Does the Agile Movement have any Competency in Organizational Change?
Mike Leber
Leadership Coach, Mentor & Keynote Speaker ? Helping leaders grow agility and spark innovation ? Follow for posts about personal growth, productivity, and process improvement ? Founder at Agile Experts.
Sometimes articles can be really short. In fact, what I learned: short articles make more sense than long ones, because the probability is higher they will be read.
For the given topic it was easy to stay short. Because when I tried to figure out about the competency on organizational change in the agile movement, there was not a lot to find. And that might have a reason. So let's dig in just briefly.
1.) The Agile Manifesto has been written by software engineers.
As far as I know, none of them had any substantial knowledge or even background in organizational change. And probably most of them were experienced in working with a few teams (not a whole large organization). I am happy to learn the opposite, or at least about an attempt to be convinced about it (just join the conversation).
Also the manifesto itself talks about a changed environment, but has nothing to offer in terms of change as such. What is says about change is We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. You see? They found out by themselves. Not by reading or being taught. But by doing. And ... well, by helping others ... but help mainly related to software development.
2.) In 2020 agile communities still miss the topic of organizational change quite a lot.
What the majority carries with them today talks about "transformation" (probably with not so many organizations really ever having been transformed), "agile coaching" (where there is often little coaching skill involved) or "leadership" (usually without having ever fulfilled a role beyond team or department lead).
In the worst case somebody would seriously just try to follow a super-trivial recipe called Implementation Roadmap from one of the official SAFe publications (yes, we've seen such an attempt in the field).
Why is this important?
If we really take these new ways of working serious and want to create impact, then we need to realize our blind spots. It is then helpful to step away from any religious interpretation of a text, which is seriously lacking, what others interpret into it. Post-edit by Mike: I do not underestimate the agile manifesto, which btw is just a point of culmination of a development, which had many influences over at least 10 years before 2001 and probably builds upon work of others back to the 1950ies. The point to make here is just to understand the right right frame, what is the scope, what content is certainly missing, and where there is also not too much skillful practice out in the field.
Without approaching the agile manifesto like the 10 commandments, anybody will easily figure out, that nearly everything is missing, that makes any business or organization successful today. But what is more important, the missing essence will rarely come from the community itself, but from totally different communities, who are simply more educated and developed in topics organizational change, organizational design, leadership, coaching, collaboration, you name it.
Post-edit by Mike: Transformation of whole organizations (and this word would deserve a lot of elaboration on its own) does not really happen in relation to agile methods or frameworks. Of course they may play a role. But they are neither the actual objective, nor do they provide the conceptual approach. Just think about the transformation at Microsoft around the wonderful leadership of Satya Nadella, the ongoing transformation at Novartis or any of the stories in the Reinventing Organizations book by Frederic Laloux. None of this happened or happens in relation to Agile.
As agile communities we have not created anything new for any of these yet so important domains of knowledge. Rather we have been copying and merging bits, often too shallow and missing the deeper essence and the skill to really apply it.
If organizational change matters for your initiative, then this is a call for collaboration between various communities. We should recognize the relationships of different communities and better search for the true wisdom in this field, where organizational psychology, change, sociology etc. are grounded.
Helping leaders transform performance through digital innovation and better ways of working | Doctor of Digital Transformation & AI | Author Agile for Managers | Creator Manage Tensions not People framework.
4 年Agilists are often hired as part of an organisational development initiative, not to design change but primarily as educators. It's neither agile nor coaching, yet the intention is clear. To Esther Derby 's point, the manner of improvement comes from those organising the program, few of whom are experts in change. The most effective programs I have seen are led as collaborations between product, HR, and IT leaders.
Independent Professional-, Agile & Senior Management Coach | Trusted Advisor | Founder & Co-Author Agnostic Agile (NPO) | Co-Founder & Co-Author Agile 2 | Change Catalyst | SW Developer | 15K+
4 年Hi Mike Leber, This is indeed an issue,a big one, across the Agile Industry and Community. Understanding the domain of Organizational Change is essential for a successful Agile Transformation journey. We'll find courses to become a certified Agile Leader etc - whatever that means - and participants come back with a playbook - a recipe or script to succeed in a complex domain... Chance has is that the relative layman setting the course up has designed - read templated - THE approach to success and all later editions and now is guru. Unfortunately not practices as going around and certifying is too lucrative and relative risk / mental effort free. My strongest advice is for acquiring Organizational Change competence to support Agile Transformation journeys - and it is essential that some people really do that :) - to look *outside* Agile. Organizational Change Management is a relative mature domain that did not emerge when Agile did (which also was not in 2001). Save your money and time on commodity Agile Leadership cert paperwork and all related subscription fees to keep that paperwork. The idea of becoming THE Agile Leader has a strong smell to it, doesn't it? And from a trainer who has ever run a business division of significance?
Working with teams to help them work better.
4 年A group of software engineers described the patterns in organisational culture they felt were important. Perhaps that's the key thing about TMFASD; it provides a clear "user story" for the future state of the organisational culture, that the whole organisation can share. So what are the main patterns associated with successful strategic implementation? Are they different to those in TMFASD? What worked for Deming and Goldratt?
Vice President at System Excellence Corp. Consulting Services
4 年What an interesting take on this topic! Just confirms for me the need to use diverse sets of theories, methods, and skills above and beyond the focused project team. Thanks for the insight.
Department Leader | Enterprise Agile Coach | SPC5 | Fierce People Connector |
4 年Agree and disagree. I like the manifesto because it came from the people who felt a needed change and ACTED! you are right, perhaps more attention is needed I. How to make that change effectively...but let’s face it...the entire reason those people met and had those discussions was because these big bureaucracies had FAILED! IMHO they are still struggling today. There is an answer out there but I fear that over complication leads to inaction.