23 Things to know before starting an Agile Organizational Transformation
6 min readMay 31, 2022
- Words stolen from D. Snowden’s talks and explained in an agile context by practitioner.
- DISASTER STARTS WHEN PEOPLE TRY TO TRICK THE SYSTEM INSTEAD OF CHANGING THE SYSTEM: Change is a grieving process; you have to remove the old and add the new. Hybrid is the absence of change; it uses consensus to trick the system.
- UNDERSTAND THAT A PROBLEM IS USUALLY IN SEVERAL DOMAINS: An Agile Transformation is never an IT topic; it covers the organization as a whole.
- CHANGE IS ABOUT TO REMAIN DYNAMICS: Change is a permanent process of improving your way of working continuously. When the pace slows down, you are losing engagement. The design of your organization should be large enough to allow experimenting and tight enough to feel safe.
- IF EVERYBODY IS ALIGNED YOU DESTROY VARIABILITY IN THE SYSTEM: Everyone is aligned, the sign that everyone is complying. When everyone is complying, you lose engagement and the emergence of new ideas. Agile per se allows diversity and variability in the system, and if the system is primarily variable, it signifies that your system needs to change and not the people.
- COMPLEXITY EXPLAINS HOW TO DESCRIBE THE PRESENT, AND YOU HAVE TO START A RESILIENT APPROACH: CREATE DIRECTIONS AND NOT THE GOAL; WE WANT MORE VARIABILITY IN THE SYSTEM TO ENFORCE THE SYSTEM > PARABLES AND HEURISTICS GIVE BETTER DIRECTIONS. A goal creates a tunnel effect believing that the goal is the right one. A vision gives direction. Parables and heuristics relate to storytelling. Storytelling is using the dynamics of metaphors, the heart of communication, and most of the languages on Earth.
- HAVE SCENICS: SCENICS ARE WARNING SIGNS CARING ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION): Believing that your organization’s scenery remains almost the same is naive. New coalitions and new groups are emerging and reflect the health of your organization.
- NO SILVER BULLETS: To kill a vampire, silver bullets alone are not sufficient. It would be best to have crucifixes and garlic: holy water, and other tools. The idea of one solution fixing everything or applying that pattern, using that method, and implementing this process will fix it is ridiculously immature. Devices support the transformation, and there is no causality between tool and result, and it is anecdotal.
- PROVOKING PEOPLE HELPS TO FIND OUT. Provoking has a negative vibration in politically correct times. Politically correct means to discuss until you find a compromise emptied of most disruptions. Change is a provocation per se, and it challenges the status quo. What sounds like a provocation is usually the question of spotting the dark zone you’ve tried to hide, and that zone is the one that needs to change. Coaching questions are provocative questions asked with respect and empathy.
- HUMAN BEING ARE NOT TERMITES. The only difference between termites and robots is that termites are living organisms. “Humans don’t have the propensity of laziness. They have the propensity for hard work. Hard work that matters to them.” J.McGonigal
- COGNITIVE ACTIVATION IS ALIGNING YOUR ACTIVITIES WITH ROLE: HUMAN BEING CAN MOVE BETWEEN ROLES. The opposite of Role is function. You have a role in the system you are building. That role is the result of engagement and commitment, of finding a piece of yourself in the shared purpose in a moment in time.
- HUMAN BEING IS BASED ON PATTERNS. Joining a group connects the dots between commonalities, stereotypes, archetypes, and patterns. Your humanity is rising from the eyes of people in your system. Or find a ball and call him Wilson.
- SOMETIMES WE DON’T SEE THINGS AND MISS OPPORTUNITIES. The higher the speed, the stronger the focus. The problem with focus is concentrating your view on a tiny part of the universe. It is ok for a little time-lapse. Be gentle with yourself and allow yourself the possibility to settle down or even come back.
- PATTERNS ARE REDUCING OUR SIGHT. Patterns always follow data in Agile, and they are the way you document and illustrate your specific experience. Using patterns is linear, responding to a defined process that you are expecting to reproduce ever and ever. The risk of patterns is that they are context-based, people-based, and obsolete most of the time. Be curious, open your eyes, experiment with new things, and document them in patterns once the experiment concludes.
- EVOLVING FROM PARASITE TO SYMBIOTE. In the Stargate TV Series, Aliens had symbiotes enhancing their human capabilities. Embodying the discomfort of small changes will help you move forward and train yourself to become an improved version of yourself.
- ADAPTATION IS NON LINEAR. Since kindergarten, the number of people knowing exactly what their life will look like has been minimal. It reveals two kinds of personalities: geniuses or perverse narcissists. Reality is different, and agile is about responsiveness over robustness. The boundaries defining what your company is has to be thin and linear, and everything that happens within those boundaries is non-linear.
- PAINTING COMES BEFORE WRITING IN EVOLUTION. Words are often misleading — their meaning changes from country to region. Painting helps to express visually the metaphors you are having in your mind. That drawing will express your understanding and way of thinking, allowing an emotional response.
- CAPTURE MICRO-NARRATIVES AND INTERPRET IT CONTINUALLY. Micro-narratives are one of the most used agile techniques called user stories. User stories are part of a larger narrative often called customer journey. You can cluster the narratives into epic or themes, and all these narratives are the big story binding all stakeholders together.
- POISON IS TO THINK THAT KNOWLEDGE IS A MANUFACTURING PROCESS: YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH WHERE YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU HAVE TO MOVE ON FROM CO- EVOLUTION (LIFE) TO SELF REGULATING SYSTEM: HIGHEST LEVEL OF RESILIENCE. SHIFTING FROM ENGINEERING MIND SYSTEM TO AN ORGANIC SYSTEM. RESILIENCE IS SURVIVING CHANGE WITH CONTINUITY OF IDENTITY, ROBUSTNESS IS SURVIVING UNCHANGED.
- SMALL SIDE EFFECT SIMULATION. Agile means sooner, not faster. Sooner inherits the idea of experimentation and simulation. Every moment in an Agile organization leads to experimentation. Outcomes are discussed, and side effects, positive or not, are part of the learning capital for reinforcement or improvement.
- IF CHANGING HIGHLY LOCKED SYSTEM: STAND THE ECO SYSTEM IN AN HIGHLY EMBEDDED SYSTEM, MAKE PEOPLE CONSCIOUS OF THE INTERDEPENDENCY. Highly locked or highly regulated systems like Finance or Life science are tricky to transform because their nature is risk-based and not value-based. Transformation strategies have to consider the nature of these systems, project collectively a future, define a constructive alliance, and design the first area of experimentation. Some embedded systems have chosen different alternatives, such as creating a new ecosystem allowing the expression of the new behavior (ref. Skunkworks).
- TYPOLOGIES ARE MORE FLEXIBLE THAN TAXONOMY. Extrinsic classification can evolve while improving classification models. Taxonomy is the brand that makes you unique. You can grow in a system that allows more people to join. That system is constantly changing so does its typology. It doesn’t change who you are, and it changes the way you interact with people with similar or different taxonomies.
- I CAN PREDICT A FAILURE, I CAN’T PREDICT INNOVATION. The difference between success and failure is usually summarized by a little fraction called luck. Failure is the absence of luck. Removing luck from the equation, removing the fear of failure from the equation, you will be able to experiment, improve, and hack. That moment is the sparkle of innovation. You can allocate time for innovation, but the outcome remains unpredictable.
- TRYING TO IMITATE A DOMINANT PREDICTOR MAKES YOU A JACK HOLE. Shu: learn the fundamentals. Ha: embrace the new of working and detach yourself from illusions. Ri: transcend the learning. Shu Har Ri is part of the agile legend of adoption. The purpose of Agile is that you become all Ri, not that you are standing at Shu. In the beginning, we are all jackholes while following master’s recipes. Those recipes come from another time, from another context (episteme). Use the recipes as tools to express your uniqueness in the specific environment of your organization.
