Jason Little's Blog, page 5

LCM Podcast 9 – Society’s Effect on Organizational Change

10 years ago you’d be laughed out of the building if you used words like love and vulnerability in the boardroom. Today, there seems to be a trend towards stripping away the noise as leaders understand that meaningful change isn’t going to happen through the $4 million worth of buzzword-filled documents that big consulting firms like to deliver.

From the ineffectiveness of the carrot and stick method, to the effect that societal change has on our organizations, Paul Gibbons, who helped launch...

Combining Innovation Games and Lean Change Management

We often hear, “People don’t like change.” This is not true. What people don’t like is change which is forced on them, especially where the perceived pain outweighs the perceived gain. When this kind of change is forced on people, they resist. When people co-create change, they are more likely to be invested in a successful result.

Lean Change is an evolutionary approach to change proposed by Jason Little. He suggests a 3-step feedback loop: Generate Insights; Create and Explore Opti...

Alternatives to Change Management Certifications

In 1998 I became an HP Certified Printer Repair person because I demonstrated the ability to replace PIU;s (Paper Input Units) at an alarming speed. It’s also been about 15 years since I received my first MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) designation for using Microsoft Front Page. Funny thing is, I’m still certified in it!

Ron Leeman wrote a great post summarizing the existing change management certifications, and here were his main points:

most are between 3 – 5 days there are 9 ‘popu...

The Change Before the Change

In a recent post, I wrote about how to apply Agile techniques to change readiness assessments by using Perspective Mapping. What happens when there is thedesire for change, but the organization isn’t ready? Further, what if the perception that the organization isn’t ready is simply my perspective? As much as we like to think change happens in a nice and tidy plan-execute-close process, it doesn’t.

As more organizations look to transform their organizations to Agile to gain an edge on their co...

LCM Podcast EP8 – Letting Go of Control

I was fortunate to be interviewed by Ro Gorrell and Charlotte Mawle for their upcoming Change Ignition podcast. In this episode we talk about simple solutions for integrating change management and agile teams, as well as how letting go as a change agent helps you keep your sanity, and helps people realize you’re there to help, not to push change on them.

How to Make Change Matter using Change Canvases

“We will shut down our lease management and accounts receivables systems.”

Those were the words I spoke (along with a super fun sound effect and giant switch off gesture) during a meeting with managers about my company’s legacy systems replacement project. One of them looked at me and laughed at my obvious theatrics. “Nice sound effect!”

Fifteen minutes later, as the meeting wrapped up, we reviewed what life would be like after the switch and that same manager said, “Well, if we need to see...

Is Your Organization Ready for Agile Change?

A couple of years ago I interviewed a colleaguewho tried a perspective map in her organization. The idea of change readiness assessments have been around forever, but there is a quick way to figure out the answer to “whats in it for me?” at different levels in your organization.

As a change agent, I want to know:

what’s the difference in perspective between the executives, management, and staff? how seriously does everyone think the whole organization is taking agile? how seriously does man...

EP7: The Happy Melly Ecosystem with Elizabeth Plouffe

I was recently interviewed by Elizabeth Plouffe on her Across the Desk podcast. This is a re-broadcast of her podcast!

In this episode we talk about the Happy Melly ecosystem is helping people understand the importance of workplace happiness, how we can focus on understanding what in our system is affected when we want to introduce change and more!

We also talk about the upcoming Happy Melly Exploration Day which is the first in-person Happy Melly event worldwide!

The Lean Change Management...

Is Your Change Stuck?

I recently visited an organization that used humor as a way to avoid deep conversations. While the leadership team didn’t have an issue with talking about problems, there came a time when the conversation was teetering dangerously towards the depth of deeper meaning. At that point, someone tossed out a joke to let the air out of the room.

It was easy for me to see this dynamic right away so I reflected it back and the group acknowledged it. Then an amazing thing happened: they became like...

There’s No Such Thing as Change Resistance

During my first Agile consulting gig, I was working with a pilot team that had 5 developers, 2 testers, and me, as the Scrum Master. We had another external technical coach who was working with us as well.

We were using a technique called planning poker to size up 3 different projects and one person on the team would have none of it! “This is stupid”, he’d say as he threw his cards on thetable and stormed out.

This pattern of behaviour escalated to the point where team members came to me, as...