The purpose of this talk is to give you ideas and concrete practices to help people and organizations get rid of beliefs that hold them back from embracing the new paradigm of knowledge work. For the past 10 – 15 years, many organisations have gone through agile transformations, mainly in the software industry. The success rate has not been stellar to say the least. The State of Agile surveys point out that management support and general resistance to change are among biggest barriers to agile adoption. In my experience, the root causes for resistance of change and lack of management support are: belief of the importance of maximising resource utilisation, batch thinking and process roll-out positivism, the belief that new processes can be rolled out in the organisation and communicating new prescriptive processes can impact the ways of working for everyone. These paradigms are fundamentally incompatible with the agile way of working. If an organisation tries to transform its ways of working to agile without helping its members to unlearn these paradigms, the transformation will probably fail. In my presentation I will provide examples of how these paradigms form barriers to agile transformation. I will also describe my own attempts to help people unlearn these paradigms in order to be ready to adopt new ones. I will conclude my presentation by describing the approaches that I have found working to help people unlearn these paradigms. My talk will help people in any knowledge work organisation who want to change their organisation into more agile mindset and ways of working.

1. 3 beliefs you need to let go to
start your agile journey
Antti Kirjavainen @anttiki
Scan-Agile 2015

2. The purpose of this talk
Give you ideas and concrete
practices to help people and
organizations
get rid of beliefs that
hold them back from embracing
the new paradigm of knowledge
work.

3. The new paradigm is clearly
attractive

4. Our beliefs hold us back

5. 3 layers of culture
Practices,
processes, rules
Values (stated)
Assumptions, beliefs
(unconscious)
Source: Schein, Edgar (1992). Organizational Culture and Leadership: A

6. Why beliefs and assumptions are so
strong?
• Most things in a culture are built atop of
those
• Lots of connections with other ideas,
assumptions etc.
• Usually unconscious
• Conflicting ideas and assumptions do not
fit with the ideas and assumptions that are
based on the old unconscious assumption
• The idea with less sticking points has less
change to prevail than the connceted (old)
one

7. 10 years ago: Games for Learning

8. I used to design and produce games
for learning
• In collaboration with science teachers
• For primary school children
• ~10 years ago
• Agora Game Lab, University of Jyväskylä
• Problem: children’s misconceptions about
scientific phenomena

9. Why are there seasons?

11. Misconceptions about Science
• Hinder the children’s ability to learn about
scientific phenomena
• The earlier conception has stronger
connections in cognition
• Scientific knowledge is inter-connected, new
knowledge sticks if it fits with the existing
assumptions
• A couple of misguided assumptions can
hinder the child from learning most of related
science (e.g. astronomy and climate theories
related to model of seasonal changes)

12. BELIEFS ABOUT KNOWLEDGE
WORK THAT HOLD US BACK

13. BATCH THINKING

14. ”Delivering each batch of work has
costs, so it is most efficient to do it
all in one big batch”
Photo CC-2.0-BY-NC by Cameron Grant

15. Problems with batches or big
projects
• Assumption: big batches save money
(true, but…)
• Unconscious tradeoffs:
• Losing the adaptibility to changes
• Risks are discovered and acted on late
• Testing of assumptions is done in the end
• Scope tends to get even bigger – scope
creep
• Long time to market

16. ”Using specialists’ time just for what
they are best at is most efficient”

17. Problems with specialisation
• Loss of information
• The need to ask something competes with
the fact that people are already on their
next assignment
• Leads to multitasking
• Task-switching reduces effectiveness
• Lots of unfinished work, which is
potentially waste

18. 100% UTILIZATION OF PEOPLE IS
GOOD FOR EFFECTIVENESS

19. Keeping people 100% utilized on
planned work is efficient
Photo by Walter Parenteau

20. Problems with 100% utilization
• No capability left to deal with surprises
• Results in low predictability if there is
variability (= surprises)
• Often leads to multitasking
• Task-switching reduces effectiveness

21. PROCESS ROLL-OUT POSITIVISM

22. New processes can be rolled out to
organizations and teams

23. Changes in an organization chart will
lead to similar changes in reality

24. Problems with rolling out new
processes, org charts
• People do not change anything in their
behaviour
• People do not understand the changed
process in the same way
• Lack of commitment towards change
• Hard to relate a modelled process to
everyday work

25. Dividing the organization to thinkers
and doers is efficient

26. Problems with separating thinking
and doing
• People far away from work have hard time
seeing the real problems
• People with most insight on improvement
opportunities are left out of work design
• Lessens commitment on improvement on
”doers”
• Takes meaning out of ”doers” work

27. HOW TO GET RID OF THESE
LEGACY BELIEFS?
Photo CC-2.0-BY by wecometolearn

28. Problems with using logic to help get
rid of old beliefs
• The old belief has lots of connections with
other ideas, assumptions etc.
• The old belief is usually unconscious
• Conflicting ideas and assumptions do not fit
with the ideas and assumptions that are
based on the old unconscious assumption
• The idea with less sticking points has less
change to prevail than the connceted (old)
one
• Arguments against the old belief have less
existing allies in the cognition

29. 1. Experience
Photo CC-2.0-BY by Jim Sneddon

30. Games for Learning: Experience
• Safe experience
• Distanced from subject matter
• Chance for the child to experiment
different strategies, theories
• Constructed so that strategies based on
actual scientific theories work better

31. 2. Reflection together
Photo CC-2.0-BY-NC by Juska Wendland

32. Games for Learning: Reflection
Together
• Compare experiences from playing the
game
• Form a collective opinion on what
strategies worked and why
• Confirmation on individual observations
from group
• Connect the experience to scientific theory
(at this point the experience has provided
connecting points to the children’s
cognition)

33. 3. Application
Photo CC-2.0-BY-NC by Juska Wendland

34. Games for Learning: Application
• Application of ther newly learned theory to
another context
• To reinforce the newly formed theory
• I.e. Another exercise, project work etc.

35. SAME FOR KNOWLEDGE WORK?

36. Marshmallow Challenge
Tom Wujec, http://marshmallowchallenge.com/

37. Marshmallow Challenge
Experience
Reflection
Application

38. Multitasking Name Game
Image CC-3.0-BY-SA by Henrik Kniberg

39. Multitasking name game
Experience
Reflection
Application

40. Ball Flow Game
Karl Scotland, http://availagility.co.uk/ball-flow-game/

41. Experience
Reflection
Application

42. Value Stream Mapping
Photo CC-2.5-BY-NC-SA by Michael Sahota

43. Experience
Reflection
Application

44. CONCLUSION

45. Assumptions and beliefs hold us
back
Practices,
processes, rules
Values (stated)
Assumptions, beliefs
(unconscious)

46. How To facilitate change in beliefs
1.Experience
2.Reflection together
3.Application in real context -
experiment

47. Links to experiences, games
• Marshmallow Challenge:
http://marshmallowchallenge.com/
• Multitasking name game:
https://www.crisp.se/gratis-material-och-
guider/multitasking-name-game
• Ball Flow Game: http://availagility.co.uk/ball-
flow-game/
• Value Stream Mapping:
http://agilitrix.com/2010/07/use-value-stream-
mapping-for-current-state-assessment/

48. THANK YOU!
Antti Kirjavainen
http://www.flowa.fi/
@anttiki
antti@flowa.fi

49. BONUS BELIEF

50. Control by rules, incentives and
status reports is effective
Photo by Dneary

51. What kind of experience would help
get rid of this belief?
• To promote fostering trust instead of
building control mechanisms
• To demonstrate how command & control is
actually command & hope
• Please share your ideas on this with me!