Agile and Change Management

Agile + Change Management
Real Stories from Real Organizations
Jason Little, Leanintuit | @jasonlittle | leanintuit.com
http://sli.do use code VirtualSummit17

@jasonlittle | leanintuit.com
- 37 of the ~1300 words in my Linked In feed is ‘agile’
3%

How do I use agile to transform an organization?
An agile transformation project ended up on my
lap, how do I do that?
How do I, as a change manager, work with an agile
team?

- Carl Sagan
“You have to know the past to
understand the present”

www.agilemanifesto.org
2001 - The Agile Manifesto
4 Values
12 Principles

- Martin Fowler
“We decided to call it a manifesto
since it was a call to arms and a
statement of our beliefs.”

- Jim Highsmith
“In order to succeed in the new economy, to move
aggressively into the era of e-business, e-commerce, and
the web, companies have to rid themselves of their Dilbert
manifestations of make-work and arcane policies.”

Then agile became a business model

Marketing Development Operations Change/HR

Marketing’s Agile
Process
Dev’s Agile Process
Operation’s Agile
Process
Change/HR’s Agile
Process
Enterprise mandated Agile Process

‘Going Agile’ in Marketing
Pros:
- created cross-functional teams from 7 diﬀerent marketing areas
- Worked on highly-uncertain projects
- Created ‘design sprint’ process
- Increased learning between sub-groups
“We did what normally takes 3 months, in 1 week!” - VP
Cons:
- project was ready for development, sat in a queue for 7+ months
- Too successful, considering the organizational norm
- Didn’t replicate success on subsequent marketing projects
Result: Many practices stuck, which was signiﬁcant in certain areas.
A Lesson in Local Optimization

#NoPPT

Agile was meant to optimize the time from concept to
cash in order to help organizations stay relevant in the
new economy
Your customers don’t
care about anything
that happens here…
…or here…
…or here…

We desperately want change to look like this
Plan Execute Closeout

Because our brains crave certainty
“the one thing that's certain is that people will pay lots of money to at least feel less uncertain” - David Rock
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200910/hunger-certainty

Experiments
Show progress
early
Man, this
change is
really hard
Uh-oh…
Reboot
Hey, it’s
working!
Uh-oh…
Intervention
Eek, this is
getting
hard…

Far from
certainty
Far from
agreement
Close to
certainty
Close to
Agreement
Moving printers
Agile or digital
transformation
Using agile on
projects

- Me.
“Agile practitioners say ‘we must
embrace uncertainty’, I say we need
to ﬁgure out how to reduce it, or at
least cope with it”

Forget agile…what is meaningful change?
4 Short Stories
leanchange.org/stories

Problems:
- no understanding of change value
- Change management was isolated
- “Us and them” mentality
A Large Bank1

http://leanchange.org/2017/05/lean-change-management-in-action/

Change Canvas helped kickstart alignment
A big visible change wall helped reinforce alignment
An Experimentation approach helped capture outcomes and insights
A feedback-driven approach helped integrate delivery and change management
Key Learnings
leanchange.org/resources

Problems:
- No clear understanding of the change
- No ownership of the change by managers
A Leasing Company2

97% of the people said they felt well-prepared for the change
Program launched within 2 weeks of original date
Dress-rehearsals helped prepare people for launch
Change Canvases helped the people aﬀected by the change design the change
Key Learnings

Problems:
- 50+ stakeholders
- 1000’s of desk agents needed training
A Large Telecom3

What Happened:
Trainers joined bi-weekly sprint demos
Team created before/after screenshot automation for trainers
Business drove the release date, not a ‘continuous deployment’ process
Sorry, this story pre-dates photos.

Be aware of the enterprise
Let all up and down-stream groups choose their own level of involvement
Listen to the system
Key Learnings

Problems:
- 18 months into a 5 year transformation
- Plenty of silos
- Feeling stuck
Another Large Bank4

2 Days
200 people, 20 facilitators
$25,000 in Lego
17 change canvases

$25,000 worth of Lego… …taken by boat from Denmark to Sweden

The change team doesn’t drive anything, they facilitate
“The people who write the plan don’t ﬁght the plan” - Jill Forbes
The conversation matters, not the process, canvas, template or document
Deﬁning an agile change management process in isolation means you’ve already lost
Visualizing change work is incredibly important
The primary responsibility of a change manager is one of sense-making, not control
Common Patterns

- Darryl Connor from CBoC’s 2013 Change Conference
“If you aren’t in this profession to
facilitate meaningful change, get oﬀ
the path.”

The future of change management isn’t agile, or a
standard process or a watered down certiﬁcation.
Everything we need to know has already been invented.
All that’s required is a shift in stance:
Away From:
Control
Buy-in
Best practices
Communication
Urgency
Towards:
Facilitation
Co-Creation
Good practices
Dialogue
Cause and Purpose

References
https://martinfowler.com/articles/agileStory.html
http://agilemanifesto.org/history.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200910/
hunger-certainty
http://leanchange.org/stories
Thank you!

Agile and Change Management

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