Transformation or Bling? What My Apple Watch Taught Me About Agile, OKRs, and Real Change

When Vered and I got married, my father-in-law gave me a very nice watch as a wedding gift.

I didn’t wear a watch that often at the time.

I wore the watch, but it didn’t transform me. It provided the service of telling the time, but even back in 2004, we had phones that had clocks. And I was and am pretty punctual so didn’t need that transformation.

(And when you’re in Engineering/IT leadership, nobody cares about the watch you wear… at least in Israel… )

Don’t tell Eli, but that watch spent many years in a safe drawer. And my left wrist got a nice tan, comparable to the right wrist.

Fast forward to 2019 or so, I decided to get an Apple Watch for myself.

The Apple Watch DID transform me.

It’s “Close Your Rings” feature had the outcome of me paying much more attention to how much I move (or not), exercise (or not), and stand (or not).

I chose to heed the nudges to “Close My Rings” and started to stand, move and exercise more.

I don’t always close my rings. I have better days/weeks and not so good ones.

I could make it an Apple Watch Close Your Rings Theater.

I COULD just set my move ring to 100 calories a day. Stand for one hour. And exercise 15 minutes. I could ignore the rings altogether.

But I strive to level up over time, rather than regress.

Here’s the thing…

The work management tools and practice you’re using are very much like my Apple Watch.

Kanban/Agile/OKR/Scrum/Post Its/Liberating Structures/SAFe/Product Model CAN transform you.

It can also be fancy bling theater.