Tuesday 17 June 2014

Agile and Organisational Change

I am increasingly interested in how we can translate lessons from the Agile approaches to software development to organisational change and improvement and redesign projects.

My starting point has been the Kotter Dual Operating Model and the challenge to find change methodologies that realise the full potential of the networked system of change agents. Applying the traditional hierarchical control models is more likely to dampen engagement and enthusiasm - the sense of running through setting concrete comes to mind.



However the hierarchy has a legitimate concern in the management of risk if it is to permit the autonomy of the network. In this case the challenge is to find a methodology that is focussed around a constant stream of small PDSA cycles that are small enough to fail with no significant impact on organisational performance or reputation but robust enough to permit learning.

Looking for inspiration i have turned to Agile approaches to software development and in doing so came across this great video from Spotify about their agile engineering culture. It has tremendous resonances and I am going to be spending a while thinking about how they might translate. What do you think




Spotify Engineering Culture - part 1 from Spotify Training & Development on Vimeo.
An attempt to describe our engineering culture.

This is a journey in progress, not a journey completed. So the stuff in the video isn't all true for all squads, but it appears to be mostly true for most squads.


(NOTE - Part 2 hasn't been recorded yet. Stay tuned!)



Thursday 23 January 2014

Keep it simple in complex times - the four imperatives for any organisation in the NHS

In complex times leaders need to be able to keep themselves and their organisations focused on what matters. In the NHS, in a blizzard of regulation, targets, policy initiatives, planning guidance and organisational upheaval it is too easy to lose sight of what really matters. So here is my prescription - four key imperatives that need to anchor the vision for your organisation, for your staff and for yourself. If what you are doing does not link to one of these then why are you doing it? Click on the image to see a larger version.