Transforming organizations to apply Agile concepts is often a tricky endeavor full of blockers from seemingly all directions. Those that embrace the change reap the rewards such as higher productivity, improved customer relations, better quality, and increased morale. Those that execute “Agile in Name Only” get frustrated and don’t achieve the outcomes desired.
Challenges and outcomes from two separate transformation initiatives will be shared. Both organizations invested heavily to introduce and scale Agile across an enterprise. One organization excelled – the other did not.
The approach and outcomes will be compared, so that you can learn from direct field experiences techniques that worked and those that didn't.
The question is purely rhetorical. (Don’t look for a response necessarily…) It was a reserved culture. Lots of inertia for change, more than other companies I’ve worked with. Asking folks to do something different was going to be a challenge.
Want to pilot, try ideas out first.
As those pilots yielded results as a
Ideally, we’d like to be in the upper right quadrant – High Capability / High Willingness.
My next choice for who I’d like on my team is High Willingness, but Low Capability. Over time, Capability can be learned. I don’t’ want a stern person not willing to try.
Be cautious of the High Capability, Low Willingness. It’s typically someone that’s been around for a while, is seen as expert – and this is not inherently bad. You just have to be observant and will likely need to coach this person, especially if they happen to have detrimental impact on the other team members.
In the last group, Low Capability, Low Willingness, well – not much more to say here. You may want to evaluate this person and their role in the company, to see if there’s a more appropriate fit somewhere else in the organization.
This isn’t all of the factors by any means.
And anywhere along the way, it’s easy to get stung…