Change Management

The Story Points Detox Plan – Why Experiment when we already have Data…

Reader Mary shared an inspiring story of introducing modern flow metrics in parallel to classic agile metrics, such as Velocity, to improve flow on her team. If you haven’t guessed so far, introducing Flow is one of my favorite patterns for moving from mindless mechanical agile (Agile Theater) towards intent-driven principle-aware agility. There’s something about …

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The Change Agent Catch 22

“Don’t tell me to implement this new process.“ “I don’t have time to discuss process.“ Many change agents I work with struggle with engaging senior leaders who don’t have time for dialogues around systems and ways of working. They also don’t appreciate being prescribed a new process. They rarely have time to learn about principles. …

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Expensive Problems >> Principles >> Practices

End-to-end flow of value Continuous Improvement Autonomy and Empowerment Organizing Around Value Sustainable Pace Alignment around Outcome-oriented Goals Energized People Leaders who Serve Speed and Empiricism All worthy Agility Principles (at least I think so…)  But why should anyone care?  I mean, it’s much healthier to focus on principles than practices as a goal.  But …

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Going Underground

It seems like we are working on a lot of initiatives. Could it help to get a picture of all the initiatives and where they are in the pipeline? Would it help to make sure we involve the teams and leaders who will need to execute on initiatives in the decision when to actually start …

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The Pricing Page for Your Change Product

You’ve seen it before. The pricing page. With the three options. Silver. Gold. Platinum (nobody wants bronze) DIY. DWY. DFY. Starter. Professional. Enterprise What if you tried using “Pricing Options” when selling/marketing internal change? Revolutionary. Evolutionary. Safe. Extreme. Fast. Meeting-heavy. Meeting-less. Invitation-based. Mandatory-change based. Pull. Push. Here’s the thing Multiple pricing options create choice. Choice …

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Navigating Strategic Change using Breadcrumbs (A Halloween Story)

Meet change approaches F and S.  S is a revolutionary change for people. It requires new roles and totally new ways of working. It is shock therapy.  It requires such a leap that people often resort to faking it because it is so hard for them to change.  F is evolutionary. It starts with where …

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AARRR Pirate Metrics for Change Adoption

“We trained 1359 people!” “we transformed 127 teams” Enough with the vanity metrics. Ever wonder how your change initiative is REALLY doing? Think of your organization as an internal market for the change. Consider Pirate Metrics (AARRR) to see how your change “Product” is doing in this market. Acquisition (or awareness) – are people discovering our …

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Leveraging Agility on a Ways of Working Simplification Initiative

FlowImpact Yoga, a fast-growing network of studios, continues using the Think It, Build It, Ship It, Tweak It operating system. On the last employee survey, they saw improvements in cross-company collaboration and goal clarity, which makes the mediocre results in Decision-Making an area to try to improve. In a leadership team meeting, they decided to …

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Transformation Blues – Fighting the nice-to-have cave of pain with Must Have and Case Studies

My clients are often frustrated that their transformation isn’t taking off despite promising results (e.g., outsized outcomes and speed by leveraging agile ways of working in a strategic initiative).  One path that leaders often take is to follow initial promising results with a mandate to follow new ways of working throughout the organization. This is …

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Musings about “Hard-coded” Frameworks

A recent discussion on the Scrum Alliance Linkedin group was around Mike Beedle’s claim that “Hard-coded Frameworks are neither Agile or Frameworks” which is clearly aimed primarily at SAFe. I admit to thinking something similar before really getting to know SAFe in depth. Over time I realized SAFe isn’t one size fits all. Far from …

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