Change Management

Comparing and choosing scaled agile approaches (or not scaling at all? )

This week I’m in Fort Lauderdale, Florida speaking at the Lean/Agile US conference. The subject of my talk today was “Introduction to Lean/Agile scaling approaches” where talked about why scaling approaches are necessary and when to actually try to de-scale as well as gave a very brief introduction to a couple of the key frameworks …

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Invitation-Based SAFe Implementation — a SAFe Guidance Article

Invitation and Pull-based approaches for implementing agile at scale has been a reoccurring theme in my work, writing and talks in recent years — including my talk at Agile 2016 and this series on my blog. In recent months I was working on a SAFe guidance article on this topic. Richard Knaster as well as Dean Leffingwell …

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SAFe Invitations — Part 3/3 — Combining Open Space Agility and SAFe

In parts 1 and 2 of this series about bringing Invitations into the Scaled Agile Framework implementation approach I talked about various ways to switch from Mandates to Invitations when choosing the timing and the how-to. In this post I describe an even more Invitational style using an approach called Open Space Agility. Consider this …

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SAFe Invitations — Part 2/3 — Management Workshop and Vote-of-confidence-driven open space in QuickStart

In part 1 of this series about inviting Invitations into the implementation approach for the Scaled Agile Framework I described the issue I have with Mandates and started to describe the Invitational style focusing on inviting groups to go SAFe but not forcing them to. Local leaders Mandate the Direction once they’re convinced of it …

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SAFe Invitations — Part 1/3 — Pull-based Change

There’s much to like about SAFe™(The Scaled Agile Framework™). One of those things is how some pro-level facilitation techniques are woven into ceremonies such as the PI Planning and Inspect and Adapt workshops. SAFe™also leverages one of my favorite change management patterns, starting with leaders. Two areas for potential improvement (On top of my earlier …

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Making Agile Teams work in real life – The quest for Stable Feature Teams?

Context This post is inspired by my experience trying to help organizations make agile teams work in real life. It is heavily inspired or can even be called a revision of a post from a couple of years ago on the Lean/Kanban approach to teams. If you look at the Agile Manifesto, you can find …

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How to “restart” your Improvement Journey – A facilitation guide

Previously on “The Agile Journey”… So some time ago – maybe months or years – you decided to go for Lean/Agile. You went ahead and started to use Scrum/Kanban to break the waterfall and achieve a more agile operation. These were exciting times. First, that time of making sure you understand what you are trying …

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Do Craig Larman’s Laws of Organizational Behavior really mean we always need to start with a structural change? What do they say about starting with Kanban?

I’ve been following Craig Larman’s work for a while now. I find the books he wrote with Bas Vodde on scaling agile to be very insightful and actionable. I recently discovered Craig’s “Laws of Organizational Behavior”: 1. Organizations are implicitly optimized to avoid changing the status quo middle- and first-level manager and “specialist” positions & …

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Pull-based Change Management

A main theme of my work and thoughts recently has been Pull-based change. I noticed that I don’t have one place that I can refer people to for my work on this subject. Until I write a book about it, here are some links: Most Recently – Bringing invitations into SAFe™ A series on the …

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Helping with Kanban – Thoughts from reading Helping by Edgar Schein

I recently read Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help by Edgar Schein (actually I listened to it on Audible and then read it again on kindle to better process/digest). I can highly recommend it if you are interested in ways to become a more helpful consultant, manager, person – one who is able …

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