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 & power structures.
2. As a corollary to (1), any change initiative will be reduced to redefining or overloading the new terminology to mean basically the same as status quo.
3. As a corollary to (1), any change initiative will be derided as “purist”, “theoretical”, and “needing pragmatic customization for local concerns” — which deflects from addressing weaknesses and manager/specialist status quo.
4. Culture follows structure.
And as a practical advice Craig adds:
i.e., if you want to really change culture, you have to start with changing structure, because culture does not really change otherwise. and that’s why deep systems of thought such as organizational learning are not very sticky or impactful by themselves, and why systems such as scrum (that have a strong focus on structural change at the start) tend to more quickly impact culture. i discovered that john seddon also observed this: “Attempting to change an organization’s culture is a folly, it always fails. Peoples’ behavior (the culture) is a product of the system; when you change the system peoples’ behavior changes.” “
So do these Laws mean we always need to start with structural change? With a move to Feature teams for example like Scrum prescribes?
I find the laws provide an interesting perspective about a typical challenge I see at my big enterprise clients. The structure is definitely providing a glass ceiling to improved performance. Sometimes the performance is at that glass ceiling but in many cases it is way below it.
At this point we have two choices (at least) – one is to do what Craig suggests and start with a structural change. In the cases where the organization is ripe for change that would typically be the right move. In many cases though the understanding of the need for a big change is missing. There is mistrust that the new language/approach/structure of agile/flow/feature teams will work and will address problems the organization cares about.
An alternative is to use an understanding-focused tool such as the Kanban Method to both improve the performance w/ the current structure but also to show its limits/glass ceiling. At some point the organization will have to decide whether the performance gains it got within the current structure is enough and whether it is stable/sticky within the current structure. If not, the leaders will now need to change the structure to break the glass ceiling and enable the next jump in performance.
I see this pattern a lot in the field in various sizes of organizations – Kanban used to show the way towards a real structural change towards an Agile structure of real feature teams. It typically drives a healthy leader-led change that eventually sticks.
I see this as being based on an assessment of how much influence the change agent has. If you have the influence to change the structure (as well as budgeting and compensation/appraisal processes to support that structure), then it’s much faster with more impact to do so. If you do not have the influence, then you need to do something to get that influence (aka Kanban Method).
Jaon, thanks for your comment.
At first instinct, I tend to agree.
Thinking more deeply about it, There are also scenarios where the change agent has the influence but not the conviction that the change is worth it. Does that make sense?
I see Larman as not qualified to make any comments on organizational behavior.
First, that is not his area of expertise. Second, where is the empirical evidence to support! Third, refer to chapter 6 and 14 of the book International Organizational Behavior for the real story. I say that Larman should stick to what he knows and can validate.
In addition, one size does not fit all in terms of structure and cultural change. I thought that is the whole purpose of LeSS i.e. one size not for all; I fear that LeSS fails to simplify but complicates by dismantling before an organization is ready. Change is difficult and once you realize this, it is no longer difficult.
What about organic structure vs bureaucratic structure and the cultural differences inherent within the different type of structures? So, really, does the chicken come before the egg! It is just not that simple…I say through out Larman’s Laws.
Jason, do you really think it comes down to change agent influence, even more than the organizational situation? I understand how the change could be faster/more impactful, given sufficient influence to make structural changes, but why would it necessarily follow that it is more likely to succeed? I have a situation like this right now, but my crystal ball is not as clear on the tradeoffs, perhaps I could get a closer peek at yours? 😉 Yuval’s description of the glass ceiling resonates with my experience; perhaps I just need more experience with Kanban to understand how it can transform an organization, rather than just find local maxima which are also well below the ceiling.
Peter, thanks for your comment.
My point here wasn’t that Kanban can itself transform, more that it elevates the awareness to the need to transform, in effect powering up the change agent and maybe adding a couple of other people to the change agent ranks to the point where the change agent can influence the structural change (and budgeting/compensation/etc. as Jason rightly adds).
At least in terms of software delivery, there are some bets about effective structure that I’m willing to take based on a lot of examples. There will be exceptions when I’m not willing to take that bet and even a large first step is still just a first step.