This document discusses the politics of business agility and culture. It introduces Daryl Kulak, who works for Accenture on enterprise transformations. Accenture is described as a global consulting firm with over 500,000 employees that is moving away from SAP implementations towards digital product delivery and transformation. The document discusses how politics and culture impact projects, and why culture is important but often overlooked. It provides frameworks for assessing corporate culture along dimensions like individualism vs collectivism, power distance, and direct vs indirect communication. The last section asks the reader to consider a political problem and their perspectives on a company's scaling challenges.

1. THE POLITICS OF BUSINESS AGILITY

2. WHO IS DARYL?
- @darylkulak
- Works at Accenture (acquisition)
- Columbus, Ohio + Canada
- Enterprise transformations
- Book
audio version at Audible.com

3. WHO IS ACCENTURE?
- Global consulting firm
- 500K+ employees
- Moving away from SAP
implementations towards digital
product delivery and
transformation (Industry X.0)

4. POLITICS AND CULTURE.
4

5. PICK AN ORGANIZATION
Now describe their tech stack.
5

6. SAME ORGANIZATION
Describe their culture.
6

7. 7

8. WHY DO PROJECTS FAIL?
8

9. 9

10. CULTURE MATTERS.
So why do we know so little about it?
10

11. 11
Value Practices
Value Stories
Release Thin-Slicing
Boundary Critique
Enterprise
Scalability
Program Metrics
Budgeting and Contracting
Performance Appraisals
Team Room
Practices
Sprints
Definition of Done
User Stories
Engineering
Practices
Test-Driven Development
Pair Programming
SOLID Principles

12. Right Worldview
12
Team Room
Practices
Engineering
Practices
Value
Practices
Enterprise
Scalability
Right
Practices
Culture
Right Intention
Right Speech

13. 13
Cultural Dimension Description Examples
Individualism versus
collectivism
Making decisions quickly by an
individual versus a slower, consensus-
based approach
USA – individualist
China – collectivist
Power distance How comfortable the society is with
differences in equality, influence and
wealth; status consciousness
India – high power distance
Denmark – low power distance
Uncertainty avoidance How comfortable a society is with
ambiguity and vagueness; how much
people follow the dominant norms
Germany – high uncertainty avoidance
Singapore – low uncertainty avoidance
Time Orientation View of time as exact and punctual or
as approximate, flexible and relative
Norway – clock time
Mexico – event time
Assessing Corporate Culture

14. 14
Assessing Corporate Culture
Cultural Dimension Description Examples
Direct versus indirect Communication styles of low-context,
open communication versus subtle and
high-context
Russia – direct
Most of Asia – indirect
Neutral versus affective Approach to the display of emotions –
neutral/unemotional versus highly
expressive and emotional
Japan – neutral
Italy – effective
Tight versus loose Approach to social norms – tight control
or left to personal preferences and
diversity
Saudi Arabia – tight
The Netherlands - loose

15. 15
culturalq.com

16. PICK A POLITICAL PROBLEM.
16

25. THE SITUATION
What is your perspective of our company’s scaling
challenges? What worries/excites you?
What do you think worries/excites others?
P I L L A R T E C H N O L O G Y

32. Themes

34. Root
Definitions

35. Root
Definitions
B
A
T
W
O
V
E
Beneficiary
Actors
Transformation
Weltanschauung
Owner
Victims
Environment

37. 37
Execute
& Disrupt

39. Results
● Five two-hour sessions with stakeholders
● Identified and prioritized change list
○ What are the “cool projects?”
○ Thin-slicing our disruptions
○ Cross-domain literacy
○ Coaching skills for “what would it take for you to stay?”
● Made changes one at a time
● Got bought by Accenture
39

40. SOME BOOKS
@darylkulak
darylkulak@protonmail.com
Peter Checkland
Soft Systems Methodology

41. ABOUT THE POLITICS AND CULTURE
41
QUESTIONS?