The Agile Transformation: Think Big, Start Small, Learn Fast

Lan-guage is some-times reveal-ing. Tra-di-tion-al hier-ar-chi-cal orga-ni-za-tions con-sist of func-tion-al divi-sions that areas of respon-si-bil-i-ty, divide pow-er in terms of bud-get and head-count, and sub-di-vide val-ue cre-ation. Divide et impera, divide and rule, is a time-test-ed max-im since the Roman Empire, the core of which is to encour-age “divi-sions among the sub-jects to pre-vent alliances that could chal-lenge the sov-er-eign” ( Wikipedia). The result is silos whose walls become thick-er and thick-er every year due to eval-u-a-tion and incen-tive sys-tems that are based on this maxim.

Think Big

With-out tack-ling this struc-ture and the under-ly-ing max-im, agili-ty will silt up with-in these silos. The small agile project with-in a divi-sion will hard-ly make a big dif-fer-ence, because the divi-sion itself is only a tiny part of the val-ue chain and there-fore the feed-back on the work of the divi-sion, which is so impor-tant for agili-ty, is only avail-able at the end of a long series of handovers.

A char-ac-ter-is-tic fea-ture of true agili-ty is to work across silo bound-aries along the val-ue chain in an inter-dis-ci-pli-nary team. Hiro-ta-ka Takeuchi and Iku-jiro Non-a-ka already iden-ti-fied this exact char-ac-ter-is-tic in 1986 in their research on suc-cess-ful prod-uct devel-op-ment teams and described it in their arti-cle “The New New Prod-uct Devel-op-ment Game” ( Har-vard Busi-ness Review).

In this sense, the agile trans-for-ma-tion must there-fore think big and break open silos in order to pro-mote inter-dis-ci-pli-nary coop-er-a-tion, reduce han-dovers and ulti-mate-ly short-en the feed-back loop of exper-i-men-ta-tion and val-i-da-tion. Oth-er-wise, the incon-spic-u-ous cater-pil-lar will not turn into a beau-ti-ful but-ter-fly, but rather into a some-what more col-or-ful cater-pil-lar, dis-ori-ent-ed and exhaust-ed by the sense-less the-ater of trans-for-ma-tion.

Start Small

There are no blue-prints for an agile orga-ni-za-tion and no mas-ter plan for trans-for-ma-tion, no mat-ter how con-vinc-ing the promis-es of the respec-tive con-sul-tants sound. The attempt to impose panaceas and seem-ing-ly proven mod-els on one’s own orga-ni-za-tion leads straight to car-go cult hell. Not because the blue-prints and mod-els are fun-da-men-tal-ly wrong or bad, but because they are not the result of shared expe-ri-ences. Agile trans-for-ma-tion is and remains a joint learn-ing jour-ney.

A jour-ney of a thou-sand miles begins with a sin-gle step.

Laozi (Chap-ter 64 of the Dao De Jing)

Every orga-ni-za-tion must devel-op a suit-able mod-el step by step in the course of the agile trans-for-ma-tion. An agile trans-for-ma-tion can-not be con-ceived on the draw-ing board and then exe-cut-ed by legions of change man-agers. Instead, it devel-ops itself in an agile man-ner from an ini-tial Min-i-mum Viable Prod-uct (MVP) through numer-ous inter-me-di-ate stages, the val-ue of which can ide-al-ly be proven with suit-able key per-for-mance indi-ca-tors.

The lead-er-ship task in agile trans-for-ma-tion is not to select the best mod-el of an agile orga-ni-za-tion or to design one of its own and then roll it out. This top-down approach vio-lates the agile prin-ci-ple of self-orga-ni-za-tion because it degrades peo-ple and teams to pas-sive objects of trans-for-ma-tion, even though the goal is pre-cise-ly autonomous, self-respon-si-ble and activesubjects.

Learn Fast

If you want to spare your agile trans-for-ma-tion this dead end, you are well advised to hang the role of the chess mas-ter on the hook and act more like a gar-den-er. The goal must be to cre-ate a set-ting in which a suit-able agile orga-ni-za-tion-al mod-el grad-u-al-ly emerges from the coop-er-a-tion of self-orga-nized teams. This joint learn-ing process can-not be short-ened by blue-prints.

Peo-ple don’t resist change — they resist being changed.

Peter Sen-ge

How-ev-er, learn-ing can be accel-er-at-ed through shar-ing and net-work-ing. Read-i-ly shar-ing expe-ri-ences and knowl-edge, espe-cial-ly out-side your own silo, is cru-cial. A pro-gram like Work-ing Out Loud can help here, but the role mod-el of lead-ers is cru-cial. As long as every man-ag-er con-tin-ues to put his or her own busi-ness in order, there will be no fruit-ful exchange of ideas and infor-ma-tion hid-ing and cov-er your ass will remain the norm.

Originally published at https://fuehrung-erfahren.de on November 17, 2020.