Food for thought on change management.

1. Change Management
Training

2. Purpose of this presentation
• Help you understand what YOU can do to trigger organizational change
• Ask questions to trigger ideas
• Ideas that lead to change
• Discuss it in the context of Agile Transformation
How can you get a 6-year old to clean his room?
2

3. A model for change
3

4. Change…
• …takes courage
• …generates resistance
4

5. Finding the path of least resistance
• Choose the length and width of your path
• Be careful of the illusion of change
5

6. Wildfire Metaphor
• Find combustible material in your local work area
• Set it on fire
• Once you see flame, pour gasoline on them
• Encourage multiple small fires to merge.
• The large fire will begin to spread itself
6

7. Avoiding the ”Us & Them” problem
• Strategy: Talk to
everyone at once:
– Developers
– + Managers
– + Customers
– All at once!
• Strategy: Capture
the Intent from
each group
7

8. Ask the right question
• ”Why can’t you” => ”Do you want to? How can you?”
The art of the Possible
8

9. Visualize the current situation
• This is what Kanban is good for: visualize the
workflow.
9

10. Be realistic
10

11. Death March detection
• Using gut feel: Do you believe the current goal is
achievable?
• Vote by hand / fingers:
– 5 = certainly
– 4 = probably
– 3 = barely
– 2 = probably not
– 1 = forget it
11

12. Remove impediments and be happy
• Top 3 impediments to be handled in priority
• ”How did it feel to come to work this week?
– Developer Happiness Index (rated 1 to 5, average
on the team)
12

13. Compare options (including status quo)
• Evaluating all options simultaneously
– 5 = Great!
– 4 = Pretty good
– 3 = Acceptable, but barely
– 2 = Don’t think I can accept this
– 1 = Forget it!
• Choosing a course of actions
13

14. Reversible experiments
• Try things out, but with the
possibility of reverting
14

15. Make a business case for your change
• Use figures to motivate change
– Team estimates that our velocity would increase by 50% if
we sit together.
– This means we can release 2 months early. What is the
business value of that?
– What is the cost of tearing down this wall so that the team
can sit together?
• …in practice not so easy to evaluate the benefits, but
try anyway
15

16. Use metrics to visualize progress
16

17. Ask for forgiveness rather than permission
• The right to fail:
« The only real failure is the failure to learn from
failure! »
• Or another way to put it:
1. Fail fast
2. Learn from it
3. Don’t do it again
17

18. Agile transformation
• Agile requires a transformation, not only
adoption.
– You adopt a tool or a process. Agile is a
mindset so you can’t really adopt it. But
you can adopt Agile practices.
– Agile requires transformation, which
implies change.
• Culture is the #1 challenge with Agile.
Agile defines a target culture for successful
delivery of software.
• Think about Agile as a culture and not only
as a product or family of processes.
18

19. Schneider Culture Model
• Where are we? As a company, as a team.
19

20. Agile in Schneider Culture Model
20

21. 21

22. Kanban Culture
• Is Kanban agile?
• Agile is first about people. Kanban is first about the system.
22

23. Kanban is a good tool
• Use Kanban as a Trojan horse, containing Agile inside.
• Practice an agile mindset with Kanban as a starting
place for evolving the process.
• Its primary purpose is to provide a feedback loop that
can be used to drive change in organizations.
23

24. Software Craftsmanship
• Focus on competence
and technical
excellence.
• We will talk again
about code as craft.
Promoted by XP.
24

25. Pick the right tool
• Work with
the existing
culture.
• Do not fight
against it.
25

26. Disruption
• Change in one place will create disruption in
the rest of the organization.
• Care and attention is required to accomodate
disruption.
• Design culture « adapters » to satisfy the
organization while driving change.
26

27. Leaders go first!
• Live the values
• Lead by example
• Seek to truly understand their culture
• Be as transparent as the teams they lead
27

28. Another perspective
Agile is an evolutionary approach to
innovation and growth, respecting the
people who create value.
28

29. Summary
• Don’t change other people, motivate them to
change themselves
– Give them a reason to change (visualization)
– Show them a way to change. (Small, clear steps)
– Give them support, encouragement, and feedback
29

30. Reference: Change Management
• http://blog.crisp.se/2012/08/31/henrikkniberg/everybody-wants-
change-but-nobody-likes-to-be-changed
• http://www.infoq.com/resource/minibooks/agile-adoption-
transformation/en/pdf/Agile%20Survival%20Guide%20-
%20Michael%20Sahota%20-%202012.pdf
• http://agilitrix.com/2011/04/agile-culture-series-reading-guide/
• http://fr.slideshare.net/lazygolfer/doing-agile-isnt-the-same-as-
being-agile
• http://blog.intercom.io/asking-questions-versus-giving-advice
30