy to it and for how long.

 11. ?? It is easier to manage several micro-businesses (that are able to generate their own culture) than to manage a mass with a multitude of dependencies, handovers and/or validations at all levels [note the parallel at the technical level ??]. To be agile we need distributed decision-making and networked collaboration.

 12. ?? It is no good to implement a specific method with steamroller. Each company, area and team has its own contextual complexity. Multiple simultaneous models will be valid. Try it in small environment and propose what is worthwhile where it is worthwhile (outcomes over projects).

 13. ?? Transformation is not about "training" (only). It is much more about "learning by doing". It is about generating experiences, about management giving itself space to try new things, to integrate new ways of understanding the world (mental models) and this is achieved by practicing.

 14. ?? Your glass ceiling is in the culture of senior management. Try to start there and bring them success stories based on new principles and values (a new mindset leads to new results).

 15. ?? People hardly change their deep way of being, but by defining the kind of expected behaviour (and especially in leadership layers), with regular feedback, you can trigger changes.

 16. ?? By changing what you ask people to do (objectives, incentives, roles, organizational structure) you can "liberate" behaviors (culture follows structure). This is especially relevant for middle management positions (where the company's culture "resonates" and where there may be a need for greater change... and greater resistance).

17. ?? You cannot be agile if your production processes are not robust (continuously improving) and if you do not work with sufficient internal quality. Modularization and automation are key to enable more continuous change at increasingly lower cost.

 18. ?? Be humble, you don't have all the answers or all the context. Ask questions to make people think. Listen a lot before you speak, with genuine curiosity. Calibrate what is needed and how much makes sense at any given moment. Persist with patience.

 19. ?? Be kind and respectful. Your own example is key to achieving the change you want to see.

 20. ?? Businesses have an enormous transformative capacity on individuals and states. All of the above only makes sense if the business model is healthy for society and environmentally friendly. Alternatively, you are accelerating a business that leads us to a worse world faster.

 To be able to adapt to the customer faster, we need the right organization, technology that enables us to make changes in a sustainable way and, as a foundation, a culture and leadership that enables us to mobilize all the combined mental capacity of the organization, learning and improving continuously.

  Do you think there is something missing?, do you see something different?

[Versión en espa?ol: clic aquí]