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Thursday, March 16, 2023
Human Purpose is the next Big Time Transformation
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Yves Morieux 2014 TED talk - another call for applying the KISS rule at work!
Keep It Simple Stupid rules 😀 This is just another example.
This almost 10 years old is very much to the point and funny classic.
Interestingly Yves was able to present many lean and agile principles and ideas without using agile jargon at all 🤔
Thursday, March 2, 2023
Three distinctive features of SAFe which I highly appreciate
Three distinctive features I highly appreciate about SAFe are:
- Dual operating model: decoupling of org structures from value streams. Honestly, in many companies it was a real cracker to start transformation promptly as the restructuring efforts of the functional hierarchy was a fragile topic. The org structure usually represented decades history of how senior managers were building the organization according to their vision, and yes some of them were also building their kingdoms, trying to shape the organization by how they thought was best for it. Thanks to the decoupling of these two aspects, it is possible to start a transformation swiftly while giving the re-structurization as much time and respect for people, their ambitions, and visions, as it needs. From my perspective the nature of these two processes: organizing around value and organizing functionally is indeed of a different nature, and the timelines are of different magnitute, and as such it deserves to be treated separately.
- Organizing into operational value streams. Designing the value streams, as described by SAFe is logical and elegant. It is an exercise I recommend to all organizations, even to those that think they have it sorted. Why? Because it will add transparency to why we organized the way we organized. I believe, to know this logic is highly important to everybody in the organization. Not only will people understand that it is an act of conscious design, but they will also respect it. Trying to design the value streams surface the choices that have to be made and the multitude of options there usually are to choose from. People quickly realize there is a degree to which the design decisions are tough as there usually are multiple equally good designs. On the other hand, the usual lack of such transparency weakens the belief that leadership knows what they do when they announce a re-org to employees, causing people to spend too much time divagating.
- PI Planning. Planning at scale always seemed a daunting task to me. All those hundreds of people on one hand and the will to invite them all into the planning process, to make sure decisions are made where knowledge is. That has always been a challenge in my career. And here SAFe offers invaluable help for me. It offers me a template of a facilitation scheme for the PI Planning event that does exactly that. Whatever people say, I rarely see such great support.
Friday, January 27, 2023
Method Hexi vs SAFe
So, what do you think about the new Method HEXI initiative of Dave Snowden and The Cynefin Co.?
Will it end the method wars? Will it make even more fuss and add to the already existing complexity in the method arena? Will it start ego wars? Ah, excuse me, they already started a long time ago :) Are these old tricks refurbished? Is there a point to fighting against SAFe?
I am sharing my first impressions on Method Hexi here briefly, after listening to a couple of webinars about it. This one in particular:
Here are my initial thoughts as of today. Let me revisit the topic in some time to see how my understanding evolves.
- Honestly, from my perspective, there are more important issues that need to be solved beyond how effective is SAFe or whatever other method... The meaning of the whole business world and the purpose of the economy are more important to me these days. More about it can be found in my book. I wish Dave Snowden refocused on what is more important. It looks like he is engaged in method matters more than wanting to influence the future of humanity. Imho, it is not time to concentrate on what we do best, on optimizing ways of working in this case, it is time to focus on the meaning dimension of reality and our existence. We need leaders there!
- It has been an existing practice for decades that people were mixing techniques and tools and methods to get best results. The idea that mixing needs to be introduced like a discovery of the 21st century with a special blessing from Snowden, sounds strange. It lacks respect, and faith in the intelligence of practitioners. Honestly, I rarely meet ideological individuals who stick to one method or tool. Of course, one can sell everything to bureaucratic and politically steered companies, but that won't be fixed by Hexi. The real question is why decision-makers choose a particular solution, what drives them and how this driving forces can be balanced or reframed. These are questions that Snowden and most of Agile community ignore to answer while focusing on accusing SAFe of being at least controversial in terms of its value.
- SAFe is what it is. It is as good a starting point for your journey as anything else, as long as you start to customize it for your needs on the first day!
- The problem is not about SAFe - it is about what bureaucrats do to it, and in fact what they do to any method, which distorts their original sense and value.
- The metaphor of object-oriented programming, polymorphism, method overriding, etc smells 90s... I don't like it. It does not feel right in this context - it speaks to IT people not to businesspeople who are decision makers.
- And as an off topic only: I spent years on OO design and programming and need to challenge the metaphor: same concept can be introduced simpler, my gut feel says, without a need for polymorphism. This is what I learned about dealing with complexity when programming in C++.
Monday, October 17, 2022
Wandering vs efficiency by Jeff Bezos
I treat this quote from Jeff Bezos as another recognition of value of intelligence beyond rational intelligence and problem solving at work. Very much aligned with the direction I have been evangelizing towards :)
Source: 2018 Letter to Shareholders
Thursday, July 21, 2022
The Joseph Pelrine's Team Health Index
The Team Health Index = Psychological Safety x
Countless number of times I met teams who were "just" safe. Safe ot the extent that there was no development possible. They missed empathy and rejected any thought provoking challenges from external stakeholders and/or clients. Many times all other voices were treated as endangering the status-quo. And those teams were let to proceed with their limited worldview and produce solutions. And those solutions reflected the worldview of those teams as a natural consequence. Only when solutions turned to be suboptimal with hard evidence, the status-quo could be challenged and a space for a wider discussion was opening.
To some extent it is called a learning loop, yet there is a thin line between the necessity to learn by failing versus getting things done effectively by upfront collaboration through empathizing and being open.
In terms of system dynamics, an exchange and mutual benefit between a team and its stakeholders / clients, one could say that a team needs to give back for Safety with Empathy and be grateful to external voices for enriching their Thought Diversity.
Thank you Joseph Pelrine for bringing the full picture together in your post!
Friday, September 24, 2021
Simple truths, episode N: Process is dead
- organizational culture - how we get things done here,
- organizational design and architecture - how an organization supports flow of value, and
- leadership style - what mindset and behaviours leaders promote.
Sunday, June 13, 2021
My elevator pitch on the anti-patterns of Agile transformations
I was asked recently in a quite informal and time-bound discussion to share a few examples of known anti-patterns of Agile transformations. This topic has somehow become a topic of my high interest, as there is so many insights from multiple organisations in my mind. You can see a lot of resources at my website or in my mini book. I share the insights openly as I deeply care for transforming the workplace. And between us - after all these year of Agile, there is many highly appealing ideas beyond Agile that being Agile is currently a hygiene level not an avant-garde.
Anyway, I spontaneously came up with a kind of an elevator pitch, and listed these 3 anti-patterns without any up-front prep:
1. Big Bang approach - I witnessed transformations that started with a lengthly Design phase, say 9 months - 1 year of designing the new target state in a small group of executives and senior management. I believe than during this phase there is more value in actually de-freezing this stakeholder group than there is in the design.
And then on Day 1 the master plan and the playbook are released to the wide audience and the expectation is to kick off in the new setup without significant glitches. After all we have done the prep work for you, right? All you need to do is just follow the script.
Nothing more illusional as you may know - on Day 1 people are surprised, confused, ask a lot of questions, there is disbelief, they feel betrayed. And indeed, it is an example of heavy up front process which is not verified in live so one gets unexpected feedback and the investment misses its goal.
I usually recommend to avoid Big Bang nature approach to transformations, and giving yourself a chance to include your employees in the transformation, invite them to co-author and co-own the workplace based on a shared purpose right from the beginning. Stating your goals vs throwing solutions. A classic, right? The smoother the experience and more inclusive approach is, the more and more you prove you are serious about Agile. After all, this way you show that the Agile transformation is your first initiative driven in an Agile way!
2. Horizontal approach
There is a tendency, backed up by The Conway's Law, to structure the transformation team in synch with the structure of the company leading the transformation and/or in synch with the structure of the company that is undergoing the transformation.
In many cases I have seen Agile transformations aiming to flatten the org structure, yet at the same time, the structure of the transformation team was significantly hierarchical. As a result I saw for example a setup in which an account leader who interacted with sponsors, there was a transformation leader who interacted reported to the account leader, there were Agile coaches who interacted with all parties within tribes and were supposed to report to the transformation leader, etc. And there was usually a gap between these layers, which resulted in suboptimal communication and information flow, and misunderstanding of intensions and goals.
I am a big fan of vertical setups in which the transformation team is actually a team, yes - a cross-functional team and it actually operates as a team, using itself an agile ways of working rather than reporting and splitting tasks, delegating work and reporting. Sounds as an obvious approach, but believe me it is still rather rare. In the vertical setup the transformation team acts across the whole hierarchy, meaning that individuals in the team operate in a Zoom-In and Zoom-Out mode. They Zoom Out to see the whole landscape and plan the next steps and then each of them Zooms In according to what they agreed on to support the organisation and teams and individuals in going through the transformative change.
3. Put the old Performance and Incentive systems aside for the moment
During the first weeks of a transformations there is usually a hunger of information as employees try to re-model their behaviours according to the new value suit evangelised by the company. They need to understand their new or altered roles and responsibilities. Going further they also need to map what is evangelised as the highest value to incentive programs and performance management systems. And as you can image these programs are not yet existent and scheduled for later in the transformation backlog. And this topic distracts employees from the core change. Usually the lack of clarity or inconsistency within this particular area feeds directly into the resistance against the change.
Honestly, the only approach I have seen that actually worked is to define an intentional target state so that people anticipate the governing principles and keep the old systems in place for the first 6 months in a frozen form, e.g. everybody gets the same scores of 60% for the next months before we work out the new systems. Of course it would be ideal to have these new systems in place as these are fragile matter, however these systems need to ensure "justice" and as such require wide consultations to reach the consensus. Remember that the procedural justice is what makes people to accept whatever is worked-out.
All right, that's all I can do on a Sunday morning without harm to my family - please stay in touch and share your thoughts. I am open to share more. You can also purchase the mini-book I mentioned above for more throughout and holistic view.
Sunday, November 29, 2020
On certifications
Monday, October 26, 2020
The Lifecycle of Ideas
How many times you saw people hyped up by some new cool idea or technology? And then you saw some of them disappointed to an extent that the idea or the technology was not a silver bullet? And then you saw people trying to accommodate it and get the best of it? And finally you saw the idea or the technology growing mature enough to enter the commodity phase.
According to the Gartner's research the adoption lifecycle of a new technology follows a specific pattern called the hype cycle. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle. Looking at this model I am tempted to apply it to lifecycle of new ideas. I will describe how both the understanding of applications builds up as well as will point out how individuals of different PST personal profiles find their natural comfort zones in this proces.
When it comes to new ideas, the Peak of Inflated Expectations phase is a "religious phase"- when people's minds get inspired and in the absence of direct experience, are driven by beliefs rather than factual evidence and fed with buzzwords. This phase is necessary for an idea to spread - people adopt new ideas on the Why level. This is a phase for entrepreneurs, leaders and generally people with the Pioneer profiles, aka early adopters.
The Trough of Disillusionment and Slope of Enlightenment are the phases where individuals with Settlers profiles try to apply the new idea into various areas in which the idea promises some kind of pain relief and/or improvement and/or breakthrough / disruption. This is where high hopes are validated, lessons learnt through applications and general body of experience is gathered and cross-pollinated widely. The "WHAT is possible" and "HOW to add value" questions are answered in practice.
And finally, when an idea flows through the hype cycle to reach Plateau of Productivity beliefs and expectations are replaced with direct exposure and physical experience. Some hopes die out, the scope of applications of the idea finds its natural horizon. This is where broad population of people understands the value of an idea, its practical applications and how to best utilize it, including the necessary tooling and specialized infrastructure to utilize it. In fact the Idea is no longer just an Idea - specific Artefacts have flourished from the Idea and entered their Wardley's lifecycle from Genesis to Commodity. It is definitely a place for people with Town Builder profiles to shine. And also a place where the world is ready for birth new ideas...! :)
Bonus thoughts ;)
Sunday, October 25, 2020
Interview: What's on a mind of a Systemic Coach - Michelangelo Canonico
"Agile movement is in a confusion. We need to stop trying to change the world using the magic word of "agile". Step back, seek for renewal, open up the doors for other notions."
I had a really good time conducting the interview. It was designed to be a surprise interview to catch the instinct responses and for the interview to be as realistic and natural as possible.
In this interview Michelangelo Canonico shares his personal experience with Agility, transformational engagements, systemic coaching, and even about constellations!
Thursday, July 23, 2020
The Summer Series - Episode 1: State of Agility 2020: What community members say about State of Agile?
Episode 1: What community members say about State of Agile?
When I started thinking about the year 2019 as of the last year of a decade and as such a natural time for a decade worth retrospective of Agile movement I started asking members of Agile Community about their personal reflection. There is lots of people who spent 10+, 20+ years pioneering in Agility and introducing it into organizations, so the experience we have accumulated is huge and throughout. As you will see in the below my subjective set of collected opinions, I found a wide set of reflections, starting from complete satisfaction and enjoying the comfort of the comfort zone, through moderate optimism to lighter or heavier frustration. As you can imagine those who were satisfied were not very creative in thinking about necessary improvements for the next decade of 2020s. On the other hand those who felt moderate optimism or were frustrated were actively contemplating the ways and opportunities to improve. Only a hungry artist is credible the proverb says. What I also observed is that the global Agile Community is, of course one may say, not free from confirmation bias and group bias and not any better in being able to building the objective perspective than any other group, say the poor waterfall guys at the dawn of "The Age of Agile". After all, we are all contained within the same system of evangelism for Agility. Yet, I must admit, I did not expect that much of self-satisfaction and in general that much of symptoms of the Warren Buffet's ABC of business decay (Arrogance, Bureaucracy and Complacency). And what is coaching about in the first place if not about the ability to transcend the barriers of the self. So I keep smiling to myself about this discovery and to my naivety that the global community of coaches can do better when it comes to fighting human built-in biases :)Sunday, June 21, 2020
State of Agility 2020: Effective vs Aspirational Zone of Influence of Agile Community at the dawn of 2020s
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
The Effective Work Environment framework v2.0 is publicly available!
Monday, June 8, 2020
Minibook: The landscape of Enterprise Agile transformations
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
My "virtual interview" with Dave Snowden
How humanity should handle the "technical debt" of our civilization? i.e. unsustainability of the global ecosystem (extinction of species, climate change, exploit of resources, growth of population) and of human condition (life - work disintegration, mental condition,etc).
We are not going to do it without at least partial extinction. Let's get real on it. The global warming is serious and the major economic power in the world is not taking it seriously. And there is no way, I mean COVID is just a minor to what is probably going to come in my lifetime. I used to worry about my grand children, then I worried about my children and now I am worried about me, and I am 66. We are going to see catastrophic failures of the ecosystem which will make COVID what it actually is which is a chance to get it right for the worst thing coming. And I think that is what we have got to be careful to be honest - I mean we will survive as species, but what survives becomes key. So the technical debt is going to be recovered catastrophically. It does not mean that something good can come out of it.What is your view on the evolution model of the Spiral Dynamics, Clare Graves, Don Beck ? Is the business world / society model ever to become "Teal"?
Monday, April 27, 2020
Evolution of workplace & Future of Work map assets made public
Monday, April 6, 2020
The "Evolution of workplace and Future of work" online course
Enjoy the free time-limited access promotion till Thursday, 9th April 2020. Here is the link:https://www.udemy.com/course/evolution-of-workplace-and-future-of-work/?couponCode=56A60A058160CD56F7BC
Friday, April 3, 2020
State of Agility 2020: Obstacles to Agile adoption & Aspiration for 2020s (textual)
Sources of obstacles to Agile adoptions vary from implementation faults to the very purpose of the business and economy today.
My current understanding is that there are two factors influencing transformations: implementation faults and residual issues. Implementation faults are all the issues related to how we do transformations. Eliminating them is a matter of optimization: it is possible and it actually has been happening based on the experience we gathered in recent years. On the other hand the residual obstacles are rooted deeper in the context of transformations.Secondly I realized that we cannot get further into the evolution of Workplace until we reformulate the purpose of the business. It is the current purpose of the business and economy that itself is the residual obstacle to agile transformations. In fact the current purpose of business is also a root cause of what I call the technical debt of human civilization: unsustainability of environment and unsustainability of human integrity.
To eliminate the Residual obstacles a deeper change is necessary. They cannot be removed without changing the nature of the goals and the currently dominating purpose of business.
Workplace 2020s - the current state and the aspiration for 2020s
And here is the comparison of the current reality of the workplace and the aspirational reality for 2020s.As you can see the current reality reflects what I already talked about: the degradation of the role of Agile transformations, residual obstacles and so on.
The aspirational reality shows what is possible if we manage to improve on the Implementation faults and in parallel we manage to deal with the residual obstacles. Can you even imagine the power of reframing the purpose of the business? Can you imagine Corporates as good citizens of the world? I cannot wait to see how societies will benefit from this change! I cannot wait to see how our planet will benefit from it! And I cannot wait to see how we as individuals will benefit from it!
With this perspective, I am leaving you in the good frame for reflecting on your experience. This is just a high level pitch on the topic. A more in-depth material follows on the Evolution of Workplace and there you will find more granular view of the landscape. Stay tuned by following resonate as well as the hashtag #agile2020s on social media.
Monday, March 30, 2020
State of Agility 2020: Obstacles to Agile adoption & Aspiration for 2020s
Obstales to Agile adoption & Aspiration for 2020s
This is to inspire you, encourage you to reflect too, and join the wider discussion within the #agile2020s hashtag.
https://lnkd.in/enPJxAq
#transformation #futureofwork #leadership