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Discovering What Good Looks Like

Copyright © 2015-2016 Agendashift™ (a trading name of Positive Incline Ltd). All rights reserved.

For further information about this material, see www.agendashift.com/partner and www.agendashift.com/partner_licence

Mike BurrowsEmail: [email protected]: @asplake, @agendashift, @KanbanInsideBlog: positiveincline.com, blog.agendashift.com

•  Author, Kanban from the Inside•  Brickell Key Community Contribution Award 2014•  Former Executive Director and global development

manager, then IT Director

•  Interim delivery manager for two UK government digital “exemplar” projects

•  Consultant, trainer, coach, founder

#hello, my name is Mike Burrows

Karl ScotlandEmail: [email protected]: @kjscotlandBlog: availagility.co.uk

•  Founding member of Limited WIP Society and Lean Systems Society

•  Brickell Key Community Contribution Award 2013

•  Creator of Kanban Thinking (with the Kanban Canvas), the Ball Flow Game, and the Lego Flow Game (with Sallyann Freudenberg)

•  Consultant, trainer, coach

#hello, my name is Karl Scotland

Don’t be a jerk,be excellent to each other!

http://leanagile.scot/code-of-conduct/

This is a workshop

Coaching Strategy deployment Strategy planning

Values-based delivery assessment

Debrief / action workshop

Transformation strategy framework

Transparency | Balance | Collaboration | Customer Focus | Flow | Leadership

Lean-Agile | Kanban | Clean Language | Cynefin | Lean Startup | A3 | Servant Leadership

AgendashiftTransforming Lean-Agile transformation

™


Context for change (1)

In groups of 3 to 5 (4 is ideal)

1.  Clarify together:

•  What (roughly) is the organisational scope of the exercise?

2.  Identify any stakeholders you may need to represent

3.  On your own behalf, write down at least one problem, challenge or objective for each of the following levels:•  Personal•  Team•  Corporate

4.  In your group, try to do the same on behalf of unrepresented stakeholders



Taking turns in the roles of client (representing yourself or role-playing for an absent stakeholder), coach, and scribe (note taker), identify desired outcomes•  The client starts by stating a problem, challenge or objective from the

previous exercise

•  Using only the phrases below, the coach guides the conversation

•  “(And) What would you like to have happen?”

•  “(And) then what happens?”

•  ”(And) what happens before X”?•  “Is there anything else about X?”

•  “What kind of X (is that X)?”•  The scribe notes down anything that sounds like a potentially relevant

outcome (not problems or solutions) #cleanlanguage

Complicated –The right plan is knowable

through expert analysis

Obvious –The right plan is evident with minimal expertise

Complex –The path will be knowable

only in hindsight

Chaos –There is no right path;

we must act first #cynefin four points contextualisation

(Disorder)



Assessment

•  Mindful of context, score the 18 prompts across these 6 categories:

1.  Transparency2.  Balance3.  Collaboration4.  Customer focus5.  Flow6.  Leadership

•  “Which are you most drawn to?” Use the “star” functionality (sparingly) as you finish each category


The Agendashift scoring scale

1.   Barely started – little evidence, if any

2.   Early gains – sporadic evidence, not widespread or consistent

3.   Getting there – evident, but improvement or more consistency needed

4.   Nailing it, consistently – firmly established, widely and consistently evident


Agree areas for attention

•  Prioritise prompts for your team as follows:•  Generate: Quickly and silently, identify on separate sticky notes

one to three prompts per person from the assessment that represent promising areas of potential change

•  Organise: Group sticky notes together by category. As you add your sticky note, explain your choice

•  Prioritise: “Dot vote” to identify your team’s top three

•  Prepare to report back:•  Your top three prompts and why they’re important•  Which categories (values) generated the most sticky notes?


Desired outcomes (1)

Taking turns in the roles of client, coach, and scribe, identify desired outcomes•  The client starts with a prioritised prompt

•  Using only the phrases below, the coach guides the conversation

•  “(And) What would you like to have happen?”•  “(And) then what happens?”

•  ”(And) what happens before X”?

•  “Is there anything else about X?”•  “What kind of X (is that X)?”

•  The scribe notes down anything that sounds like a potentially relevant outcome (not problems or solutions)

#cleanlanguage





only in hindsight


we must act first

(Disorder)


#cynefin four points contextualisation





only in hindsight


we must act first

(Disorder)


#cynefin four points contextualisation

–  Competition–  Engagement–  Exploration–  Ecosystems–  Evolution–  …


Generate and prioritise actions

Prioritise actions for your team as follows:•  Generate: Quickly and silently, generate some action ideas on

sticky notes for your chosen three prompts•  Prioritise: Dot vote or “pass the cards” to choose the team’s top

three actions and from those agree one that you will pursue•  Refine & discuss:

•  Agree draft wording of your top three•  “(And) then what happens?” (about an action)•  “(And) what needs to happen for X?” (about an outcome)•  Revise as necessary•  “Which are you most drawn to?” Choose your team’s top one•  Prepare to report back on all three


Hypothesis-driven change

We believe that (actionable change) ____________________________

will result in (meaningful impact) ____________________________.

We’ll know that we have succeeded when (observable outcomes)___________________________

___________________________ ___________________________.

#leanstartup

Change:Owner: Mentor:Context / scope: Aligned to objective:

(owner)

Copyright © 2016 Agendashift (a trading name of Positive Incline Ltd)This A3 template by Mike Burrows of Agendashift (a trading name of Positive Incline Ltd) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en_US.

Pilot experiments (new A3s)

Directly impacted Other stakeholders & influencers

Assumptions & dependencies

People Insights

To be validated To be resolved

Downside (to be invalidated/mitigated) Upside (to be nurtured)Hypothesis Risks

We believe that

will result in

We'll know that we have succeeded when:


™


Assumptions, dependencies, pilot experiments

Assumptions:•  What don’t we know yet? What’s not yet proven or demonstrated [1]•  “What would have to be true for this option to look fantastic?” [2]•  Neither validated nor invalidated

Dependencies:•  What isn’t in place yet?

•  for a demonstrably successful implementation

What pilot experiments should we conduct first?•  Significantly quicker and cheaper than the experiment as a whole•  Potential for massive savings in time, money, and reputation

[2] Roger L. Martin, in Lafley, A. G. and Roger L. Martin. 2013. Playing to Win, How Strategy Really Works (Boston: Harvard Business Press)

[1] See PMBOK definition


Risks

•  What potential downsides exist with this change? How should we be prepared to mitigate them?

•  What potential upsides should we look for? How can we nurture them?

•  Is this experiment safe-to-fail?

•  Additional pilot experiments needed?


Quick recap

•  Hypothesis•  Actionable change, meaningful impact, measures

•  Assumptions & dependencies•  What (outside our control) would need be true to

make this option “fantastic”?•  What must we put in place to ensure success

•  Risks•  Downside (with mitigations), upside (to nurture)•  Safety

•  Pilot experiments


People

For your specific change, identify these stakeholders:

•  Those impacted

•  Influencers

•  Customers & other beneficiaries of the change

•  Management & governance

Q: Who holds a veto?

Q: How will you go about building a coalition for change?


Organise experiments for implementation

Adapted from Jeff Anderson’s The Lean Change Method; see also Ash Maurya’s Running Lean

AgreeUrgency

Nego,ateChange

ValidateAdop,on

VerifyPerformance Complete

Next Adopted

RevertedSoon

Rejected

NewAbandoned


Organise experiments for implementation

•  Walk your most urgent change across the board. What specific conversations are you having at each stage? With whom?

AgreeUrgency

NegotiateChange

ValidateAdoption

VerifyPerformance Complete

Next Adopted

RevertedSoon

Rejected

NewAbandoned

•  How frequently will you review the board? Who needs to be there?


Plan the path

1. Refine existing [kanban] systems

6. Explore fitness for purpose

2. Improve the service experience

3. Manage the knowledge discovery process

4. Balance demand and capability

5. Address sources of dissatisfaction and other motivations for change

Transparency

Leadership

Flow

Customer focus

Balance

Collaboration


1.  Review your top 3 actions and all outcomes relevant to them

2.  In the style of an Agendashift prompt (examples below), compose some sentences that will be “more true” if your outcomes are achieved

•  “We identify dependencies between work items in good time and sequence them accordingly”

•  “Our vision and purpose are clear to us, our customers, and our stakeholders”

•  “We ensure that opportunities for improvement are recognised and systematically followed through”

3.  Can you identify any common themes, strategies, assumptions, or values not previously articulated?

4.  Do you have the right set of initial actions? Sure about the follow-through?

Full circle


Coaching Strategy deployment Strategy planning

Values-based delivery assessment

Debrief / action workshop

Transformation strategy framework

Transparency | Balance | Collaboration | Customer Focus | Flow | Leadership

Lean-Agile | Kanban | Clean Language | Cynefin | Lean Startup | A3 | Servant Leadership


™


Clean Language

•  Created by the late David Grove

•  Further developed by James Lawler & Penny Tompkins

Recommended reading:

•  The Five Minute Coach: Improve Performance Rapidly Lynne Cooper & Mariette Castellino (2012)

•  Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds Wendy Sullivan & Judy Rees (2008)

•  From Contempt to Curiosity: Creating the Conditions for Groups to Collaborate Using Clean Language and Systemic Modelling Caitlin Walker (2014)

References and acknowledgements


The Cynefin framework

•  Created by Dave Snowden Founder and chief scientific officer, Cognitive Edge


•  A leader’s framework for decision making David J. Snowdon & Mary E. Boone (2007, Harvard Business Review) hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making

•  The Cynefin Mini-Book Greg Brougham (2015, InfoQ) www.infoq.com/minibooks/cynefin-mini-book

•  Finding Your Place on the Framework – Simon Powers www.adventureswithagile.com/2016/04/11/cynefin-review-part-7-finding-your-place-on-the-framework/



Lean Startup

•  Created by Eric Ries


•  Running Lean: Iterate from plan A to a plan that works Ash Maurya (2012)

•  The Lean Startup: How constant innovation creates radically successful businesses Eric Ries (2011)



A3

•  Developed inside Toyota


•  Managing to Learn: Using the A3 management process to solve problems, gain agreement, mentor, and lead John Shook (2010)

•  Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota's PDCA Management System Durward K. Surbek II & Art Smalley (2008)



Kanban, the Kanban Method

•  Kanban was developed inside Toyota

•  The Kanban Method was developed by David J. Anderson; it describes the application of kanban to creative knowledge work


•  Kanban from the Inside: Understand the Kanban Method, connect it to what you already know, introduce it with impact Mike Burrows (2014)

•  Essential Kanban Condensed David J. Anderson & Andy Carmichael (2016)

•  Kanban: Successful evolutionary change for your technology business David J. Anderson (2010)



Servant Leadership

•  An ancient idea developed most notably by Robert K. Greenleaf in the 1970’s

Recommended reading in this and related subjects:

•  Servant Leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness Robert K. Greenleaf (2012, 25th anniversary edition released)

•  Organizational Culture and Leadership Edgar H. Schein (2010)

•  The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization Peter Senge (2nd Edition, 2006)
