Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Dallas ALN Presentation - GUIDING AGILE LEADERS
Similar to Dallas ALN Presentation - GUIDING AGILE LEADERS (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Dallas ALN Presentation - GUIDING AGILE LEADERS
- 1. GUIDING AGILE LEADERS MAKING AGILE STICK Bob Mosser robertmosser@gmail.com
- 2. Overview • Individual Teams do great things applying Agile practices to their work but soon hit organizational walls • Bringing Leadership along on the Agile journey then becomes a critical success factor to broader adoption. • Simply presenting Agile principles and practices to Leaders isn't the answer. • We need to understand each level of Leadership across the organization, and develop a plan that meets their needs while helping them change how they guide their Teams. • In this session, we will discuss: • Understanding the layers of Leadership - from the Team to the C-Suite • Organizational Change Management - the fundamentals that help Leaders make sense of Agile • Bringing Leadership Along - Tailoring the Leadership coaching/training plan • Making Agile Stick - Tactics to help Leaders make decisions based on Agile principles
- 3. The Challenges • Individual Teams get early wins and traction applying Agile practices but hit roadblocks with sustainability • We are many times brought in to ‘change things' but we focus more on tactics and less on being a ‘change agent’ • Agile adoption efforts are begun with great intent but without a true understanding of ‘why’ • Not enough time is spent understanding each level of leadership and their organizational and personal motivators
- 4. The Layers of Leadership • Understand all of the layers of Leadership – direct and indirect • Begin to build and extend those relationships • Understand their group and individual goals, objectives, and motivations • Use this information to put objectivity into the Agile adoption and your work as Agile Leader
- 5. Organizational Change Management (OCM) • 70% of all adoptions/transformations fail because the underlying change management strategies don’t exist or are not well defined. • Isabel Briggs Meyers concluded that only 5.5% of the human population innately embraces change. The rest of us are waiting anxiously in the cave for change to pass by and hopefully not notice us. • “Responding to Change” – is OCM then the foundation upon which to build a sustainable Agile adoption? • Coaching Leaders in the application of OCM principles and practices will increase the likelihood that you’ll end up in that top 30% of successful change.
- 6. OCM Tip 1 – Take a ‘Bottom-up” Approach • Interview representatives from all levels affected by the change with the intention of understanding what impact this will have on them, what’s important to them and what they need in order to feel empowered through this change • Create a “change taskforce” consisting of members of the executive team and a stakeholder representative from every level and department within the organization • Solicit feedback throughout the change process through employee surveys, engagement interviews and/or team facilitated sessions • Communicate back to the organization what you heard through the feedback process and what actions/decisions you’re prepared to take, and when exactly they will be implemented
- 7. OCM Tip 2 – Create a Compelling Vision for Change • Create a compelling vision of where all of this change is taking the company – where will the change take the company, why, and who will be affected • Create a robust campaign for change, with every change and update being clearly communicated and linked back to the vision
- 8. OCM Tip 3 – Practice Radical Transparency • Hard decisions will need to be made – give everyone at all levels enough credit to know that, if given the facts and conditions in which these difficult decisions have been made, they will understand and support the organization in moving forward • Provide a safe environment in which People can say whatever it is they need to say, and a safe place to vent any feelings they might need to express, in order to feel that they have been heard
- 9. OCM Tip 4 – Start a Movement • Change is a movement - and a movement can only happen if there are followers • Create “change ambassadors” at every level of the organization • Outline the What’s In It For Me throughout every step and integrate it into every communication • Communicate early wins to the entire organization and publicly recognize those people who are early adopters
- 10. Tactics to Help Leaders – Individually and Collectively • Customize Agile Plans aligned with their goals, objectives, and motivations • Apply OCM practices – at a minimum start someplace even if just understanding the ‘Why’ • Schedule and keep regular 1-on-1’s with all Leaders – individually and as part of their collective Team • Spend very little time on status. Instead provide them with pragmatic exercises to marry their leadership tasks to the new Agile ways of working/supporting their Teams. • Always leave them with a ‘value’ take-away and an assignment • Review these exercises on two-week intervals • Start with the exercises focused on the foundational aspects of Agile (strategic) then quickly move to tactical applications
- 11. Summary • Lots more to Organizational Change Management than presented here. Read up. It’s interesting stuff. Even small OCM efforts pay off in long term sustainability. • Tactically leading Agile if fun. Change is hard. We are the ‘Change Agents’ so we need to align ourselves with our Teams and Clients’ mission…and help them if they haven’t defined that mission. • As Agile professionals we can bring more to the table than just Agile. OCM gives the foundation we need to bring Leaders along on the journey and better chart a course for their success.
- 12. Acknowledgements & References • Leading through change - why 70% of all change management strategies fail. Wesley Connor, MFA, CPCC, PCC, Published on LinkedIn, March 27, 2018 • Leading Effectively in a VUCA Environment: A is for Ambiguity. Col. Eric G. Kail, Published on LinkedIn, January 6, 2011
Editor's Notes
- When asked to present tonight, and after accepting, I realized:: Holy cow, this is a topic as broad as it is wide! What a dilemma. So tonight, along with some discussion about the more tactical things we can do to help Leaders adopt agile when supporting their teams, I want to discuss a couple of basic, foundational needs we should consider to guide our coaching of leaders. These are: First, really getting to know and understand the leaders with who will have direct and indirect impacts on your ability to help adopting Agile. What are their goals, objectives, motivations. What do they need to do their job. And Second, understanding the importance of applying Organizational Change Management principles and practices to your approach to working with Leaders. My view is that until we know what is driving leaders and accept that we are affecting change, we really cannot train and coach leaders. We will continue to run into barriers to adoption. Making Agile stick and bringing leaders along is more than helping them be servant leaders, letting their teams be self-directed, and leading guiding versus directing. It is about making Agile relevant to leaders first then helping them retool themselves and their processes.
- Bullet 1: The High focus and interest and energy in the early stages soon bump up against Organizational structures, cultures, and cross-team territory battles that add barriers and need addressing Bullet 2: Demand by Clients, Leaders, and Teams force us to show immediate results – not to mention the tactics are the fun part. Bullet 3: After 11 years in the Agile world, I continue to be amazed at how many Leaders cannot articulate Why Agile, What challenges they are addressing, and how they will measure success. Bullet 4: Regardless of their level of Leadership, each Leader is part of a Team with goals and objectives, and, hidden behind all of that, personal motivators tied to their goals, objectives, and compensation. There is often little interest by our Clients/Employers in the importance of understanding these motivators and little time given to us to discover. But we must. As Agile Leaders, our job is to enable a sustainable Agile environments.
- Bullet 1: I know many times it’s not in our daily mission to understand the organization, but take the time to learn the Leadership structure and culture – both in your near vision (those with whom you are directly working – the Team Leads, Managers, maybe Directors) and those around the periphery and beyond (the VP’s and C-level Leaders. They are or will be impacted by what you are trying to accomplish and you need this intel to be successful. Bullet 2: Create the leadership tree and begin to Build the relationships needed to be in alignment with their missions and gain their confidence and become a trusted partner. Become an active member of their Teams and make yourself part of their success. Bullet 3: At the same time, and at every level, even the Team Lead, really take the deeper dive into their group and individual goals, objectives, and motivations. Know the near view Why’s for Agile but don’t forget the Leaders around the edges and beyond. The Leader to whom you report reports to someone who reports to someone else. Know the near view reason for the adoption of Agile as well as the broader, more holistic, ‘Why’ Telling a leader to go see the Scrum or Kanban board for a status update ignores the fact that leaders have wants and needs, many times from others, that we cannot and should not ignore. Show me a needed status report from one leader and there’s sure to be another from their leader, and so on. And one more important note: as sensitively as you can, understand their individual/personal motivators – things like compensation/bonus linked to Agile adoption success. Many times these motivators will be in direct conflict with what you are trying to achieve. Knowing this information will allow you to steer the adoption while being sensitive to the individual’s motivators – and allow you to have the right conversations if things don’t progress as planned. This small but important piece of information if often overlooked and can torpedo the best of intentions. If the Leaders with whom you work cannot articulate ‘Why” then help them define these three things: 1) Why Agile? - what does it mean to the health and welfare of our group/organization/business?; 2) What opportunities are they trying to address?; and 3) How will they measure success. Armed with this information, you can coach them through the Agile Journey, make it relevant to their world, and steer through landmines with objective information they own – not you.
- So, some change basics: Bullet 1: A frightening statistic considering all the money spent on organizational adoptions and transformations. Bullet 2: We are innately wired to resist change – stay in our caves hoping this too will pass. But that doesn’t work any longer in today’s rapidly changing world. Bullet 3: As Agile Leaders we agree change is inevitable so perhaps we need to add Organizational Change Management practices to our tool kit – we are the change agents so we should bring the tools to the effort. Bullet 4: Four tips on next slides.
- Build your change management plan around information from every level of the Team/organization. If your change strategies are being made exclusively from behind the closed doors of your executive boardroom, you can expect the change to go no further than those guarded doors. Engage the change leaders and have them own the change effort, not you - When we allow people to have an active voice in decision making, we empower them to take ownership of the change process and its results Advocate for the “Deep Democracy” that every voice counts (yes, even the marginalized ones) and that what’s true in one part of an organization, is true everywhere. Communicate, then communicate again, and then communicate again – not with just words but with visuals
- Bullet 1: Create the vision – the why are we doing this, what is the positive end result, as important - what happens if we don’t make this change? This needs to be the “get you out of bed in the morning” type of vision that resonates with everyone affected Bullet 2: This allows people to put change into context and understand that the decisions being made are leading towards something greater (vision based change) – and not away from something undesirable.
- Bullet 1: The truth is, everyone notices and the negative impact starts to grow like a cultural cancer. Distrust in the organization starts to breed and where the human brain doesn’t have answers or context, it will naturally create them. Bullet 2: most people don’t actually need to know why some difficult decisions were made, they just need an opportunity to say whatever it is they need to say, ad to be heard. I think there is a law of physics that goes something like – a vacuum will always be filled with something. In the adoption/transformation world, over communicate the vision, decisions, and progress. Without that, the vacuum will be filled with mis-information – not a god thing.
- Bullet 1: redesign business practices and social events to model the new, desired culture. Make sure your compensation and rewards programs incentivize the desired outcomes. And make sure that all top executives are on-side. If it’s not coming from above, it will most certainly not be adopted below Bullet 2: and train them to understand the details/logistics of the change and to know how to answer questions and objections by other employees. You should select people who are your informal leaders and cultural ambassadors Bullet 3: Really focus on this Bullet 4: Often
- Bullet 1: Now that you better understand the Leaders at all level and what is driving their attitudes and actions, it’s time to partner with them by developing their own personal and collective maps in their Agile Journey. And become part of their Team meetings (Team Leads with Managers, Managers with Directors, Directors with C-level Bullet 2: Along with that knowledge about the Leader and Team, begin to implement some of the basics of OCM into their plans. I know that many times OCM is not part of our official engagement. And many Leaders are wrapped up in their day-to-day to give OCM much if any thought. As Agile Leaders, regardless of our role, we can bring this added benefit to their world. Given the lack OCM emphasis and a large dose of OCM and Agile ambiguity, applying OCM in our efforts is not easy. So, if necessary, take it slow – even baby steps will lead the Leaders you are serving to see the benefits over time, and cement your partnering relationship with them – you becoming a trusted partner because you understand them and add lots more value. Bullet 3: Reciting and posting the Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles are not enough – there’s just too much ambiguity and not enough practical application information. Work personally with each Leader, through exercises, videos, and short/easy to read articles, make understanding the Agile fundamentals fun, and then actively help them apply them on a daily basis – always with an emphasis on meeting their need and providing value. Act as their ‘personal Agile Coach’ and don’t forget to apply good agile principles to your work with them, especially Principle 12, which is? I try to read at least 10 LinkedIn articles a day. And I regularly share those with those with whom I am working. I give them the link to the article – making the learning easy and fun. Then I revisit those articles in coaching sessions.