Agile Culture and Adoption Survival Guide from Agile New England on Vimeo.

P.S. I am actively working on an eBook for those who prefer print. Drop me an email if you want to help review it before it comes out.

P.P.S Slides are here.

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At it’s very simplest form it is about explicitly considering your (and other’s) feelings and needs. The following diagram outlines the key elements of NVC for coaches.

Observing

Observing is an important skill for an Agile Coach. In NVC, the goal is to observe without evaluation, judgement or analysis. The idea here is that when we focus on observable data (I see, hear, etc.), we can operate and reason about what is actually happening rather than the filtered, distorted version that our brains typically serve up to us.  In the workshop we practiced distinguishing observations from evaluations and practiced removing the evaluation to focus on observable properties.

Of course, you can also practice observing with my fun Coaching Skills Dojo.

Feeling

People’s feelings shape the conversation. They can uplift and energize or take you down a rabbit-hole. Here is an inventory of feelings that you can use to understand what’s going on with people.

Needs

Needs are the place where feelings come from. Positive feelings come from needs that are met. Negative feelings come from unfulfilled needs. Here is an inventory of needs that can help you identify what’s going on.

Know thyself!
As a coach, it behooves us know where we are so we can help others.

First, get an understanding of your feelings and needs in a particular situation. This will allow you to more effectively communicate and manage your internal state.

Second, consider what you client is experiencing in terms of feelings and needs. If you pay attention to facial expressions, tonality and words, you will be in position to ask clarifying questions to understand what’s going on for them.

Exercise to find balance

The best part of the workshop for me was the following exercise:

1. Sit in a chair with your eyes closed and think of a situation.
2. What are your feelings in this situation?
3. What are your needs in this situation?
4. Stand up, open your eyes so that you leave the situation in the chair.
5. Look at the chair and imagine seeing yourself in that situation.
6. Now coach the person in the chair. Say an appreciation. What else will you say to them to help them?
7. Sit back down in the chair, close your eyes and integrate.

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Confused about adoption vs. transformation?  Check out ways to make progress with Culture Gaps.

Agile Mindset – Do you want it?

Jon shows the following short video of IDEO design group to illustrate the Agile mindset and the type of servant leadership needed to support it.

After watching the video with executives who want Agile, he checks in with them:

• “Is this what you really want?”
• “Are you prepared to change your own behaviour to support this?”
• “Are you ready to go first?”

The approach outlined here is to go big or go home. Go big means to help transform an organization or division. Go home, means that rather than help adopt a few Agile practices that may disrupt the organization, to stop work and looks for clients who really want Agile.

Leaders Go First!

The remainder of the presentation is about how leaders can go first by adopting Agile principles as a management team. Jon summarizes this as:

• Live the values
• Lead by example
• Be as transparent as the teams they lead

Here are some example activities for the management team:

• Public display of values
• Visualize projects and plans
• Visual management of key information: people, technology, etc
• Daily stand-up meeting in public place

Thank you Jon, for sharing this at Agile 2011.

Related posts:

1. Ways to Make Progress with Culture Gaps In an earlier post, I talked about how Agile Fits...
2. Red Pill, Blue Pill & Ugly Transition Realities A critical predictor of success I have seen in Agile...
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Understanding Flow through Games

I was fortunate to be accepted to the Agile Bootcamp track to present Lean Fundementals: Understanding Flow through games. I am thrilled since this touches on two passions of mine – Lean/Flow thinking and using games for learning.

Strategic Play® with Lego® for Solving Serious Problems

I am going to run two open jam sessions (each with a maximum of 14 participants) to use  Strategic Play® with Lego®  to solve some serious problems or build a shared vision. I will announce the times via twitter (follow-me) and also using the open jam board.

One of these will be focussed on generating leadership ideas for the Scrum Alliance. Some example acceptance tests for leadership are:

• There is a clear compelling vision of the Scrum Alliance that is supported by 70% of the membership.
• Satisfaction with leadership in Scrum Alliance is high. (e..g more than 4 out of 5 on survey).
• Public perception of the Scrum Alliance is positive.
• Members feel like their voice is heard regarding key decisions.

Innovation Games® T-Shirt Contest

You probably already know that Innovation Games® are amazingly powerful for supporting Product Owner/Manager communication and discovery with customers and stakeholders.

What you may not know is that there is a game at Agile 2011 for promoting awareness about Innovation Games® using a photo contest. Get your picture with me and other trained facilitators to win cold hard cash. I am very excited to participate and am bringing my two t-shirts. See front and back below. Sadly, my new tshirt did not get here in time…

Tasty Cupcakes – Game on!

I have been working with Mike McCollough and Don McGreal to accelerate tastycupcakes.org as the destination site to find and share games for learning about Agile and for games that do valuable work.

Games provide a way for people to play to get outstanding business results or accelerated learning.  Spot me wearing a TastyCupcakes tshirt and I’ll help you find the game for you!

Coach’s Corner

As a Certified Scrum Coach I thought I would pay it forward by participating in the Coach’s Corner to help coaches.

If you were thinking that this is not about play or games, well either you are right or life itself is a game. A collaborative one.

My office hours are:

• Monday 8am-9am
• Thursday 5pm to 7pm
• Friday 8am-9am

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This video is pretty long, but the best bits for me were in the first 12 minutes. Some great parts:

• Letter using Remember the Future for remembering why the student will have been wildly successful (3:43)
• You can give an “A” grade to anyone – to transform the relationship (4:25)
• “How Fascinating!” as a celebration of errors to maintain an available state (10:53)

Also, Benjamin Zander has a book with this title (haven’t read it yet).

No related posts.

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Last weekend, a group of local Agilistas got together for BBQ, drink, and to play with Lego. Well, not just play, but StrategicPlay® – with a purpose. And wow, what a result! The outcome was some deep insights into the Agile community that we’d like to share with you.

Setting the Stage

After a brief introduction and practice with StrategicPlay® model building and sharing, everyone proposed a topic for the session by building a model and explaining it. After voting (with little wee Lego coins), the group decided on the model/topic show to the left: it contrasts the low level of connection within the Agile community and outside with other communities with the ideal/future state where there is a very powerful coherent tower of strength in the community.

Individual Visions of Agile Community Challenges

Now that the topic was establish, everyone built their own model of it and took turns explaining them. Below, for example, is an individual model. Even though it was by the same participant who created the topic, the process of listening and sharing resulted in a dramatically different model. It tells the story of seemingly growing success of Agile as a movement, but coupled with a disconnect in making a difference with much of the corporate world. The possible elephant in the room is that perhaps Agile is and always has been about innovators and early adopters.

Here is another one – showing factions arguing with each other in order to produce commercial success while the great challenge of waterfall waste is left largely unchallenged.

 A Shared Vision of Agile Community Challenges

The next challenge was for the group to work together to create a shared model that:

• Represented the most important concept from each person’s individual model, AND
• Everyone felt comfortable will all parts of the shared model

Although I only facilitated the process, I felt a strong connection with the model and ideas in it.

Credits

Credit for the model goes to : Alistair McKinnell, Jason Cheong-Kee-You, Jeff Anderson, Siraj Berhen, Todd Charron, and Sam DeBoni. Great work!

StrategicPlay® looks powerful – What can I use it for?

StrategicPlay® is great for working out solutions to complex problems. The more complex, the better.

It has a wide variety of applications from: team building and organizational change to product innovation to developing company strategy.

If you are curious to learn more about applications or the science behind why this stuff works so well, please read a more detailed description.

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This is your chance to hear about the Ugly harsh realities, the Bad news and the Good opportunities for Agile. In many ways this concludes the past months series on Agile Culture.

The Ugly: Harsh Reality

Failure is now commonplace

The Bad: Wake-up call for Coaches

Unconscious Ingnorance – where the majority of coaches are right now

The days where we pretend that Agile is the greatest things since sliced bread and we can just drop it in to any company are over.

The Good: Tools for success

First step is understanding

Look at the big picture

Quo Vadis?

Agile makes the world a better place

What’s your play book?

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Below is a quick synopsis of each post in the series on Organizational Culture, Adoption and Transformation so you it’s easy to find the most relevant content for you and start with what interests you most.

Best Summary

• 1 Hour Video explanation (and slides) of Culture; adoption/transformation meta-framework – If you really want to understand, I encourage you to watch the video. Don’t have time – just scan the presentation slides. Agile New England, Dec. 2011
• How to Make Your Culture Work with Agile, Kanban & Software Craftsmanship – Method and Tools Article, Dec. 2011
• eBook – In progress. Drop me a note if you want to be a reviewer.

Juicy Conclusions

Read about why it matters to you:

• Agile Fits Better in Some Company Cultures than Others – Agile is a great way of thinking about software development but that doesn’t mean it fits in with all company cultures. Ditto for Kanban.
• Agile – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Links cultural issues central to challenges faced with Agile Adoption and Transition. What you need to know as a change agent.

Change Agent’s Toolkit

Read this to expand your toolkit:

• A Tour of Agile Adoption and Transformation Models – Review of Agile Adoption and Transformation models. What tools people in the community are using and where they are effective.
• Ways to Make Progress with Culture Gaps – Different ways for coaches to make progress with Agile when it doesn’t fit with the culture.
• Agile – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – See final section – “The Good”

Reading Order from Beginning to End

If you want to understand the logic in linear order, start here:

1. How to Make Your Culture Work (Schneider) – Explanation of Schneider culture model that is used as a base for the analysis and provides a framework for discourse.
2. Agile is about Collaboration and Cultivation Culture – Analysis of Agile/Scrum core values and associated culture.
3. Kanban aligns with Control Culture – Analysis of Kanban cultural bias.
4. Software Craftsmanship promotes Competence Culture – Analysis of Craftsmanship cultural bias.
5. Agile Fits Better in Some Company Cultures than Others – Juicy conclusions that points to a different way for coaches to approach and engage with clients.
6. A Tour of Agile Adoption and Transformation Models – Review of Agile Adoption and Transformation models. What tools people in the community are using and where they are effective.
7. Ways to Make Progress with Culture Gaps – Different ways for coaches to make progress with Agile when it doesn’t fit with the culture.
8. Agile – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Links cultural issues central to challenges faced with Agile Adoption and Transition. See also slides.

Post-Script

Here are some more bits and pieces around culture:

• DOI? Cultural Shotgun – Culture analysis of the Declaration of Interdependence
• Culture of “Good To Great” Companies and Why it Matters – Why competence matters.
• Workshop Results on Culture - Walk-through of workshop results supporting cultural claims.

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In this post, we’ll review some common strategies for handling cultural mismatches.

The Big Pitcure

I almost posted this blog without a summary picture and I am glad I stopped myself. Once I made the drawing below, I saw there are two main strategies (adoption and transformation) and sub-strategies within them. This post will walk you through the options and when to use them.

Work with your Culture

This is the recommendation from Schneider’s book – How to make your Culture work: work with your culture; don’t fight it. I’ll outline some ways below.

#1 Build on Your Current Culture

The idea here is pick an approach that is compatible with the current culture of the organization.

One way I interpret the diagram on the right (see related article) is a prescription of what aspects of Agile/Lean to focus on based on company culture:

• Control Culture? –> Lead with Kanban
• Competence Culture –> Lead with Craftsmanship
• Collaboration or Cultivation Culture –> Lead with aspects of Agile that align with the organizations culture. e.g. Vision and Retrospectives for Cultivation Culture.

Kanban? But it’s not Agile!

Some really smart Agile folks think than Kanban is a sell-out: That it is a watered down, inferior form of Agile that doesn’t measure up. (I mostly disagree with this sentiment).

This reminds me of a story Craig Larman shared at a local user group meeting: “My favourite process is Unified Process. I do it in a very Agile way. But, I never recommend it to my clients since it is too easily interpreted as Waterfall and they won’t get the benefits. Instead I use an explicit Agile method. It’s not my preference, but I use it and it is better for my clients.” So, even if you like Scrum better, your client may thank you for helping them with Kanban.

So my view on the topic is that it doesn’t really matter which is better in some abstract sense. All that matters is what will help this client the most and make peoples lives better. See Kanban is a Gateway Drug for more thoughts on this topic.

#2 Work with Compatible Cultures

Consider the diagram to the right. It shows that although the easiest option is to work with the existing dominant culture (in this case Control) it is possible to explore adjacent cultures since these are more aligned. Choice of direction may be guided by what the secondary non-dominant culture of the organization is. The idea here is to work with the culture, and not go against  the grain.

#3 Create Adapters between Different Cultures

Another way to handle this problem of cultural mismatch is to create barriers between different cultures. The idea here is to create a firewall or facade that lets the different cultural groups function with little friction.

Israel Gat talks about creating a boundary object such as automated tests and technical debt measurements to avoid conflict between development (collaboration) and operations (control). For this, and more on ways that you can make your culture work see Israel Gat’s presentation and conference session.

Joseph Pelrine has a great video on InfoQ – Dealing with the Organizational Challenges of Agile where he talks through some models including using people as buffers (Scrum Master) to translate between internal team culture and the external culture of the team. This is an amazing video that goes into much more theoretical arguments well beyond culture, so consider watching the full one hour.

One successful pattern I have seen is for Agile teams to create Gantt charts to keep the PMO happy. In some companies, this is necessary waste. It brings no value to the organization, but it is currently required for the organization to function. Of course you could stick to your principles and refuse, however, you may find that when the organizational antibodies that attack, they are stronger than your management support. Or it’s not worth the fight at this time.

Change your Culture

OK, this is hard. Really hard. Culture is singularly persistent in organizations.

What about Visionary Leadership?

Conventional wisdom is that innovative companies with visionary leadership can also transform to Agile. This is why you will often hear Agile coaches say that you need strong management support. But is this true?

Some people might point to the success of a company like SalesForce.com as an example of how they were able to change their culture. On the other hand, in the article Six Common Mistakes that Salesforce didn’t make, it is stated that “The leadership saw the transformation not so much as a wholly new approach, but rather a return to the firm’s core values.” So, this would then not be an example.

I vaguely recall a similar story about getting back to the original culture with Yahoo, who also did and enterprise transition to Scrum.

If you have any case studies, please feel free to share via email or comments.

Welcome back, Kotter

No, I’m not talking about the TV show. I’m talking about the Kotter model of organizational change. It recognizes the eight stages that are seen in successful organizational change efforts.

Some coaches in the Agile community are aware of the Kotter model and a few are actively using it to help companies achieve an Agile mindset. I am not aware of any case studies where a company has undergone transformation to Agile using this model (but we don’t do a good job as a community collecting case studies so it is unclear how heavily to weight this).

So, if you are thinking about changing company culture, this is pretty much the only clear transition model available. And yes, if you are a coach, you do need to understand organizational development to do your job well. Sad, but true.

So what?

As a coach, you need to know what game you are playing. Are you helping management transform their organization or are you helping them adopt a culturally-fit approach? Hopefully, you are not rolling the dice with inspect and adapt.

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As you put these three key skills into practice, you will get feedback on your performance and have the opportunity to try out improvement ideas in a safe, open and friendly environment.

Learning Objectives

• Practice listening without judgment
• Gather information more effectively
• Ask different kinds of questions to understand the real problem
• Gain fresh insights into a problem you face at work

Recipe

• Number of participants: 6 to 20 (could go to 30 with a bit of deterioration)
• Team size: work in groups of 3.
• Duration: 90 minutes (can be made shorter or longer)
• Materials: Flip chart paper and marker for each group.
• Setup: Chairs for sitting, walls for flipchart paper.
• Credits: This game was created by Michael Sahota and Portia Tung. It can be considered a variant of The Yellow Brick Road – Agile Adoption Through Peer Coaching (see below).

Process/Mechanics

Below is the core part of the Dojo – practicing skills.

We will use flipcharts and posters to support a highly interactive workshop where most of the work will be done in small groups.

(2 min ) Introduction – session objectives, activities
(2 min) Three key coaching skills (http://www.agilitrix.com/2009/08/agile-coaching-roles-notes-from-agile-2…) – tell participants that we will only focus on these three.
(5 min) Human bubblesort: participants order themselves by listening, observing and questioning skills (low to high)
(1 min) Form Triads (groups of three) with neighbours

(9 min) Build Skills poster for listening, observing and questioning

• (5 min) Each triad creates a poster to define the three skills. (Need poster, markers)
• (4 min) Triads share posters with large group; only some groups will share, not all. We will ask if anyone has something important that was missed.

(6 min) Launch triad

• Re-iterate session goals: 1) Identify Action Points 2) Practice Skills
• Individuals brainstorm up to three problems and pick one
• Explain Roles: Client, Coach, Observer
• Explain timing and structure of the practice rounds

(27 min) First Round of Practice

• 5 mins x 3 mini rounds (everyone rotates through roles)
• 5 mins sharing within triad
• 7 mins sharing with group

(27 min) Second Round of Practice

(2 min) Wrap-up

• Action point takeaways – close eyes for one minute and think of how you will use these skills in the next week.

(6 min) Slack/Buffer – for possible late start or time overrun

Facilitator Tips

• Prepare in advance flipcharts with:
  • The 3 roles
  • Timing of each mini-round
• Bring a gong or bell to let people know when to change roles. Why? People get so far down the tunnel it is hard to get them to shift gears.
• (Optional) Prepare a handout with a summary of the three skills.
• (Optional) Prepare your own poster explaining the three skills.

Sources of Inspiration

Michael attended Rachel Davies Coaching Dojo at Agile 2010 and was curious about how to build upon its subject using aspects of the Yellow Brick Road game.

Coaching Skills Dojo can be considered a variant of The Yellow Brick Road – Agile Adoption Through Peer Coaching created by Portia Tung, Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and Duncan Pierce. The inspiration for this new game is to streamline it and create a more relaxed pace than the original Yellow Brick Road game. For example, the mini-rounds are extended by five minutes and there are only two mini-rounds rather than three in the original game. As well, we have introduced a learner-led mini-workshop at the start to remind and grow peoples understanding of the three skills.

This was submitted (but not accepted) to Agile 2011 as “Over the Rainbow: Coaching success through observing, listening and questioning” and has been subsequently renamed.

Feedback from First Run at Agile Games 2011

• “It was great to bring specific focus on the skills involved in coaching: observing, listening and questioning. It is too easy to take this for granted.” – M.C.
• “Made 2 really great contacts.” – L.L.
• Rated 9.2/10 for usefulness at work.
• As facilitator, it was very moving to see participants improve their skills in such a short time.

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