What Monopoly teaches us about Agile transformation

I found these foxed red and yellow cards in the attic. They were from a busted-up Monopoly set from the 1950's that seemed to shed some light on our Agile transformation problems. I started to flick through ...

Community Chest

You receive the benefit of doubt from your employees, get out of jail free

Great, I can use that. I looked at the next card:

Chance

You hire an Agile consultant. Toss a coin. If heads, go forward one dice. If tails, go back once dice

Hmm, but bringing in experts is always a good thing, surely ... I looked at the next one:

Community Chest

Management discover empathy in droves, move forward six places

This was getting good. But then:

Community Chest

Newly empathic management are too busy discussing their alcoholism and messy divorces to focus on planning. Go back to Old Kent Road

And the next:

Community Chest

You win first prize at an industry award. Go back three spaces

And the next:

Chance

You choose a set of projects to trial new techniques. Toss a coin. If heads they are non-critical and small enough to learn from, go forward three spaces. If tails, they are Death Marches, go back to Old Kent Road

This one had the corner torn off:

unity Chest

ew toolset is introduced. Skip a turn

But the next was intact:

Community Chest

Your investment in battle-hardened practitioners matures. Go forward six spaces

Another:

Chance

In your enthusiasm you roll out DevOps. If your employees are mostly devs toss a coin. If heads, go forward one dice. If tails go back to Old Kent Road. If your employees are mostly ops toss a coin. If heads go forward one dice. If tails go back to Old Kent Road

At this point I pulled out the board, blew off the dust. Holding it under the light it seemed a lot more complicated than I remember. It was four-dimensional ... I tossed it aside, rustled in the box and found loaded dice, coins, and the lead playing counters: a tank, Professor Dumbledore, an ironing board, a figure who looked suspiciously like a paunchy Reed Hastings and an old boot.

Thanks to https://carakeren.me/a-to-z/ for images