How Do I Raise Awareness of Transformation Problems?

Or “We are mid-transformation. What problems do we expect to see?”

Premise

OK, so not the greatest name as their really isn’t a “mid-transformation”; it just keeps on going. But the idea was to say “it seems like we are doing so well - what could possibly go wrong” and realize the this is a time of large danger and people go on auto mode and we are not yet sustaining based practices let alone overall mindset.

An approach I've used is to do a facilitated workshop session aimed at working this issue.

Learning Outcomes

Develop sensitivity for some of the issues seem in previous transformations so we can intercede as possible

Determine if there is something we need to worry about right now

Materials

Printout of items that coaches have seen in the past (see below)

Facilitation

Table-by-table. Review items that coaches have seen in the past? Which ones have you seen? Debrief each table.

Table-by-table. What other items do you think might be an issue? Debrief each table.

Room. Gather up the items talked about at each of the tables. Dot vote on which ones are a concern right now.

Room. Take top few. Law of two feet to determine plan (if any) to address. Debrief.

Room. Capture actions, next steps, clarity

Room. Fist of five on result on result

A List of Smells

Smells coaches came up with:

Direct backsliding to old ways of working and thinking

People using agile terminology while still working in old ways

Key impediments that we have identified again and again are not progressing

People that were early in the transformation not seeing the learning from those who started later

Management worrying about their status at the expense of the common objective

Inability to bring on new people to the new way resulting in confusion and regression

Stagnation of learning – no one going out to learn more

Systems in place encourage “follow the plan” approach instead of option seeking, innovation approach

All capacity allocated to features ignoring technical debt, learning, and innovation

Inability to change to flow based optimization of value delivery (focus on utilization and cost accounting)

Inability to establish new roles as something valuable to the organization

Non-IT organizations not adapting to new approach and mindset

The statement from management is “but we’re agile” actually means “do what I say and meet all your other commitments as well”

Not respecting the “Team” – people trying to identify people to work something instead of bringing work to the team

Inability to move from “we must do everything” to “this is best use of our capacity” thinking

Constantly investing in new capabilities at the expense of existing quality, reliability and other issues

Not creating real, stable, high performing teams

Agile ceremonies turning into status meetings instead of working meetings

Focusing too much on expected results at the expense of establishing fast feedback loops

Different agendas mean that alignment statements are meaningless

Note: if you are running this workshop session, you will want to tailor these to suite your environment. Examples I've seen include:

Cannot seat Teams together

Wrong mix of people on the Teams (mixing oil and water)

Inability to do Agile mentor-ship by leadership

Focus on “expected result” instead of “fast feedback”

No DevOpsSec

Losing common sense in the face of the new ceremonies etc.

Not filling named roles

Misuse of “agile”

Inability to see tangible results

Non-agile Teams (hiding behind ceremonies)

Hybrid organizational friction, especially with Projects

Burn-out risk as people now assume two roles / jobs

Lack of understanding of other Teams value (cross-organization)

No real road-map - only see current quarter

Want to Know More?

What Kinds of Problems Do you Typically See As The Organization Transforms to Agile / Lean?