Enterprise Coaching

Exposing the reality of work at Spotify, as a failure/learning report intended for change agents to see the challenges and the opportunities for growth.

Let's put aside the 'bubblegum and unicorns' of the Spotify Engineering Culture videos and talk about what doesn't quite work at Spotify, and how we're trying to solve it. Joakim Sundén (who was an agile coach at Spotify headquarters from 2011 to 2017) presents a failure/learning report intended for coaches and other change agents who need encouragement that it's always hard AND it's always possible to improve.

The principles of Agile 2 - the self-proclaimed "Next Generation of Agile".

The article describes the proclaimed next-generation of Agile principles. The authors further list the problems and insights discovered during their retrospective on the state of Agile and the ensuing discussions when coming to a consensus on these principles. As we have highlighted some of them in the takeaways, the principles teach us about what to expect in Agile 2.0. Check the article for more insights about each principle, the corresponding problem, and the key roles that Agile will be playing to solve them.

How to identify when agile tools and practices are being adopted without deploying them with the accompanying mindset.

Agile senior contributor Steve Denning explains Fake Agile. It follows a request by a major corporation to give a talk on the topic describing what it is, how to identify it, and how to deal with it. He argues that the term “agile” is often thrown around without any agreement on its meaning and being applied to firms, or parts of firms, that have no substantive claim to any agility. Surveys by Deloitte and McKinsey show that more than 90% of senior executives give high priority to becoming agile, while less than 10% see their firm as currently highly agile. Based on his past research, Steve suggests that Real Agile is achieved by organizations embodying a mindset with three main laws: the "Law of the Customer", the "Law of the Small Team", and the "Law of the Network".

Find out why attempting to standardize a single method of Agile practice across your organization could be slowing everyone down.

Knowing the power of self-organization, frameworks, and best practices can be very useful. But staying open to solutions that are different is more important than standardizing one framework in the organization. An Agile framework that works for one department may not automatically work for all other departments. As such, rather than having a universal process for all departments within the organization, allow tailored processes for each department(s) as required. Check the article to find out more about the risk of adopting a one-size-fits-all approach and the role of leadership when implementing Agile frameworks.

Introducing an iterative innovation process focused on the creation of value and the priorities of the organization.

Jose Cabrera introduces an iterative innovation process that is being adopted by new generation companies within the current age of technology to survive the uncertainties it poses and accelerate their growth. He alleges that the world is moving exponentially while company structures remain very linear thus creating a dynamic environment for organizations. As a result, he suggests that stakeholders need new mental models to build and lead organizations in this world of accelerated changes, new organizational structures capable of interacting with the new reality, and new systemic models for change, in order to allow the transformation of the entire organization.

Outlining a framework to handle the rapid pace of change by managing the Survive Channel and the Thrive Channel.

In the post-pandemic period, organizations are adapting to the new changes made during the pandemic. Such as leveraging social tools like zoom to interact with their teams and clients. However, how are the companies dealing with this major transition? Here, we learn the two-channel systems coded into humans that are usually in response during times of rapid change and uncertainty. The Survive Channel, which is activated by threats and leads to feelings of fear, anxiety, and stress; and the Thrive Channel, which is activated by opportunities and is associated with feelings of excitement, passion, and joy.

Understanding how cultural management impacts agile approaches in an organization.

Does managerial culture influence agile approaches? Johanna Rothman, a managerial consultant, summarizes a Twitter thread about perspective and non-perspective agile approaches in this article to explain how managers (and the culture they uphold) impact agile transformations in an organization. Organizations live by either Theory X or the Theory Y of management, however, irrespective of the method used, most agile transformations fail! WHY? Johanna adds that for any agile approach to work, managerial culture has to change first.

A simple model to explain Agile in a nutshell with an anchored visualization, with visible items and some below the surface.

Addressing changes to both leadership and management processes in order to integrate self-regulating and value-based controls systems and become more adaptive.

Bjarte Bogsnes leads this presentation on Beyond Budgeting explaining what it is, and why businesses need it using a roundabout and a traffic system analogy. Through the presentation, he also talks about the traditional management practice that majorly hinders business agility and introduces Beyond Budgeting citing it is the key to achieving a true organizational Agile transformation. It involves changing and addressing both leadership and management processes in a coherent, consistent way in order to become more adaptive. Let's click the button now to learn about Bjarte's knowledge of the Beyond Budgeting process and much more about organizational management.

Exploring the different requirements for collaboration in agile transformations when they are complex and complicated efforts.

Jay Stanton Goldstein figures out the answer to the dilemma of whether Agile coaches could actually team up and work on a project. He describes how he joined a large agile consulting company working on agile transformations within a major US insurance company and he suggested to his coach to join forces with the other lead coaches of the value streams. However, the coach noted that agile coaches are way too much of divas to be able to work together. Read the article for more insights and understand why agile ways of working are a particularly good approach for the "VUCA" world we inhabit--a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous one.

If you want a Product Puppet, then don't do Scrum.

Roadmaps are an easy litmus test to assess the stage the organization is at in their Agile journey and what you will be up against.

How to grow individuals out of a job description that is rigid, constrained and lacks empowerment.

An in-depth analysis of defining jobs and roles in organizations by Jeff Anderson. The writer walks us through the traditional approaches to roles and jobs noting that they don't allow self-organization - as they lead to rigidity, constrain, and lack of empowerment in the workplace. He further pinpoints that we can however define roles and jobs in an Agile organization without undermining self-organization to create a borderless workplace where employees focus on getting to the outcome rather than creating deliverables, specialists train and mentor others, and leaders step in to help when necessary.

Three practices that when modeled by a leader will shape the culture you want the organization to move towards.

Culture can be changed intentionally, and leaders from all levels can shape the organization with the practices they do with teams. In this online meetup Ronica Roth covers three practices that, when modeled by a leader, have a big impact on those around you - and will eventually move the organization towards the culture you desire. These three practices are: 1) Facilitate open and honest discussions; 2) Help people plan to learn; and 3) Express appreciation to make values real through storytelling.

Contrasting having a few coaches set the tone for many others or having dedicated coaches embedded in teams.

This whitepaper extensively talks about Agile coaching with the key focus on decentralized and centralized coaching. It states that there is a frequent misunderstanding with respect to the definition of agile coaching: coaching focus (e.g. enterprise vs. team) is confused with coaching alignment (centralized vs. decentralized) within an organization. We learn that centralized coaching is basically a distinct organization driving transformation across the entire organization while decentralized coaching is a less rigidly structured team of like-minded coaches that align themselves with a clearly defined product, service, or line of the business. Read the whitepaper now to draw the difference between centralized coaching and decentralized coaching, know the benefits of decentralized coaching, and generally gain a deeper insight into Agile coaching.

A scientific investigation of a model tested on both small-scale and large-scale organizations to determine the success factors for agile transformations.

What really attributes to a successful agile transformation? Christiaan Verwijs in this post summarizes a scientific investigation carried by Daniel Russo, a professor at the University of Aalborg, about the key factors that give agile transformations traction. The research is based on a model tested on a single organization and then on a large-scale sample for generalization. The results indicate that Scrum masters and other factors explained in the article, contribute to successful agile transformations.

Thoughts and views on ways of implementing new change efforts in organizations.

‎An introduction to Lean Change Management.

A conversation with Jason Little, author of the Lean Change Management book. Lean Change Management advocates that any change plan has to be described as a set of assumptions and that the change agents, change stakeholders and change recipients are responsible for validating those assumptions using explicit hypotheses. Validated learning is learning from data measured in experiments.

Companies must pay as much attention to the hard side of change management as they do to the soft aspects. By rigorously focusing on four critical elements, they can stack the odds in favor of success.

A look at the possible stages of development in a scrum adoption journey.

Some organizations are completely tied to the traditional processes simply because they have mastered the system over time. Embracing and mastering Scrum is also the ultimate weapon against poor teamwork and bad results in an organization. Scrum promotes cross-functional teams and positions organizations towards becoming truly Agile. However, the process does not take the flip of a switch. Learn what is Scrum transformation and what is required for organizations to make it through the journey. From the nascent stage of Scrum transformation "Technical Scrum'', to "Organizational Scrum'' in this text.

The analogy between playing Chess and Agile transformation

Transforming an organization from its planned-approach system to full agility is a process that has many challenges. Most organizations end up backing out from the journey. But, just like playing Chess, Agile transformation takes time to master. Tristan Libersat in this article mirrors Chess to Agile transformation giving tips on how the game relates and teaches us about Agile transformation.

Steering away from the Agile Industrial Complex by identifying negative anti-patterns and adopting healthy patterns.

Have you ever asked yourself why most Agile transformations fail in organizations? Even after a successful start of the journey to change from a planned approach system to an Agile setting, a couple of organizations don't make it to the finish line. This is a result of countless setbacks that spur amid the transition. But where do they really go wrong? The article explains anti-patterns leveraged by leaders to implement change that trigger fear and resistance in the employees and in the end hinder the whole transformation process. You will also learn some of the patterns like motivating your employees that shed light on successful transformations.

What agile transformation really means and the steps required to transition your non-agile status quo to an effective agile culture.

Christine Thompson, an agile coach, narrates leaving her former organization to help a new company transition to agile. The change prompts her to reflect on what is really agile transformation and why implementing it in an organization is hard? In the text, she leverages credible agile sources like the Michael Sahota book and concludes that most organizations only "adopt agile" and get trapped in a non-agile world thinking they have transitioned to an agile culture. She notes that a transition of a whole organization takes every stakeholder, including management, and involves basic adoption, team agility, and organizational agility.

Scrum improves transparency in an organization and is more effective for important discussions than a Steering Committee.

Scrum framework is more effective in an organization for important discussions, teamwork, and transparency than a Steering Committee. Sarah, a team leader in the organization, intends to hold a Sprint Review with all the C-levels present including the CEO, to talk about the team's progress and what they plan to do next. However, Sarah's Manager Fred is strictly against the idea and plans to keep things in the dark for the C-level through a Steering Committee.

30 controversial innovation tricks from 6 peculiar industries used to move organizations from comfort to the growth zone.

Getting companies (specially large ones) to innovate is no easy task. In this slideshow, the Board of Innovation shows us techniques they have used to spark creativity in their brainstorming sessions. They confronted corporates with unconventional markets to help them innovate like startups, and share examples to look for innovation inspiration in fields such as gaming, toys, fashion, criminals, dating, and sports.

Measuring global progress towards agility, and the relationship between agile maturity and the level of leadership.

A very insightful article exploring how C-Suite got into business agility and how Agile progress and Agility are correlated with other factors analytically like leadership. It also delves into why big firms are making slower progress towards agility. It details that organizational Agility can be defined as the ability to quickly reconfigure strategy, structure, processes, people, and technology toward value-creating and value-protecting opportunities.

Several facts about Agile that leaders should understand for effective Agile transformations.

Based on research conducted by Deloitte in 2017, about only 6% of the organizations in the Agile space, transition and become fully Agile. So what prevents the 94% from becoming Agile? Heidi Araya in this article explains that the process of transitioning a company from its current culture to an agile setting is a crucial stage and determines whether the company will achieve its agile goal. She highlights a number of important facts that executives/ leaders should leverage during an agile transformation.