Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1420

The Frictions to Adopt Agile as a Mindset

Agile is the mindset, the philosophy and methodology to not only manage software, but run today’s business. But how do you make culture transition from traditional setting to agile; and what types of frictions do you experience with Agile?
Agile is really a mindset. It doesn't matter how much Agile training you have had, or agile projects you have been on, if you don't just 'get it,' then you will always fail. Not having the right people in place, that want to give it a chance, make an effort and have a desire to continuously improve and be self-organizing and accountable, but instead want to sabotage it as they like the old way of doing things. SDLC mindset seems to default to use tools to solve problems. Agile turns to teams for problem-solving. Agile is more about how a team approaches solving problems and less about the tools used to support that approach. Anyone can use the tools, but how many teams working in Agile truly have eliminated the command-and-control style found in waterfall development? Agile is truly a mindset.
Culture inertia: The culture differences are by far the largest source of friction. Big Batch vs, Continuous Flow; Hierarchical management vs. Networked management; Command and Control vs. Self-Organization; Component-based Development vs. Feature teams; Managing the Product vs. Managing the Process; Training for Fixed Roles vs. Learning Organization.The successful organization will be the one that understands the difference between a project schedule and an Agile roadmap, osmotic communication and talking, and minimal documentation vs. maximum invisible documentation. Too much focus on metrics. They have their place for sure, but too many metrics can defocus a team away from what truly matters.Deciding when to be more flexible and when to not back off. When it is between an important customer demo preparation and a retrospective. So finding that balance is difficult.
Partitioning and planning: One of the challenges commonly seen is difficulty breaking down work effectively for an iteration. Partitioning a project - which is based on having an adequate big picture understanding - is a large part of up front, big picture planning. Needed up front planning also includes coming up with an understanding of business goals and - especially - how those business goals interrelate. And then decomposing the business goals into manual/automated processes that need to be created by or supported by specific Agile projects.
Cross-functional communication and collaboration: The interaction with outside groups seems to be full of friction. Probably, because roles are not well-defined and new ways of doing business are needed. Getting other departments outside the Agile team to give up control over dictating when features need to be done. There are ways to mitigate to reach an arrangement that fits the needs of both sides, but it first requires both sides to understand the other party's needs, and both sides must want to work towards an agreeable arrangement. Otherwise, there will be lots of internal conflicts.
Agile is more a "direction," than an "end." Transforming to Agile culture means the business knows the direction they want to go on, and as the people start “putting on” the agile mindset, discover new ways of working, collaborating, delivering value, they inspect and adapt in that journey by overcoming the frictions and challenges.
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Digital Master Tuning #103: A Learning Organization

A learning organization is one in which the majority of the employees at all levels are open to new ideas, experimentation with new ways of doing things, learning from instead of condemning or punishing mistakes/errors and, perhaps most importantly, where knowledge is shared instead of hoarded, thus, expanding power instead of confining it. What Systems Thinking models are called up when organizations "learn"? Can you recognize the interconnectivity between employee learning and organizational learning? What are the characteristics of a learning organization?
There is a distinction between employee learning and organizational learning. While they should complement each other, organizational learning relates to changed learning in an organizational systems. That's how organizations, as opposed to its employees learn. Employee learning does not translate automatically into organizational systems learning. It may appear so though since it feels that if humans in an organization learn, the organization will certainly learn. This seems more like a necessary but not sufficient condition. That is, separately improving employee capability does not equate to improving organizational system performance. But one employee who learns can indeed, influence the organization if the processes and structures are established for that learning to be assimilated into the organization. Organizations are learning through individuals and teams because organizations and their teams are made up by human beings.
Learning organizations are comfortable with ambiguity, paradoxes and they have a penchant for candor. So high organizational learning relates to high response in recognizing and addressing system constraints. Unless constraints are addressed, a range of employees’ frustrations, risks, stress, and poor organizational performance examples can increase. This means in turn understanding levels or approaches at which organizational systems operate, and recognizing how and why they should change, and how they learn. In turn this can influence employee and group learning and development. Thus, for a ‘learning organization, it is not enough to survive only, but for thriving. ‘”Survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” is important – indeed it is necessary. But for a learning organization, “adaptive learning” must be joined by “generative learning”, learning that enhances our 'capacity to create.’
To understand a learning organization involves an understanding and application of what is variously referred to as learning loops (Levels of perception, Levels of perspective; Levels of Understanding.) As employees operate within organizational systems (HR performance management systems; production and service systems; ITIL framework; Corporate performance management systems etc.), the business value systems (culture, beliefs, meaning, paradigms) influence how constraints are managed. These constraints are socio-technical. That is what they consider constraints that affect both employee perceptions (fair treatment), and technical constraints ( processes).
Developing people capability and systems capability raise different "learning" issues. Preferably both attended to in an integrated manner, as organizations are socio-technical. Learning organizations never arrive. Their evolution is not dependent on availability of budgets! They thrive on structures in a very unstructured manner. Organizational learning is enabling employees to constantly learn so that the organization does not only 'earn enough from today,' but 'thrive in the future.' It therefore means ensuring that organization knows the tasks and knowledge required to 'sustain' itself, and create an environment and systems to support those tasks being done by employees. As the tasks done by frontline employees will be different than managerial employees and 'back end' and 'research' employees, employee learning is different for different set of employees. And because 'the whole is more than sum of the parts,' it also involves those tasks 'which enable transfer of learning from the backend to frontend employees and vice versa.'
The dimension that distinguishes learning organizations from more traditional organizations is the mastery of certain basic disciplines or ‘component technologies.’ The five disciplines that Peter Senge identifies are personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, team learning and systems thinking, which are all essential to innovate learning organizations. All the disciplines are, in this way, ‘concerned with a shift of mind from seeing parts to seeing wholes, from seeing people as helpless reactive actors to seeing them as active participants in shaping their reality, from reacting to the present to creating the future.’ Added to this is the recognition that people are agents, able to act upon the structures and systems of which they are a part. As an individual in an organization, learning in the framework of the five disciplines is an idealized setting where the journey begins always from a sense of personal destiny and goes on through teams to be able to align with the organization's ultimate vision. Organizations are socio-technical so organizational learning models, should be socio-technical in nature, description, and in modelling.
Building a learning organization is not and can not be a goal or a vision. It is at best a collection of attributes which one would like to see depending on the "WORLD VIEW" about what a learning organization can be or could be. Building a learning organization is not an HR function. The HR construct is only but one of the world views. Building learning organization is not and can not be a goal or a vision. It is at best a collection of attributes which one would like to see depending on the "WORLD VIEW" about what a learning Organization can be or could be. One may even create a set of characteristics that would be seen as generalized patterns. Any organization exists not to learn but to discharge its mandate whatever it be. As Drucker well pointed out, the purpose of business is to create a customer. In doing so it may evolve and that evolution may apparently be termed as learning. It's learning because it improves the productivity of an organization, and it makes them get better in terms of innovation, effectiveness, efficiency, and many other attributes of business and product design. It is a characteristic of a digital organization.


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How to Balance Both ‘Ends” and ‘Means’ of Employee Performance

People are the most invaluable asset in the business, however, in many organizations, talent management and performance management are dysfunctional, silo, quantity driven and short-term focused, lack of holistic approach to manage performance, culture, and talent more effectively. How can you resolve performance issues by identifying root cause? Is training the solution when there are problems with performance, and how can senior management, HR and middle management have the common understanding and agree upon the expectation and the “right” outcome, and shall you well integrate talent management, performance management and culture management to build a people-centric, high-performing, and high mature organization?
First ensure that expectations and outcomes are clearly understood by the incumbent. Look to close any loops first on such things as context and ambiguity in expected outcomes. Performance is related to expectations that management have when it comes to an employee's role. Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined and mutually understood. In order to effectively and efficiently perform one's responsibilities, it is generally accepted that a system of continuous education is good practice.
Performance issues are far more likely to be a result of a lack of people being held to account and feeling accountable. First build a culture of accountability and then develop capability. Building capability takes time, what are they going to be accountable for? The risk is that you introduce the culture and you then recruit to accelerate capability, then you run a high risk diluting the culture for a period of time, unless you are bringing in external capability for a short period to accelerate the capability. And building capability does need to occur concurrently with building a culture of accountability.
Performance issues can be caused by “mismatch”: the role and expectations are not aligned to the person’s skills and ability, in which case training can help, or perhaps there is a more suitable role for the talent; or culture “misfit,” if businesses intend to innovate its culture, then they should hire the change agent to see things differently. If corporate managers and employees have different manifestation about the culture, then, more open communication is needed to clarify the expectation, with the ultimate goals to make the organization a better place to work, and the staff can contribute to the business growth.
Both "ends" and "means" must be balanced. It's a combination of many factors and shouldn't be quantified so easily. Thinking performance and doing performance, behavior and outcome are all important elements in performance assessment. Should IT employee performance assessment be based on behaviour or outcome? Behavior and outcome are not, or should not be mutually exclusive. Need both and they need to be aligned. In this economy though, where staffing is constantly under pressure, results will win out over method and demeanor. It is the manager's challenge to hire the right person for the particular job and provide the guidance needed to fulfill goals and support organizational standards for execution. That's why a good manager is a very valuable asset. At today’s knowledge, technology and innovation economy, thinking performance is as important, or even more important than just doing. Assumption is that key behaviors emphasized are the right ones to enable the right outcomes.
Defining and agreeing upon what the "right" outcomes are in partnership with key executives and business leaders is essential. Very often, the senior leadership and middle management have different level of understanding about performance and outcome; senior managers more focus on innovation, culture and long term outcome, and middle management emphasizes on tactical tasks to meet short term delivery timeline, so it’s important to well define the right “outcome”: Look at both tangible - the quantitative result, but do not ignore the intangibles (the positive or negative influence) the employee has brought to the company and a peer review always helps. If an individual can get results, but is disruptive to the team, the effect can be significantly lower productivity and loss of good staff. In the end, the individual's results may meet their objectives, but the overall organizational objectives will suffer. That's a recipe for disaster in long term.
It is in the best interest of both HR and Management to improve employee performance. The end result is managers feel supported and want to invest the time and effort in dealing with poor performance, mediocre mindset and culture, and they create synergy to make people management as top business priority, to well align employees’ career goals with corporate vision, and to build a high-performing culture, and a high-mature organization.
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An Angary Mind: The Two Sides of Anger in Leadership

Sometimes we need to get angry to change the status quo, but control the negative side of it, to improve EQ and leadership maturity.
Leadership is all about change. Anger as an emotion has both positive and negative impact in leadership effectiveness. To be angry, one can be angry at self or another, but in order for that emotion/thought/ feeling to appear, it does not just pop up out of nowhere. Something has to be in the brain of the one angered. That something, or thought form, is the perception. On the positive side, every authentic leader feels sense of anger to see or experience certain dark side of things, because human world is still far away from perfect, such situational emotions will evoke their intention to lead, to change the things, to turn around and discover their purpose to be the change they want to see; but the negative side of anger implies the low EQ, lose the temper easily, or lack of discipline to manage emotions effectively.

Anger can be a catalyst to drive changes: Fear and anger, although undesirable in general, but can be great catalysts also in jolting curiosity and inciting creativity so essential to turnaround undesirable situations. Anger can be positive to create a movement or motion against injustices, and the safety of others. Anger can propel us to make change. Sometimes we need to get angry to change the status quo. Anger and fear forces someone to quickly learn or allowing people to seek the knowledge will allow more critical thinking to develop. The key is that the message or the information conveyed by the leader/messenger must reflect true integrity and transparency. Anger cannot be ignored, it is much too strong of an influence, but leaders have to be careful with it. Leaders who express their anger, carefully and professionally, can improve team unity, lead change, motivate, improve standards, and professionally develop others. They should confront it, be in touch with it, have conversation with their emotions and check and see what their innermost has to say for it. The answers lie within us. All we need to do is seek..and we shall find them. It is objective to view leadership in its full regalia: fear, anger, blame, resentment, small mindedness, dislike, inspiration, passion, commitment, charisma and out-and-out brilliance. Looking back, it's the examples of brilliance that shine brightest in memory rather than those that left you feeling disappointed and wretched. Those leaders that are brilliant are often kind, self-critical, empowering, unbelievably wise and endlessly patient. The excessive anger leads to destructive darkness. Anger can be terribly destructive and brutal. That is when the source of the anger is lost and one holds onto the emotion or reaction versus deal with the actual situation. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”  One thing that is true, more often, excessive fear and anger operate on the lowest level and can do little more than create order. When leaders realize that if you want to achieve greatness in your realm, you will have to touch the other levels, thus eliminating fear and anger as options. Once you realize that you have to find other options, you begin to investigate the real motivators like passion and trust. There is no substitute for creating an environment of success.

Escalating anger is growing for all kinds of reasons. Unintended consequences always happen with escalating anger. People cannot think and act objectively when they are emotionally charged with anger. A good strategy for dealing with anger is to prevent yourself from becoming angry in the first place. After all, when you really boil it down to its simplest form, anger is nothing more than you feeling annoyed, irritated, angry about someone or circumstances not turning out the way you want. Leaders cannot suppress their anger because it is such a strong emotion that it will find its way out anyway, and then it cannot be controlled for you gets the brunt of it, or if it can be constructive. Showing that you can control and embrace your emotions will help you demonstrate your stability as a leader; there is a time, place and method for everything.

Now finding reason worthy of one's anger is real hard work. Getting angry occasionally for the reasons worthy of one's anger is OK as being human with different emotions. Now finding reason worthy of one's anger is real hard work. Sometimes, our anger and frustration are caused by very real and inescapable problems in our lives or in the society. Not all anger is misplaced, and often it's a healthy, natural response to these difficulties. There is also a cultural belief that every problem has a solution, and it adds to our frustration to find out that this isn't always the case. The best thing is to bring to such a situation, then, is not to focus on finding the solution, but rather on how to handle and face the problem. And there are some inescapable adverse situations people have to deal with, some more than others. And it's understandable that people would get angry or frustrated in those situations, But in the end, it's the way they think, think about, or perceive things that ultimately determines how they feel, and how strongly. The simple evidence of that can often be found in the fact that people can have different emotional responses to the same event that affects all of them. As the event gets more adverse, people's emotional reactions probably become more similar. Even whether they perceive it as adverse is ultimately determined by the way they think.

"Anger on a hanger."But people can learn to prevent anger. And the way they can do that is to learn to control their cognitive thermostats. Some do it naturally more than others. Anyone can learn to do it better. And the world will be a better place is we start working on prevention instead of simply trying to teach people to manage it once it's happened. One should work to prevent others from being angry at him/herself, and should learn to do so by managing him/herself with the help of the strengths of wisdom and understanding of the powers of knowledge of anger management. Anger MANAGEMENT often largely entails teaching people how to express it, or channel it in healthier, more acceptable ways, potentially productive ways.

Anger is an important emotion as well as reaction. In extreme any emotion and reaction is negative. Anger can get out of control, and covers or masks many emotions. Anger and emotion are controlled by mind or society where you live. It totally depends on the person how he/she perceive/accept the reality. Becoming angry is easy while controlling emotion is difficult. This is very true and to make it a productive emotion or reaction, one needs to really look within it and see what the underlying cause is. The right dose of anger could catalyze the positive changes, but control the negative side of it, to improve EQ and leadership maturity.
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What are the Golden Rules to Follow for Building Rapport with Customers Quickly?

Trust, respect, balance, empathy, engagement, and logic, don't forget creativity and sense of humor.
Every forward-thinking organization is thriving to become a customer-centric organization.Customer satisfaction is to balance customer needs and company needs so that both the business and customers comes out the winner. From customer service perspective, what’re the golden rules you need to follow for building rapport with customers quickly?

Trust: Trust is the most crucial factor initially required to develop and maintain effective rapport with customers. Take a personal interest in the customers request, good attitude and good demeanor will continue to start a rapport with customers. After that, it is intelligence and know-how on your role feel they are worthy and deserving of your services and you are able to deliver the required outcome. Gain their trust!

Following the “Golden Rules”: Treat them like you would want to be treated from the start through the promises and closing. The golden rule applied is sure to make a difference between you and your customer. Whether it's face-to-face contact or on the phone (because people can hear a smile in your voice) that can be the thing that breaks down the barrier in the customer's mind and allow for creating rapport. It says, "I'm here for you; I'm ready to support or help you." And often that's what customers want to know.

Balance: A good balance between what should and should not be said is crucial. There is a shift of importance now, as customers are becoming more and more conscious of the "techniques": how you say it is still somehow important, but what we say is crucial. One important thing to keep a customer happy is being attentive. Listening to their needs and even if you cannot do everything they want you to do. Show them you are trying to meet their need. Establish common ground to show the person you are listening. Show a willingness to resolve the problem or conflict, make the conflict resolution seem as easy as possible. Be genuine and show your personality, respond as an understanding friend rather than by citing policies.

Empathy: Customers want to know that you are there to take care of them. Empathy through listening and assuring the customer you understand their issue, and then let them know you will be able to assist. If that is not possible, you will escalate the situation to the correct person that will. Make them feel as if you are concerned about the situation and that you are going to do everything in your power to take of it. Listen to your customers’ story and use this when providing your product or service. Personalizing every interaction allows you to build rapport and a friendship.

Sincerity and Engagement. Use a positive affirmation. Help the person know they have come through to the right place or help them get to the right place without making them feel like they've done something wrong. A simple, "Yes, I can help you with that" can go a long way to setting the relationship off in the right direction. The last thing a customer needs is someone who just goes through motions and doesn't engage. If you are not sincere in your approach or your conversation, the customer will know; always listen to your customer and be honest with them. People appreciate it when you listen and treat them with respect and concern, also giving them the optimal platform choice to communicate with your brand, meaning don't just give them email, give them phone, text, live chat. they want to communicate on their terms, it's important to build tremendous trust and user-focused engagement.1). Respect2). Relevance3). Intelligence4). Sense of humor5). Friendly voice tone.

Logic: Get the customer to say "yes." Saying yes and saying no (especially over and over in a short time) creates a chemical change in the brain. Positive for yes--negative for no. Repeat their problem, did I get that right? This is what I'm going to do next, do you see where I'm going? All the way down to, "Have I covered all your needs today?" NOT: "Is there anything else I can help you with?" You would be astounded at the difference at the end of a call!Step 1 is to listen to the customer's reason for calling.Step 2 is to acknowledge that reason, either by repeating their position back to them or by asking questions to clarify their position.Step 3 is involving the customer in the solution every step of their way.Step 4 implement the solution.Step 5 obtain feedback and determine further actions if required.

Creativity and sense of humor: Do something unexpected - break the routine by inserting a little humor and say something that no one expected to hear. Be creative to break down some of the barriers between people and removes some of the tension. Humor is one of the most underused tools in the service world. Using a sincere compliment can leave a profound impact on a customer when you say something that connects in a personal way. One more way that you can do this is by "matching and mirroring." Telling a short personal story is also a great rapport builder. And now, last but not least, time - say and do things at the right time.

True customer service is a function that allows good communication between the business and the end users. An opened communication that serves both parties resulting in a successful arrangement, when all goals are met the results are fantastic.







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How Can you Raise People’s Awareness about Systems Thinking by Questioning

The big WHY and WHAT sort of questions should help people get curious about the wholeness of an organization - the concept of System Thinking.
Systems Thinking helps people to see the interconnected relationship between the parts and the whole, or simply “to see the forest for the tree.” What kind of questions could you ask people in order to raise their awareness about the practicality of Systems Thinking, or to clarify what people understand by the meaning of Systems Thinking? Is Systems thinking just about asking big questions recognizing the disconnectedness of things belonging within a system, or is it also about taking a systematic approach to answering these questions, creating a framework within which the journey between the defined problem (question) and the proposed solution (answer) is clearly articulated (logical steps, assumptions, facts vs. opinions, symptoms vs root cause etc) ultimately arriving at a valid defensible conclusion. Is systems thinking therefore just about asking big questions or is it developing the art or science of Systems Thinking?

The big WHY and WHAT sort of questions should help people get curious about the wholeness of an organization. Asking questions is a powerful, if not the most powerful mean by which people can create their vision of the preferred future that will (retro-) influence them in the present, and pull them into that direction; in Appreciative Inquiry, this is called the heliotropic principle: people move in the direction of the most positive future for them. There are four broad principles of Appreciative Inquiry: 1) Words create worlds; 2) Positive images lead to positive action; 3) Quality relationships; 4) Previously hidden possibilities emerge.

Systems Thinking analysis of the organization is based on the vision that people desire. To create something that you really want also means that this very thing has to be adapted to your own variety. And the best way for that is to create it yourself. For example,  imposing corporate vision upon employees just doesn't work. You have to build or co-build a vision yourself. Now, either people have a vision, or they don't. If they have one, fine, but you'll need to check if their vision aligns with that of the organization. If they don't, you want them to have one that they'd really desire, which means you can't provide it for them. But if management tries to strictly impose their vision onto their people, the chances are that they'll fail: people want to contribute in their way. They're more efficient in doing so, so it's a win win win (win for people, win for company stakeholders including top management, and win for customers). Then, by asking them what needs to be done to get this vision, you get some Action Plans that people are more willing to do than usual. Therefore, traditional command and control management style is losing the steam because it de-motivates their people, with ignorance of delicate connectivity of “part” and the whole.  The root cause solution would be to invest in their people, despite the time needed to achieve that. But it's better on the long term. Organization needs to change and they felt that by training their people they would achieve that change. But investing in people for investment sake is not worth it unless management is very clear what their desired future vision is, hence they are committed to making it a reality.

Framing the questions to see the relationships between systems: Framing the right set of questions helps teams become aware of the other "systems" that they interact with and the relationships between these systems: “What is the bigger picture here?", "How is your current problem/goal related to your team/ departmental/ organizational/industry context?", "How does this relate to your personal/family life." And then explore the relationships and interactions between different elements in the various systems - do they have a positive or negative feedback effect on the whole and on the individual? What leverage points are there to maximize change (strengthening relationships with a person in another department could have a positive influence on the whole). When a certain event happens, you can also frame the questions by leveraging Systems Thinking to dig through the root causes. The first type of questions are: How is this happening, and why? How is this possible, when is this happening? ...and the goal is to ask questions in order to have the whole story of the event, and to see the causality of the important elements of the story ideas….

So Systems Thinking hasn’t been applied more often due to lack of talent and lack of methodology. Systems thinking is a combination of talents and skills. It's rare. Also, Systems Thinking is not just an individual’s ability, but a collective business capability to breakdown the silo, to harness the cross-functional communication and collaboration. The good starting point is to frame the right set of questions in order to raise their awareness about the usefulness of Systems Thinking.  
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What is True Freedom

“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.” ― Mortimer J. Adler
There are numerous poems, songs or quotes about freedom, what is it about? why would human beings pursue it by all means and cost? Here is the dictionary definition of freedom: “Freedom is the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint.”


There is positive and negative freedoms linked to positive and negative rights. Before you can do that, you have to know who and what you are in this moment to even determine what the free expression of your constructed self is right now. In the end, however, freedom is freedom from compulsion or necessity, but for this to exist, we need morality and for morality to exist, we need an objective understanding of progress; the point is one cannot develop a right way within an environment that rewards wrong ways; the whole edifice of human civilization needs to be reworked in the simplest of terms; if this world is full of social costs and wrong thinking, then what we must aspire to is Utopia. Detachment is apathy, and one is free, but at what cost, this is negative freedom; also if one is free in this state, how does one make a choice? Either one is not detached or one cannot choose because one is apathetic and perhaps catatonic.

What you get in return from freedom is peace of mind: When you don't have any compulsion, you are free, you don't worry whether it's positive or negative, you accept things, you don't judge, you don't worry about what others think, you don't get into a rat race, you don't even want others to accept your way of thought, because you know everything is momentary and everything you come across is a something you have to experience in this journey called life. You just seek. You try to find answers from within. You don't believe in any dogmas. Your mind is not cluttered. You are free...

Nothing in universe is absolutely free, everything is bound to something! We seek freedom in life because the real nature of our original personality of supreme self is freedom. Due to ego and the material layers of body, mind and intellect, we wrongly posit this freedom, reality, happiness, pleasure, contentment, perfection, etc. to the world of time, space and causation or objects, beings and experiences. This false imposition leads to dependency on the world as we are ignorant of our true self. Anything that finds a momentary freedom is on path to be bound. Even enlightened beings are clinging to enlightenment. Real freedom is to be free from desire to be free. Cutting that umbilical chord to be free being binds you to life giver.

A free person is indeed "rule-less," "border-less," and "worry-less," but not thinking less or mindless though. “She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. 'Time' for her isn’t something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.” -Roman PayneFollow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

People Centric Approach for Agile Success

Management to practice agile philosophy focuses on WHAT - the ultimate business goals, less on task management in self-management setting.

Digital is the age of people. Many organizations are in the journey for digital transformation from “doing Agile” to “being Agile.” From talent management perspective, what are the ingredients of success in Agile? Are companies investing wisely in human resource or the better term, human capital, a key if not the only ingredient required to succeed in applying Agile philosophy and methodology?


In order to have an attainable Agile approach, you need to consider people as a focal point. People are always the most critical element for any business success, and more often the weakest link as well. In Agile circumstances, people should be able to unlearn what is not working, eager to learn new things, willing and be able to communicate and collaborate, have passion for what they do etc. Of course, this needs to be supported with people focused organizational culture and appropriate reward and recognition policies, which encourages teamwork. Can you identify, attract, grow and retain the people you need? What must you change if you are to get better at all four steps? Will you need to change your approach to get a better match with the people you can get? Hiring and investing in the right kind of people is critical to the success of Agile. So often, organizations fail at that first step, of being unable to identify the people they need. This could be a failure to identify the needs, or a failure to identify who can meet them. Failure of either of these doesn't work well for the future of the organization.

The approach needs to be appropriate to the context. You might achieve people-centricity by modifying the traditional talent management approach or modifying the context. To be appropriate, it needs to be adequate to deliver what is needed, attainable (we have, or can get in a timely manner, the people to enact it), and for any candidate approaches that meet the first two criteria, you should select the most efficient. Whether you succeed by working with the people you have or by hiring people perceived to have higher skills immediately is a business decision. The Agile team and its processes are part of the business. The decision will define your company culture. Whichever path you choose can be approached iteratively and the results evaluated.

The leadership skills are needed to coach the team towards self-organization. Any company that is "investing in a human resource" is never really going to be agile. People are not "resources," more as a great investment. One of its main problems is that the decision makers are often those same people who feel threatened by "giving up" all of their accumulated hierarchical system interests. There is the risk that you will be stuck with the team you got given, which will include individuals not ready to self-organize, not prepared to respect other team members, and not inclined to learn how to do these things. To self- organize adequately, you need the right mind with learning agility, all the skills and knowledge needed to do the work that you do. It is natural that the self organization takes time and it requires a great degree of leadership to handhold them. In many organizations there is the risk that the external hierarchy will cherry-pick the good people from your team to populate their hierarchy; you can lose your architectural and managerial skills disproportionately if this is allowed to happen. It is important to continuously adjust your strategy and approach to manage talent cycle proactively.

Management to practice agile philosophy focuses on WHAT - the ultimate business goals, less on task management in self-management setting. The intention of people-centric talent management approach is to improve employee engagement, encourage innovation, enable learning agility, enforce communication, and drive organizational level agility and maturity.
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Three Aspects of IT Communication

IT leaders need to build the capability, not only communicate, but connect, inspire and motivate.

Traditional IT organizations are often running in a functional silo to speak the technical jargon business couldn’t understand; now with IT consumerization and other digital technology trends, IT is at cross-road to either move up the maturity ladder, to become a value generator and business partner, or continue to be considered as support function or cost center. As IT leader, how can CIOs and IT managers convey the vision and deliver the clear messages of IT being a value enhancer and profit enabler?

Organizations see the value and need for effective, coordinated communications within and from IT. IT should always work to justify the investment the business makes in technology. With the incorporation of social media, mobile messaging and social collaboration tools into the corporation, the means for providing this justification, selling IT mission, and creating an integrated workforce has never been more cost effective. The return on the investment IT realizes in a service and communication strategy is one that pays substantial short and long term benefits. At the strategic level, this is the role of the CIO, to both craft a solid communication strategy, also practice it effectively; and a CIO who isn't speaking the language of the business they are in, is really not doing their job.

The successful communication targets at bridging the gap between IT and the business. IT historically has had poor communication accountability within IT or between business and IT.  IT - Business communications sometimes seem like an oxymoron. As we move from using technology as a vehicle to maximize efficiency and minimize costs to using technology as an enabler and catalyzer of totally new business models, the IT role becomes much more focused on marketing of technology. Technical jargon is like speaking a different language to the business. The IT leaders usually play the role as a translator between the business and IT;  they must straddle concepts and translate language between the business and technical staff, to avoid “get lost in translation.” Often they have to stress to both sides to avoid using language and terms of the other. When describing business requirements use business language, not "techno-ese" and vice versa.

Marketing IT at all levels of the organization really does help demonstrate value and engage those who can help achieve the goals. The IT folks need to stop separating IT and the business. Make business suggestions and proposals that just happen to apply IT. First and foremost, the ideas and suggestions need to benefit the business. And it’s also great to see more IT managers breaking out of the IT vacuum! So a widely diverse communications effort needs to be part of the plan. Start with the CIO presenting a non--technical and practical delivery to the senior executive team or better yet, the Board of Directors. Take medias or tools which are easy for anyone to understand message. That's the key in no matter what form the communications take.

IT leaders need to build the capability, not only communicate, but connect, inspire and motivate. Communication is important, however, what is even more important is the ability to connect. The ability to inspire and motivate; the ability to help people achieve their goals and objectives; the ability to help people overcome their challenges and more importantly; the ability to help people navigate through difficult change. These are the traits of a leader. Someone who can just speak well may not deliver as someone who can connect. Because connection goes beyond descriptive communication, it needs vision, empathy, and creative communication to touch the heart and connect the mind. Leaders need to have both thinking and communication skills to be able to represent themselves, to be able to persuade and to have respect.

CIOs must be able to relay complex technical ideas in a non technical manner to business leaders, and have skills to communicate change. They may also need to master all styles of conversations targeting different audience to develop situational wisdom and influential competency, to rebuild IT reputation as value creator and innovation hub.
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How to Initiate a Strategic Conversation about UX

UX Strategy is not just that empathetic understanding of people, but the ability to frame it as a compelling story.
Being customer-centric is the strategic goal for many forward-looking organizations, UX/CX (User/Customer Experience) plays more significant role today. However, many of business leaders still do not understand the strategic impact and brand effect it can bring to the organization’s long term success. For example, how UX strategy like marketing strategy or product strategy forms, influences or informs part of an organizational business strategy which in turn expresses corporate strategy would be extremely useful to explore. What are interactions you've observed and what problems have they exposed and how were they solved. Where does and should UX strategy sit? Is it the strategy you use to guide UX work? Is it about using UX tools to create product- or organizational strategy? Is it simply UX work that has strategic impact? Would it be possible to talk about ways of UX influencing companies to address the vital part of their business strategy. There are two level of UX understanding - UX as a Strategy; and UX as a Practice and Execution: The confusion around just what UX is (a profession? practice? strategy? design?) is due to its encompassing two distinctly different things: strategy and definition on one side, and practice/craft/execution on the other. Should you really be narrowing the conversation at this point? Or was the point to extend a sensational meme? You surely have to be cognizant of and have a strategic approach to execute good UX work, and it is not simply a product strategy. A product strategy will typically include the business model, marketing, sales, etc... as well as a strategy for UX. Rarely is UX the entirety of a product. Additionally, your strategy for influencing a user experience may be specific to one product or be driven across the portfolio of products. Many times the proposed strategy requires some degree of organizational alignment in order to execute or sustain the solution. This quickly becomes 'Change Management' territory. UX Strategy shouldn’t sit in its own little box, but really needs to connect into and become the fabric for how an organization thinks, breathes and acts. Talk about that, talk about the things that people care about - the people (customers and our fellow employees), the processes, the ways of thinking that lead to bettering ourselves and our world. Talk about how design thinking changes everything.

UX informs or influences a company's core strategy. That is a critical aspect of our future and a significantly under utilized competitive advantage. Considering how broad and passionate the UX Strategy conversation is, from in-house groups to external consulting firms, it would be great to see a few cases of what worked, what didn't work, what could have been done different. There are several aspects covered under the broad definition of UX Strategy - (1) Organization Design, Strategy and Transformation, (2) Corporate Strategy vs. Product Strategy vs. UX Strategy, (3) UX work of strategic impact, and what are the key elements that distinguish that work from "tactical level, tactical impact." (4) Positive and negative impact of corporate culture in UX Strategy, (5) Key People roles that manifest in a successful UX strategy transformation, and last but not least (6) Measuring UX strategic impact.

UX Strategy is not just that empathetic understanding of people, but the ability to frame it as a compelling story. Point out that UX Strategy, at heart is very simple. You take it account users' needs, behaviors, and desires, and figure out how you can deliver on that. This is in contrast to technologically-driven strategy, and market-driven strategy. However, too often UX people confuse methods for solutions. Methods exist to help you arrive at solutions, but they are not solutions themselves. It's not sufficient to do research and craft personas. That UX Strategy really comes into its own as an organization scales, because the organization needs a compelling story that ties together the efforts of people who are otherwise not able to directly interact.  

UX, CX, service design, cross channel, cross silo customer centered holistic business models are the fabric to weave into a customer-centric organization. How to build a customer-centric organization is the top priority of any forward-thinking organizations today, and they continue to navigate the journey via questioning: “what is UX Strategy." “how do we effectively implement UX Strategy organizationally" and also down to "how can UX be brought into the Agile process?" Now these questions are less heard in organizations as UX Strategy is defined and in its early days of maturity, and Agile as a candidate replacement product development lifecycle model is now being more thought of and implemented as a part and phase of a larger PDLC—of which UX Strategy is in part outside of the Agile phase to reach a tailored user experience outcome. Now that UX Strategy and the UX Strategy conversation has moved on from existential inquiry, on to definition and now on to day-to-day implementation at large organizations.

The UX conversation needs to focus on communicating the importance of a customer centric business strategy, from a vision statement that includes the benefit for the customer and mapping project outcomes back to said vision. As a general rule of thumb, when using “UX” in a sentence, if you want it to mean, or could replace it with “Pretty pictures” - and be happy with the definition, then you're not going to get the full benefit of what true UX can bring. The in-depth conversation about UX needs to go to the strategic level. Eventually UX will have a clear position in every organization and company. No one will question its existence and it will be a natural part of strategy in customer-centric organizations.
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