Mike Burrows's Blog, page 36
July 27, 2018
Agendashift roundup, July 2018
In this edition: Strategy workshop and Agendashift Studio; Right to Left; Public workshops (US, UK, IT, DE); Top posts
Strategy workshop and Agendashift Studio
On consecutive days early this month (before things began to slow down for the summer) I led a private strategy workshop done Agendashift-style and then a small “Agendashift Studio” workshop held in my studio office in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, just outside the Peak District National Park.
For obvious reasons I can’t go into a lot of detail about the private workshop but it did result in a blog post:
An outside-in strategy review, Agendashift style
There’ll be at least a chapter’s worth of this in the new book (more on that in a moment), covering the use of this kind of outside-in structure for strategy and operations reviews in the kind of depth that wasn’t possible in the Agendashift book.
The Agendashift Studio workshop was a lot of fun. Here’s some great feedback:
Use of Clean Language to generate fragments for 4-corners contextualization is just magic. @snowded – I think you'd like it. Thanks @asplake for superb @agendashift training. Highly recommended!
July 20, 2018
#RightToLeft is #Agendashift (outcome-orientation) for delivery
Going by chapter counts, Agendashift [1] is 80% outcome-oriented change and 20% continuous transformation. It describes an approach to Lean-Agile transformation that rejects imposition, replacing it with meaningful agreement on outcomes, bringing together organisational ambitions and the needs of everyone who will help bring those ambitions to reality.
Can we do for delivery what Agendashift does for change? Of course we can, The only surprise it that it’s so necessary!
It has always been well understood in Lean circles that to make proper sense of a delivery process, you must start with how the thing that is being delivered creates value in the eyes of the customer, and work backwards from there. Somehow, that lesson gets forgotten in Agile circles; either Agile is all about teams (a view I can find some respect for, even if I don’t fully buy it), or we’re fed the ironically process-centric lie that teams start with backlogs and create value from there.
[image error] Our handy, referenceable, Definition of Done
#RightToLeft is about recovering a focus on customer outcomes for Lean-Agile delivery [2], and maintaining that perspective as we work backwards through the delivery process, understanding it better, managing it better, and finding ways to do it better.
It’s a simple but surprisingly radical change of perspective. With it, it’s surprisingly easy to see that there are two Scrums [3], the mechanistic, backlog-first left-to-right version and the ‘iterated goal-seeking’ right-to-left version. It turns out that there are two versions of SAFe too; expect to see more on that soon (and not just from me). I haven’t yet established whether there are left-to-right and right-to-left versions of the other leading scaling frameworks; it would be nice to identify some that are predominantly right-to-left, but we’ll see (if you can help or just want to stay in touch with this work, join us in the #right-to-left channel in the Agendashift Slack [4]).
The Right to Left book [5] will come out next summer. Meanwhile, Agendashift has plenty to offer. For example, how do you explain survey results [6] like these?
[image error]
When I see results like these (which I do a lot), it’s all I can do to resist sarcastic lines like “Great to see all that leadership put to such good use!”. There’s some good(ish) news –transparency, balance, and collaboration are doing somewhat ok, relatively speaking (even if the numbers aren’t great in absolute terms and they’re not having the impact on flow that we would hope for), but just look at customer focus! Fortunately, I see a great appetite for doing something about this, paying more attention to needs, embracing validation, and so on.
I’ve said a few times now that I would be happy to see the rest of my career (I’m 53) being devoted to outcomes. When I first started saying it, I didn’t have #RightToLeft in mind, but that’s 100% ok. Perhaps one day we’ll be describing #Agendashift as #RightToLeft for change!
[1] Agendashift (www.agendashift.com)
[2] Understanding Lean-Agile, right to left (blog.agendashift.com)
[3] #RightToLeft works for Scrum too (blog.agendashift.com)
[4] Agendashift on Slack (www.agendashift.com)
[5] Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean-Agile (www.agendashift.com)
[6] Agendashift
Assessments, also chapter 2 of the book (www.agendashift.com)
Upcoming workshops
9-11 October, Brighton, UK: 3-day Agendashift + X-matrix Masterclass
( myself and Karl Scotland )
[image error]Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter
We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…
July 12, 2018
An outside-in strategy review, Agendashift style
I’ve just about finished an initial draft of the second chapter of Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean-Agile (which now has a landing page). Its three-part structure is firming up nicely as follows:
Right to left (four chapters): Lean; Agile; Fundamental Lean-Agile patterns and how they combine; Scaling frameworks
Outside in (one to three chapters): Strategy reviews (and related tools); Capability reviews; Feedback loops and other organisational patterns
Upside down (one to two chapters): Designing for leadership and change: Servant leadership, Leader-Leader, the inverted pyramid, engagement models (of which Agendashift is an example) and so on
The shape works, and I’m thrilled with how the well the right-to-left thing is working out – see for example last week’s post #RightToLeft works for Scrum too which is already a top 5 post for the year and is helping me find collaborators interested in giving the scaling frameworks a similar treatment.
I’ve not just been writing. Let me share four questions I posed (one at a time) at a outside-in strategy review (a private workshop):
Customer: What’s happening when we’re reaching the right customers, meeting their strategic needs? (‘Strategic needs’ being the customer needs that best define our mission)
Organisation: When we’re meeting those strategic needs, what kind of organisation are we?
Product: Through what products and services are we meeting those strategic needs?
Platform: When we’re that kind of organisation, meeting those strategic needs, delivering those products and services, what are the defining/critical capabilities that make it all possible?
(Admission: I got two of these the wrong way round in my prep last week, which changes the wording slightly. This exercise still worked great though!)
If you’re familiar with the model, you may be wondering what happened to the fifth and innermost layer, Team. This we covered not by a question, but via the Agendashift True North, focussing not on the work that teams are doing but on ways of working.
As we considered each layer, we captured some vision, then obstacles. After exploring the five layers individually, 15-minute FOTO to turn obstacles into outcomes.
[image error] The 15-minute FOTO cue card
Precede all of that with some forward-looking context-setting and segue into hypothesis driven change and A3 (all of which are standard features of our transformation strategy workshops) and you have an outcome-oriented strategy review, done Agendashift style.
Want to explore these and other complementary strategy-related tools with us? Join myself and Karl Scotland at our Agendashift + X-Matrix Masterclass, 9th-11th October, Brighton, UK. Or drop us a line about private workshops. You might even facilitate one yourself – the tools and materials aren’t expensive!
[image error]Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter
We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…
July 4, 2018
#RightToLeft works for Scrum too
Here’s a “left to right” [1] description of Scrum:
A Product Backlog (all the stuff we’d like to do), a Sprint Backlog (the stuff we plan to do this sprint), then a Sprint (a timebox) that culminates in a potentially shippable increment, a review, and a retrospective. Rinse and repeat.
To me, this is how NOT to describe Scrum. Is it a straw man, put up just so that I can knock it down? Hardly! Not all descriptions of Scrum follow this narrative, but it’s common enough. Complete with a video, here’s a nicely-produced example from a reliable source, the Scrum Alliance: Learn about Scrum (scrumalliance.org). It’s one of the first pages returned by Google in response to the question “What is Scrum?”.
The bullet points below are the first few from that page’s 30 second summary, and they’re very close to the commentary on the video:
A product owner creates a prioritized wish list called a product backlog.
During sprint planning, the team pulls a small chunk from the top of that wish list, a sprint backlog, and decides how to implement those pieces.
The team has a certain amount of time — a sprint (usually two to four weeks) — to complete its work, but it meets each day to assess its progress (daily Scrum).
Along the way, the ScrumMaster keeps the team focused on its goal.
If you wanted to describe Waterscrumfall, would you describe it any differently? Perhaps “the team is arm-twisted into pulling a implausibly large amount of work into the sprint (or the project manager helpfully does it for them)”, but little else changes. Would it help if the process description were prefaced with mentions of agility, complexity, and so on? That must depend on the reader’s frame of reference; if they don’t share our understanding of those words, they’re just noise.
Let’s try a “right to left” description:
A Scrum Team moves towards its Product Vision goal by goal, the team collaborating around a shared goal for a timeboxed interval called the Sprint, at the end of which the team reflects on how well the Sprint Goal was achieved before it prepares for the next one, organising around a new goal. The team’s best understanding of the work required to achieve the Sprint Goal is represented by a Sprint Backlog; options for future sprints are maintained in a Product Backlog.
The same process, yet so different, and with much less room for misinterpretation. This – I think – is much more like the Scrum that people love. Do you agree? Would you describe it differently?
Thanks to Steve Porter and Thorbjørn Sigberg for their feedback on earlier drafts of this post.
[1] Understanding Lean-Agile, right to left
Suppose you had to understand Lego – and I mean really understand it. Where do you start? With children playing, or with plastic feedstock?
Upcoming workshops
9-11 October, Brighton, UK Agendashift + X-Matrix Masterclass
( myself and Karl Scotland )
[image error]Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter
We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…
June 29, 2018
Agendashift roundup, June 2018
In this edition: Agendashift as…; A new joint 3-day workshop; Happy birthday!; Progress on Right to Left; Out and about; Top posts
Agendashift as…
In recent weeks and in weeks to come we’re pushing boundaries, getting into new areas:
Agendashift as an enhancement to Kanban training – using the assessment and some lightly structured “obstacles to outcomes” conversations to organise the day and help participants focus their work on things that really matter. I don’t actively seek out this kind of training opportunity but am happy to deliver an outcome-oriented experience when the call comes!
Agendashift as leadership development – another private workshop, helping leaders make the shift away from command and control, getting comfortable with (i) outcomes as the focus for self-organisation, and (ii) experiments as a powerful way to frame and develop actions.
Agendashift as business strategy development – “outcome-oriented” meets “outside-in”, the latter just a minor theme of the Agendashift book but one that will see greater prominence in the next one. Expect to hear more in the meantime as we pursue this on the ground, taking our tools of transformation strategy and adapting them for application in more general strategy work.
This October: 3-day Advanced Agendashift + X-Matrix workshop
One of my key collaborators is already very active in the strategy deployment space, and I’m delighted to announce another joint workshop with Karl Scotland. For the first time we’re bringing together the Advanced Agendashift workshop (already at least 2 days worth) and Karl’s X-Matrix workshop. You can be part of that collaboration, joining us for 3 days in Brighton ahead of the Lean Agile Brighton conference. More here:
Why a 3-day workshop?
Happy birthday!
On June 14th our Slack community celebrated its second birthday. Of all the things I’ve helped create, this is definitely one of the coolest. If you’re not participating, you’re missing out! More here about the kinds of channels on offer and how to join:
The Agendashift community on Slack is 2 today
June 25, 2018
Why a 3-day workshop?
In Brighton in October – the 9th-11th to be precise – I’ll be co-leading with Karl Scotland a special joint workshop: the Agendashift + X-Matrix Masterclass.
What is it, and why three days? Three reasons:
More depth: As already practiced in the 2-day Advanced Agendashift workshop, we love to create space both for underlying theory and for personal reflection on what it means to be an effective coach or leader, especially in the context of change and transformation.
More choice: One of the things people love about Agendashift is the quality and diversity of the of the models and tools we’ve integrated. Who’d have thought that Clean Language and Cynefin would go so well together? But for every model or tool included in our workshops and in the book, there are others we could have chosen. Karl has several!
More breadth: Agendashift as described in the book is mostly about transformation strategy – helping you approach organisational transformation based on a shared exploration of needs and (most especially) agreement on outcomes. But our highly participatory and fundamentally outcome-oriented approach has other applications, for example in leadership development, business strategy, and training in Lean-Agile methods.
X-Matrix more than deserves its brief mention in the book and its exercise in the Advanced workshop. In a spirit of “Core or better” (the “core” being well documented for Agendashift and the “better” determined by your context and what you have at your disposal) we’ll give it and some other complementary models and tools full prominence.
Do join us, and stay on for Lean Agile Brighton 2018 the next day! There’ll be at least three partners (Karl, myself, Jose) participating one way or another in the conference, and very likely more in attendance.
Super early bird pricing is available on a limited number of seats until the end of June and early bird until the end of July. We’re also happy to discount attendees of past workshops (you wouldn’t be the first person to attend more than one if that’s you), and employees of non-profits and public sector organisations.
[image error]Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter
We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…
June 14, 2018
The Agendashift community on Slack is 2 today
If you’re interested in outcome-oriented change, continuous transformation, and Lean-Agile generally, here’s the place to find like-minded people, have your questions answered, and engage in thoughtful discussion. If you’re putting Agendashift into practice, it’s where you’ll find support.
Two years ago today saw the birth of something really special: the Agendashift community on Slack. We’re now just a few short of 500 members, a milestone that is surely only days away.
[image error]
A selection of recent activity in some of the more popular channels:
#assessments: enhancements to the online survey tool deployed in recent days; the wording of some of the assessment prompts
#bookclub: coordinating a Zoom-based discussion on 3rd volume of Gerald Weinberg’s Quality Software Management
#changeban: sharing the announcement of Changeban v0.3 (it’s evolving a bit faster now that we’re creating more opportunities to use it)
#cleanlanguage: various Clean Language-related events (some organised by channel members); a podcast featuring Caitlin Walker (author of one of the three Clean Language book in the Agendashift reading list )
#featureban: experience reports from Norway, Sweden, and South Africa; the Spanish translation (see the Featureban page for resources)
#kanban: a discussion on whether and what to document for the benefit of future joiners to a team
#leancoffee: organising our next meeting, probably on July 13th; a recording of our previous one
#right-to-left: progress on the next book
#workshops: transformation strategy workshops and more general business strategy workshops (mostly using Agendashift material but not exclusively); changes to the material as it evolves through use; workshop facilitation in general
If you’d like to join, just head over to agendashift.com/slack and request your invite. See you there!
[image error]Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter
We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…
The Agendashift community on Slack is 2 today
If you’re interested in outcome-oriented change, continuous transformation, and Lean-Agile generally, here’s the place to find like-minded people, have your questions answered, and engage in thoughtful discussion. If you’re putting Agendashift into practice, it’s where you’ll find support.
Two years ago today saw the birth of something really special: the Agendashift community on Slack. We’re now just a few short of 500 members, a milestone that is surely only days away.
[image error]
A selection of recent activity in some of the more popular channels:
#assessments: enhancements to the online survey tool deployed in recent days; the wording of some of the assessment prompts
#bookclub: coordinating a Zoom-based discussion on 3rd volume of Gerald Weinberg’s Quality Software Management
#changeban: sharing the announcement of Changeban v0.3 (it’s evolving a bit faster now that we’re creating more opportunities to use it)
#cleanlanguage: various Clean Language-related events (some organised by channel members); a podcast featuring Caitlin Walker (author of one of the three Clean Language book in the Agendashift reading list )
#featureban: experience reports from Norway, Sweden, and South Africa; the Spanish translation (see the Featureban page for resources)
#kanban: a discussion on whether and what to document for the benefit of future joiners to a team
#leancoffee: organising our next meeting, probably on July 13th; a recording of our previous one
#right-to-left: progress on the next book
#workshops: transformation strategy workshops and more general business strategy workshops (mostly using Agendashift material but not exclusively); changes to the material as it evolves through use; workshop facilitation in general
If you’d like to join, just head over to agendashift.com/slack and request your invite. See you there!
[image error]Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter
We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…
The Agendashift community on Slack is 2 today
If you’re interested in outcome-oriented change, continuous transformation, and Lean-Agile generally, here’s the place to find like-minded people, have your questions answered, and engage in thoughtful discussion. If you’re putting Agendashift into practice, it’s where you’ll find support.
Two years ago today saw the birth of something really special: the Agendashift community on Slack. We’re now just a few short of 500 members, a milestone that is surely only days away.
[image error]
A selection of recent activity in some of the more popular channels:
#assessments: enhancements to the online survey tool deployed in recent days; the wording of some of the assessment prompts
#bookclub: coordinating a Zoom-based discussion on 3rd volume of Gerald Weinberg’s Quality Software Management
#changeban: sharing the announcement of Changeban v0.3 (it’s evolving a bit faster now that we’re creating more opportunities to use it)
#cleanlanguage: various Clean Language-related events (some organised by channel members); a podcast featuring Caitlin Walker (author of one of the three Clean Language book in the Agendashift reading list )
#featureban: experience reports from Norway, Sweden, and South Africa; the Spanish translation (see the Featureban page for resources)
#kanban: a discussion on whether and what to document for the benefit of future joiners to a team
#leancoffee: organising our next meeting, probably on July 13th; a recording of our previous one
#right-to-left: progress on the next book
#workshops: transformation strategy workshops and more general business strategy workshops (mostly using Agendashift material but not exclusively); changes to the material as it evolves through use; workshop facilitation in general
If you’d like to join, just head over to agendashift.com/slack and request your invite. See you there!
[image error]Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter
We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…
The Agendashift community on Slack is 2 today
If you’re interested in outcome-oriented change, continuous transformation, and Lean-Agile generally, here’s the place to find like-minded people, have your questions answered, and engage in thoughtful discussion. If you’re putting Agendashift into practice, it’s where you’ll find support.
Two years ago today saw the birth of something really special: the Agendashift community on Slack. We’re now just a few short of 500 members, a milestone that is surely only days away.
[image error]
A selection of recent activity in some of the more popular channels:
#assessments: enhancements to the online survey tool deployed in recent days; the wording of some of the assessment prompts
#bookclub: coordinating a Zoom-based discussion on 3rd volume of Gerald Weinberg’s Quality Software Management
#changeban: sharing the announcement of Changeban v0.3 (it’s evolving a bit faster now that we’re creating more opportunities to use it)
#cleanlanguage: various Clean Language-related events (some organised by channel members); a podcast featuring Caitlin Walker (author of one of the three Clean Language book in the Agendashift reading list )
#featureban: experience reports from Norway, Sweden, and South Africa; the Spanish translation (see the Featureban page for resources)
#kanban: a discussion on whether and what to document for the benefit of future joiners to a team
#leancoffee: organising our next meeting, probably on July 13th; a recording of our previous one
#right-to-left: progress on the next book
#workshops: transformation strategy workshops and more general business strategy workshops (mostly using Agendashift material but not exclusively); changes to the material as it evolves through use; workshop facilitation in general
If you’d like to join, just head over to agendashift.com/slack and request your invite. See you there!
[image error]Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter
We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…
