Jason Little's Blog, page 3

Triggering Meaningful Dialogue with Storytelling

If you’ve ever seen a Disney movie, you know what great storytelling looks like. The hero gets a call to action; turns it down, or fails, or runs away; finds meaning in what they were asked to do through a mentor; and finally, they come back and are successful.

Annelise de Meyer recently posted about using the Storytelling Canvas in a workshop. Here’s an excerpt from her post:

When teaching a Lean Change Management class, we usually let the attendees choose which of the proposed Lean Change...

Support Structures for Change Agents

A few years ago when I was working in a large organization helping a 1600-ish person department with a change, I had a few of those days that I think we’ve all had at some point. I had a day of meetings scheduled and every single one was canceled by the time I got to work.

I checked my mail, had 12 coffees, walked around to see if anyone I was supposed to have meetings with had time, and updated our big visible change wall. At this point, I ran out of things to do. I’ve talked to many change...

Change Readiness and Setting Expectations

As we close out November’s Lean Change Management Association (LCMA) theme, this article ties in what we sometimes forget about: expectations of the change agent.

In the first article, I showed how to use a simple grid to do a change readiness assessment, and if you’re an LCMA member, you would have seen the short video tutorial about how to do this “at scale”. This article is a combination of both, plus adding expectations between people on a team, and expectations for the change agent.

Cont...

Are You Ready for Change?

“Hi Jason, we’re looking for a to help with our agile transformation. I wanted to setup a time for you to come in and chat with my VP about it.”, said Biff.

I replied with, “Thanks for reaching out! Tell me a bit more about this transformation. When did you ‘start’? What have you done so far? What’s been the toughest challenge?”

“We’ve been doing it on our own for a year or so and getting some traction, leadership is completely bought in, but some of the people on the teams are resisting.”,...

Digital Credentials over Certifications

The debate about certifications will always exist. There are those that feel becoming certified in any knowledge related field after sitting in a class for 2-days is ridiculous, and on the opposite side of the table, there are those that support certifications as an entry point into a field of knowledge. It’s largely a matter of opinion. Back in the late 90’s I obtained numerous certifications in hardware and software from Windows NT (gasp!), Microsoft Exchange Server, HP Printer Repair, and...

Impact Matrix – 4 Categories of People Affected by Change

Benjamin Franklyn said, “All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.” We know not everyone affected by the change will be impacted by, or respond to, the change in the same way or with the same intensity.

Lean Change Agent Facilitators Annelise De Meyer and Ralph Van Roosmalen, in this article, talk about four categories of people you encounter during a change process and how they can support your change. We’ll stick to the...

Finding Influencers…at the Bottom of Your Org Chart

Call it digital disruption, call it the symptom of living in a VUCA world, call it what you will, but the odds are pretty good your industry is going to be disrupted. The Agile and Change communities try to use this as a fear-tactic to sell you a method, or certification or what-have-you.

Yes, that’s cynical…but here’s the thing: What else do we need to know about change that hasn’t already been invented and talked about ad nauseam?

Herb Kelleher, the former CEO of Southwest Airlines, famous...

LCM Podcast 17 – Lean Change Professional with Joao Gama

This conversation started as an ‘ask me anything’ session with Joao Gama about the Lean Change Professional workshop, and I decided it would make a great podcast and video.

Ritual-based Change versus Continuous Change

This year when the New Year came around, my 11 year old daughter told me that resolutions were pointless because it’s just another year, same as any other. I remember thinking that when I started becoming entrenched in all-things-agile, I thought it was smart to improve when necessary instead of thinking we couldn’t change something about our personal lives until New Years made it ok. Actually, I thought it would make me look smarter to take that stance. You know, us consultants are always tr...

Happy Anniversary Lean Change Management!

Last month marked the 3rd anniversary of the 2nd edition of Lean Change Management. 5th anniversary if you include the terrible Leanpub version, and 8th anniversary if you consider the blog post that started it all.

Much has happened since then:

~10,000 copies of Lean Change Management have been sold factoring in all distribution channels peaked at #6444 out of 8,000,000 books on Amazon, #198 in Leadership and Management LCM is available in German and soon to be available in French, Spanish...