 Good day Jeff. Welcome to the agile atelier podcast. How are you doing today? I'm very good actually thinking. Yeah, it sums out. It's a gorgeous day Yeah, and today's topic is change management and organic agility So I'd like to start off by addressing the general concept of change management Could you tell us briefly? What exactly is change management? Hmm. Well, I suppose You'd get you'd probably get a different answer Depending on how many people you asked I mean when when uh when I used to work in Some of my earlier organizations the phrase had a really negative connotation It's almost like change Uh change avoidance Um, it was associated with slowing things down because change was seen as something that was bad that was painful that was Um to be avoided and those sort of phrases of you know people people hate change um and Change in a in a in a project was always expensive as well but for me it's more Change is inevitable. Um, whether we like it or not, you know trying to trying to stop change is a bit like as if like, um, is it king canoe who tried to stop the waves? I'm not sure whether that's the right thing, but to me it's more about continual readjustment or uh continual coherence or recurrence So that we can We can At least cope with the inevitable continual change that we're finding around ourselves if not use it Yeah, so you hinted at sort of the different levels of change, right? And when we're when people talk about change management that can be applied to the team level the Individual level or the organizational level or something in between right so are there, you know, how do you sort of? Look at the different levels and what are the main differences? I think it's pretty fractal. I think it's you know, what applies at the individual level applies within the team and within the within the organization. I think If you're looking at things like culture to me cultures just a collection of experiences a collection of behaviors values Things that we expect of one another things that you know, we typically tell each other And we do necessarily without thinking And so if i'm changing what I do as an individual then that's going to have an impact on what the team does And if the team changes what they do as a collective that changes what the organization does Um, and it can flow in lots of different ways So if we set expectations and we set standards and we set you know model particular behaviors or values Then that gets picked up by others within the organization. So You know, I'm changing as an individual inside of work outside of work The team is constantly changing whether we're whether we like it or not. So I think it's more of a case of whether we're consciously changing or letting change just happen to us Yeah, and as you spoke to earlier, you know, you see it as a fractal aspect to it, right? But what just for the sake of semantics Um, you know, is there a line that you draw between A change and say something what would be called a transformation, you know Is that also just a large-scale change or do you draw the line somewhere? um I think This is I'm making this up in my head now to try and get across what I'm thinking So for me a transformation has an end point Something that you you know, you know, you are then something else So a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. They have transformed Um, but does that mean that the the caterpillar No, the butterfly ceases to change from then on. No So is the transformation still going? It's a hard you write to use the word semantics for me I used to use the word transformation a lot when talking about organizational cultural change Yeah, um And you know, I think I think I was a bit naive thinking that we would become a noticeably different organization but to carry on with the sort of animal type metaphors It's a little bit more like boiling a frog. You don't realize What's going on because things are so slow And the the changes are so subtle But when you look back after a while you may say yes from where we were we have transformed But it's more of a continual Transition I suppose Um Rather than any concrete. Okay. Now we can switch the light on and we burst out of our cocoon And we are a completely different organization or I am a completely different person Yeah Yeah, so, you know for any team or organization out there, maybe assessing the changing environment or the changing technology Um, you know, they realize that they need to maybe come up with a different product or come up with a different process of way of working Um, can you maybe guide us through what that journey would maybe look like or have you experienced Taking a team or an organization through that journey yourself So there's so there's different Different aspects to it in different levels. So when you talk about creating a new product that that sort of change The there are two types of change there. There's is the sort of pivot if you like um, or there's taking repurposing So taking what we've gotten using whether that be a service or a component or a complete or products and could use it for a completely different purpose Um, but then there's the what does that mean for the wider organization? So When I'm when I'm working with product leaders product managers I'm looking to help them use an agile approach To test and learn to to fail fast and to get all the the information from the market as quickly as possible to reduce their waste and get value to their users as quickly as possible and then learn and so on And an organizational level. I think there's got to be an element of coherence as well if you want if you want to use approaches such as agile product development Then you need to have those values and principles built into your organizational culture to be really authentic and to have integrity And so what I what I do there is I try and help leaders to Visualize their organizational culture as it stands now And then think based on a few factors a few criteria Um, what kind of culture do you think would be more supportive? To the types of approaches that they're looking to encourage and foster and values and behaviors that they're looking to encourage and then to just constantly check in With themselves and with their people and with the data about whether they're doing more of the kinds of things that Amplify the right kind of culture in their mindset So I don't I don't suggest picking a particular model and following it I don't suggest picking a particular set of values or a process and saying apply this It's more a case of continual refining continual adjustment so that you're continually In line with what you want to be and what you're capable of being at that point in time if that makes any sense Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned The word model a couple times right and when people Look in to change management or introduce to it for the first time There are a couple different options out there, right and he seems quite model agnostic in your earlier comment, so Has that you know has using a certain model helped you get started with a specific change in the past Or do you use maybe different models for different situations I the first model that I ever came across was was cotter's model The the eight-step model and there's a lot I like about it the the actual steps I like I would perhaps Change some of them and not not use all of them all the time perhaps But for me the the only real Sort of issue I had with it was that it it tended to make change out to be more discreet than I think it is There is a sense of before during and after Whereas I see change to be a lot more fluid and continual So I buy into the steps, but more as sort of principles rather than discrete steps Got it and you also touched on culture And your answers a little earlier How do we you know culture is something that's Usually hard and challenging for organizations to assess You know, do you suggest Certain ways of assessing it or tracking and measuring it so that you can maybe do the checks and do the frequent checks That you were talking to earlier Yeah, yeah, so Within the organic agility framework We'll we'll use a tool called an orb scan Which is it's really quite simple, but it's built upon complexity complex complex systems Theory and basically what it does is it captures a load of data points of real examples of Events that that are happening and have happened within the organization decisions that have been made How they were made why they were made that way the impact of them how quickly they were made Who made them what kind of level of involvement and engagement there was in them And these lots of little micro decisions can be plotted against some competing values that can Really quite interestingly create a visualization of that organizational culture And there are some consistent patterns that emerge of organizational cultures And the shapes that those those dots that data tends to provide And that that visualization generally makes it a lot easier for people to be able to Deal with that intangible thing that is culture and so generally speaking we're operating on the principle that you know we We tell stories about what happens and stories are what are transferable and stories about what happened What goes well are things that we try to replicate things stories about things that don't go so well are things that we try to avoid again And and that's not that those stories are good or bad per se But are they relevant and useful to the kind of organization that we're looking to become in the context that we find ourselves in right now So yeah, we would help the an organization gather lots and lots of data really really quickly And then in real time as more and more decisions are being made input them into the into the data and see how that culture Or shape that visualization of the organizational culture is changing almost well could be on a daily basis So i'm really curious to Sort of get a picture of what this looks like is this a plot or is this a diagram that's automatically generated as you put in These these points and feedbacks Yeah, so it takes it takes a combination of the sort of connevin theory wardley mapping and Complexity theory and the competing values framework as a baseline So imagine a an x y axis with four quadrants And and lots and lots of dots all over the place and then a four point shape It could be a rhombus a diamond parallelogram type shape that's that's that depicts The shape of that organizational culture Okay, so similar to radar right where you can see maybe where you are lacking or what you're doing well and work on that Great and and you mentioned the organic agility framework that you know, that's also one of the big topics for today. Can you tell us about You know the origins of of the formation of this framework and What it's helpful for yeah, sure, so um it's difficult for me to to to tell you about the origins without sounding like I'm doing somebody else at a service, but it was generally a dissatisfaction with Sort of the agile scaling approaches that were available About five years ago, and it was just a sense that For me, it it didn't kind of sit right That the scaling framework seemed to be almost anti agile if you like Of you know, this is how to organize your organization top down With the structure with these roles and it just didn't It didn't sit right with me. There's something felt a bit wrong about that not evil wrong just incoherent so we try to try to Sort of model the values if you like model the principles. So a couple of people We collaborated Uh, so Andrea Tomasini of agile 42 in in Germany and Dave Snowden at the Kinefin framework and we came up with A way of trying to just first of all see where you are because for me any kind of change starts with You've got to know where you are And so being able to visualize that in some way both at an organizational cultural level But also at a leadership level. So what kind of leadership am I providing right now? And what kind of leadership do my people need from me right now throughout the organization and then giving them a way to incrementally tweak that culture based on But what Snowden would call the next adjacent possible, right? So this is where we are right now Where could we go next and we could do more of this and less of that and that would give us more of what we want So the organic agility framework is is looking at culture and and an organization through the lens of an organic metaphor rather than a mechanical metaphor of a machine Where you you crank up the dial and you get more of something, you know efficiency Whereas an organic Metaphor, you know an organism isn't really focused around efficiency as such. It's it's focused around being effective And continuing to remain effective in a complex environment You can only really get the benefits of of of a machine And variables are stable So if you have a predictable input then you can focus on getting a greater Return or greater yield from your output But in a complex system that involves people and and perhaps software or product development There are lots of unknown unknowns and change We need to be continually effective rather than efficient So this was the organic agility stands for growing organizational resilience or our organizational resilience Um by growing autonomy because in in complex systems We need to we need autonomous units to be able to make decisions quickly without having to think of go things up Of the chain back down again and nurturing an interdependent culture so that all that autonomy doesn't lead to us going off in different directions and undermining each other So in case you that i'm just waffling too much there. Yeah, no, thank you I want to ask you about The destruction the setup right so you talked about the difference of you know, this organic approach versus a more Mechanical approach that's focused on just efficiency within the smaller units Um, how do you work on that in this, you know, how does this? organic agility framework serve address that At you know in real life. What does that look like in practice? So it's a lot through this is gathering data. So it's a very very data-centric approach Um in that in that sense of well, let's find out where we are and let's find out what's appropriate for that situation So you talk a lot about contextualization and that very few behaviors are Good or bad in of themselves But those same behaviors could be good or bad based on the context so if In a certain situation it might make sense for me to be very democratic to involve lots of people To get their opinions to make sure everybody's heard and have a fair outcome But in other circumstances that might be absolutely the wrong situation. Okay. Sorry the wrong approach to this situation and so being able to Assess and make sense of the situation so that we can apply the right approach to it is is what we do at a practical level Helping everybody in the organization Become more aware of the context so they can act more coherently with that context And that involves a lot of you know self-awareness emotional intelligence feedback and Basically getting other people's feedback on your actions as well as your own self-reflection to be able to manage the two and marry the two up and just As with any kind of agile approach constantly looking and asking and responding to that data Yeah, and so it's very obvious to me that As you mentioned it is quite data-centric, but i'm more curious to I'm curious about how you go about gathering this data You know because it seemed like we're talking about both You know hard data that you can maybe use for points to come up with this picture for the organization as well as Maybe a softer data like the behaviors that you were alluding to earlier So how do you go about gathering this data? so the org scan is pretty um, it's it's very software focused so you It's a Very short questionnaire. We we shrunk it down Because if we're looking to collect lots and lots of data points We don't want to spend all our time inputting data So and actually people don't like having to input data. So it's got to be quite easy And quite quick. So we've really shrunk it down to a really quite streamlined process But it's gathering through a web interface or through the app on your phone or your ipad or have you um a few questions and a few If you imagine a sort of triangle I'm dragging a little stone between the three points on a triangle to represent the weighting of a certain conflicting conflicting values or options Or interpretations and that that data is then plotted onto a number of different graphs through you know automation And the sense maker engine of the snowden um, so so yeah, that's that's how it's collected and that's the there's the data in terms of Um time so, you know, how long did it take To make this decision But also the sort of softer side of data who was involved in this data And also how do you think this was a positive thing? Do you think this was a negative thing? But also the narrative and the narrative is really important as well So actually tell me a brief explanation of what happened and how you perceive this to be because A lot of the data that we use is a lot more subjective than we would like to think And there's no reason why we should try and Ignore that or Or play that down Because culture is about how people feel it is how people and people act based on how they feel so We need to capture that and we try and anonymize it what we do anonymize it And so that we can people can feel honest to put in what they want But if you imagine that that that that graph with all these different dots containing all these stories Each one of them can be drilled down into To look at the anomalies or you can look at some examples of you know clusters And and draw around the narrative and say okay, so we want more like that and we want less like that What can we do to get more like that and less like that? Let's run some experiments and see whether the shape changes Got it. So there is no sort of Ideal for success ideal shape for success, right? That would vary based on the teams and sort of evolve as well for each team as well It's the context. It's absolutely context. So this organization resilience is based on continual coherence. It's about So this coherence is the keyword there is based on the context What's the most appropriate Way to be what's the most appropriate values the most appropriate behaviors the most appropriate expectations so that and so we use this phrase motivational debt, okay because How I act as a leader is going to have a massive impact on My people and their motivation. So It's not just how I act It's how you expect me to act and the difference between the two So if I came into a to an organization and said, right self-organizing teams is is what we need depending on The situation of these two organizations I can have a vastly different response even though I say exactly the same thing So I come into one organization and they are Pretty up for it. They've been trying to do agile on their own for a while They've got a leader now that comes in and says yes self-organization. That's what we want and the teams are brilliant This is what we've been waiting for give us that autonomy. We want to run with it motivation is high I go into another organization and say right self-organizing teams off you go And this group of people have never had any kind of autonomy before it's always been command and control It's always been there's been a quite a blame culture in there. So the sense of taking responsibility is quite scary They're now scared out of their minds thinking self-organization if I get something wrong now, it's on me I'm going to get sick. So there's going to be motivational debt because my expectations of them. They don't feel that they can meet Right. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So what is your approach in that case? Do you then take that as a as a coach for yourself to to work on for that team? So again, this is about sensing the situation. So it doesn't have to be Me sensing the situation on my own or the leader sensing the situation on their own We can have a conversation about this. You know, what what are you comfortable with? What do you expect of one another? What would make your work better? What would you make you more effective? For example, and self-organization is not binary It's not we either self-organize or we don't there are different degrees of self-organization that can be negotiated and can be Tweaked over time as more and more confidence is gathered more skills gathered more tools and the environment is more supportive and conducive So it's about trying to find What we're capable of What we want and equally in some cases what i'm prepared to to trust people with at the moment It's this continual renegotiation and exploration of mutual expectation Yeah, so what this sort of takes me back to is maybe different levels of maturity questionnaires that i've also seen in the past and and used myself And oftentimes the issue I saw with them was That the answers and the questions themselves as you mentioned are quite subjective So what happens if You know, let's say a team or an organization Has this end goal in mind with what the changes that they want to do And they view that you know as something that would be beneficial to them But you know with you coming in as an experience coach or consultant you realize that It may not be the best thing for this team. What what do you do in that case? um so It's I think it's just breaking down the time horizons So there's nothing wrong with with saying, you know in an ideal world in three years time. We'd love to be a really fluid flat self-organizing You know organization of autonomous squads But getting there overnight is not going to happen. So let's let's think Where we are and where we could go next and making sure that we're you know supportive of each other along the way And it's not just a case of about around leadership granting more autonomy to teams There's there's a sense of what what would make leadership more comfortable and and safe doing that and likewise So it's for me. It's always a conversation about how do we see things at the moment? What would what would stretch us a little bit but still feel safe? um Because when people don't feel safe They're they're not prepared to give their best. They're not able to give their best And that's whether the leadership or or all the all the actual functional delivery teams themselves So trying to create a safe environment of stretch Um where we can just go a little bit further and what do we need of one another? To be able to make that happen What am I prepared to commit to you and what do I need from you and return? For us to be able to make that happen and then we can stop take stop and think where can we go next? Okay So to maybe give you a more concrete example the example I was thinking of in my head was Let's say you're working with a team as an agile coach And you know, they they say that you know, we want to change we want to evolve we want to improve And how we see ourselves improving is by maybe delivering 10 features instead of five in the next two sprints, right? So in that given timeline We need to increase the output, right? So just to you use a very simple example. How do you? maybe Change that conversation to be more outcome oriented And and rather than focus on the output, right because if that is the goal then in that questionnaire They will think they're doing maybe a few things. Well that they're not right and therefore the The diagram or the shape that you end up getting Would be reflective of how they think they're doing which may be quite different from Your views is someone else's views Yeah, sure. I mean you've you've got the answers to your own question in the question there really there's there's It shouldn't be about the actual number itself because that will come if they improve their behaviors My interest is what would you need to change to become more successful? Um, not what's your new target? And I believe that their target would Would be increased if they get better at what they think they need to get better at So that's one part of it is that self diagnosis of their opportunities for improvement Whether that be improving on the strengths that they already have in place Or remedying and mitigating some of their weaknesses or what have you but self diagnosis can only really go so far So I would always encourage other people to be asking for other interpretations of their performance So a 360 style feedback so from from various different parties. How would you? What what gift could you give us in terms of our performance in terms of feedback? That could come from from a performance coach from a technical coach from a team coach from leadership from colleagues from past team members From any sorts of angles and as long as that team are able to Analyze that feedback in a healthy manner. So not completely denying all the constructed but equally not accepting everything that people say they need to change because they might not need to change that And that's that's kind of my job as a coach is to help them Feel safe to ask for the feedback and then to be able to interpret that feedback in a healthy manner to then make some realistic Yet challenging commitments to change And then see how things go Got it and one last question on this topic While we are talking about, you know the importance of not only the self diagnosis But also getting that 360 feedback What I've sometimes seen in organizations is You know a lot of that 360 feedback is cherry picked, right? So if there is a Line manager or a person above in the hierarchy They decide that the feedback they're giving is More crucial for the team or the department to hit, right? Have you seen that? Have you experienced that and how do you navigate across that? Well, I think there's there's a sort of assumption there in terms of Responsibility and accountability here and I think the subtle difference for me in a In a more organic organization is that that team unit has more ownership and I want to say Pride if you like there's certainly responsibility for their improvement So it the actual interpretation the value of the feedback should be internal to the team rather than As a line manager as it were The job with the line manager becomes a lot more servant leadership rather than Directive leadership as that team matures and so those servant leaders They know that The most important feedback is the feedback that a team can use And because my feedback could be absolutely spot on But if that team for whatever reason aren't able to hear that feedback internalize that feedback and use that feedback Then it's useless Yeah, and so I think that's that's you know, my opinion on that is it All effort should be placed on this this feedback is for the team's purpose not for the line manager to get a better team Got it and When we so the the shapes that you mentioned that you do eventually generate with these different data points Is that i'm wondering if that has different maturity levels or is that How do you go about improving that? Do you only look at maybe the points or the data sets where it's lacking and try to improve continuously for week to week months a month Or are there certain let's say maturity levels that you're trying to hit No, it's not maturity levels because Different shapes will be appropriate in different contexts So in an organization where there isn't so much Change where actually there is a right way to do things and it should be done based on expertise We'll have a completely different shape culture. You'd expect A different shape culture than one that was based on innovation and engagement and self-organized teams So it's not so much. This is this is a good shape. This is a better shape This is the best shape is the case of right. This is where we are Based on the kind of environment that we're in do we think that that's that's representative of the kind of values behaviors and Principles that will help us be successful What shape would make us the more likely to be successful and how can we get A little bit closer from where we are to where we would like to be by the time you've got to that point Actually, the context might have changed the market might have changed right so you might be then looking for a different shape and as you mature as a team or as the composition to the team or the skill sets change you might need to change again, so You're never finished and and some people take that as a really demotivating message because they like to have a sense of closure they let us have a target but No organization look at any successful organization now and they've reinvented themselves multiple times And that's that's only going to increase as as things go on Yeah, and to maybe counteract that Maybe something that could be useful for for teams and individuals is to have certain milestones, right? so, you know, if they get to A change that is quite visible and it's producing higher quality of output That could be something that they can then also take as good indicators and maybe cause for celebration Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I'm going to take this as an opportunity to to plug my new book Not sure whether that was going in or not No I do a lot of work with teams and one of the things that you've pointed out milestones there is that in like with my new book team mastery I literally have a set of cards at the back where when teams hit a milestone around quality or Delivery or self-improvement. They they tear out that card and they celebrate having hit that milestone Or they can pick a milestone. They want to work towards and and Really focus on getting better at that and and then celebrating when they get that because Yeah, all teams kind of similar in a way, but they're also all unique and depending on their context One milestone is going to be more important than that same milestone for another team Does it mean that that team's more mature or not just means that that's more important to them in their context right then Yeah, absolutely, and I will link that book team mastery and the show notes as well To to go back to what you had said earlier about Allowing the teams giving them the ownership and also the autonomy to come up with their own shapes and come up with ways to improve deficiencies that they see You then also have to establish certain guidelines, right? So that not every team is sort of running around Doing different tweaks, but there should be a company objective or goal, right? So What what sort of guidelines are we talking about? Can you maybe give us an example? Well, again, this is gonna i'm gonna sound like a broken record soon, but again, it's very context specific Because in certain circumstances There will probably be some best practices that just need to be followed Yeah, there's no point going around trying to come up with your own ways of getting better Just follow the best practice that's been laid out In other circumstances, there are lots of good practices and actually it takes a lot of expertise or experience to know which one to pick So find the right expertise find the right expert And and pick that one but in other situations, we don't know what the right answer is And so maybe multiple Parallel experiments to find out what the right Way to improve is the right way to do it And this comes back to our a conversation familiar and efficiency and effectiveness Where things are predictable where things are repeatable Then we want to be efficient, but when they're not efficiency is our enemy because we will have entrenched expertise And we won't actually be able to innovate So what what organizations do really to be successful here is they give teams appropriate levels of constraints So where there is a right answer you have very very rigid constraints When there's perhaps some good practices, then we maybe provide some some governing constraints So just you know within these boundaries or you know trying to stay within this degree of tolerance But then when actually we need to experiment we want some enabling constraints We want we want to allow teams to do this. We want to encourage them to make it easy for them to find this stuff out um, so that's Yes, we want to we want to Experiment we want to innovate and we don't want to Duplicate necessarily and we don't want to undermine other people and other teams So sharing that information is really really important as well And that sense of well if one team's learned this then another team might find it useful But they might not so one of the things that we we find really important with these lessons that have been learned Is putting into the notes the context So if you run a scientific experiment, you will be taking accounts of the conditions All right, the control sample the variables that you've isolated the ones that you haven't Because you could you want to be able to replicate that but you need to keep the variables the same If they're not the same if the context is different then the results you might Get could be expected to be different And so that's I think it's a really important part to say I want to learn from what other teams are doing But that doesn't mean I need to copy them because my situation might be different Yeah, um You seems like your child is running a little loose back there. Thankfully. It's not mine. It's my next door neighbor. Okay um I want to ask about the knowledge sharing part that you touched on just now Do you have either something within The framework outside the framework that that allows for appropriate knowledge sharing because this is always a topic that Comes up, right? You know how much detail is appropriate for which specific teams departments? within the organization, how do you sort of identify and then also sort of communicate that Yeah, so within the within the organic agility framework, one of the tools that we use is an enterprise transition framework. So there's a um basically thinking of it as a big board uh an organizational level Board where we've identified things that have worked for us in the past And we want to keep those we you know, even though we want to change as an organization We're not just complete get rid of everything. We want to keep all the things that have made us successful and are still relevant But equally we want to try some new things So we've got stuff that's worked for us in the past and we've got some things that we would like to do in the future And then we're going to experiment with some of them in the present So we'll take some of those ideas that we've got and we'll actually craft some Experiments and we'll have an experiment canvas where we we detail out the experiments that we're going to run With our predicted outcomes. So what's the point in running this if if we're successful? What do we hope to achieve or what do we hope to learn? What are the conditions around that experiment? How are we making it safe? How are we making it cheap and easy and how can we replicate it and how can we amplify it if it works well and so And we'll capture that so in a in a format that anybody can see we value this transparency And once we've run the experiment, we'll capture the results and the context of those Results were obtained in and that will be there for anybody to to that will then into the past, right? That's it. That's one of our what we call confirmed success factors And it's tagged so anybody can search for it and they can they can open it up and they can see the results from it And they can if they run something similar in different contexts They can attach to it and that's there for anybody in the organization to be able to see right from the CEO Threat throughout the whole organization anybody can see what what's being worked on Got it. And so the notes are then specific to the experiments of different variables and and the outcomes that were achieved Yeah, got it I want to talk a little bit more about The difference between a change management as well as transformations, right because In the past this topic of you know, what is the difference? How do we approach it differently has come up a couple of times? Um, so what about smaller changes, right? Request for changes to specific Features within a product Do you go about that using same framework or do you use a more simpler approach? um My personal view is when you when you get down to that sort of micro level Is I try and worry less about whether this is a bug a new requirement a change request. It's just a piece of work It's something that has some value in being done and it has some cost of being done um, and I look for someone who who can take both a strategic and tactical view of The overall value and the return investment of the work that we're doing and make a sensible if not perfect um, sorry if imperfect Decision on which we should be focusing on If it's a change to something as opposed to adding a new feature then so be it But if adding a new feature is more important than making a change so be it I I'm I'm I'm not particularly precious. I try not to be precious about that Uh, I want to try and be you know objective from a product perspective from a user perspective But also from an organization of perspective Okay, so then you're saying at you know out of more sort of ground level For smaller changes you look at it More as any any new feature or any work that's coming in Yeah, it's just something that needs to be done Against all the other things that need to be done. We'll never have time to do it all. So let's work out what the most important is Got it. And do you use any any tools? Many softwares. You mentioned the the canvas any other tools that come in handy to maybe track Or convey The lessons learned and and these changes Um Not not particularly. Oh, the again these these tools are changing all the time as well Right, so if you'd have asked me that question a year ago, I'd have given you some different answers So for me, it's and going to a different organization, which is which is what I tend to do I tend to try and whatever wherever possible Allow people they encourage people to use what they find works for them Just increases that sense of ownership and engagement and actually reduces the What would you call it this sort of time taken to to to get up to speed? They don't have to learn yet another tool or piece of software or whatever Yeah, so unless it's absolutely integral to what we're doing And changing something quite substantial Then I'd rather allow people to to use whatever method works for them. Whether that's a wiki or trelliboard or jira or Mirror or whatever whatever the best one at the moment is I encourage people to use that Got it Great and so I as we wrap up I want to ask you just a couple of last questions For yourself what you know in the recent maybe let's say past few months What has been maybe one or two of the biggest lessons that you've learned when you've tried to You know work with work through a change process with a company or a team um They might be the same thing. I'm just thinking I sort of thinking about I'll just I'll just talk and see what happens So the first one is uh, I've had to I've had to learn To not assume that I know I used to think that I was paid to know Um But I'm not I'm paid to help people figure things out and and this is in your role as a coach Yeah, I was a consultant. I even as a consultant is harder as a consultant, right because people paying for expertise, but Right when when what's knowable is not knowable right now In fact, what we're dealing with is the unknown unknowns pretending that I know Is not going to help anyone And actually what I need to help my clients do is get comfortable with not knowing And not trying to figure it out, but to actually frame shape and guide the emergence so Getting comfortable off with with not knowing and then helping others get comfortable with that I think is the first thing that that's really really important um And there was a second, but I've forgotten No worries spoke too long about the first one. So it's probably the most important one I think it was much of a tangent on the same thing anyway. Okay um and and just kind of curious to also maybe um Here a situation on your end. Did you when you maybe started working with uh a team? Maybe back of the day, right? Did you take? um You know either a model or a larger framework and try to apply that um As as it is written on the website or in your handout or in the book Um, have you gone through that journey yourself? Yeah, like I said when we were at BT we were using Cotter's eight-step plan uh create that sense of urgency and so on and I started like it but it was um It was a bit too Life didn't follow those steps nicely um And just that led to some frustration for me and I kind of sense that you know Once you've done step one you expect to go to step two and once you've done step two You should go to step three, right? But we've found was it was a lot more sort of cyclical and actually you take a few steps forward and then You take a couple of steps back and a different part of the organization would be at step two and one part of the organization would be at step five and That sense of actually just meeting everybody where they are rather than trying to try to take something and and force it through a model And you know walking the talk as it were so trying to take an agile approach rather than applying an agile process So what I mean by that is you know when we started and we thought well, let's have a product backlog So we had a change backlog and we prioritized it and we had a cross-functional team We were applying the agile process if you like Rather than applying an agile approach and an agile mindset of saying well, where are we? Where do we want to go trying to forget about where we think we should be? And test and learn and inspect and adapt And it's a subtle difference, but you know, I think it's a it's a big difference Yeah, and this is also what I've seen in my experience with the different frameworks and the different Scaling frameworks, especially that are out there, right? It's it's very process heavy and even with teams or organizations that want to apply it at a smaller scale As you said, it may not be appropriate for the context, right? Which means for the product that they're building or for the stage that they're in as as an organization so I think that also needs to be built crowned up With with the practices that would be appropriate appropriate for them Yeah, yeah, definitely Great Well, jeff, I think we're getting to the end of the episode. Did you have any last comments for the listeners? No, it's been fun. I think just you know, um change is inevitable and it's it's something that um I was I was given some really I'll say tough feedback, but it wasn't really feedback. It was just someone who Sort of found a little hole in my mindset years and years ago um And so I was quite frustrated and I was talking about my whatever was going on at the time I can't even remember the the content. I just remember what they said about me. They said jeff You seem like someone who only really enjoys you don't enjoy the journey. You just enjoy the destination. You just want to get there And I thought well, I've only just met you but you've just And I was I was a really impatient person. You know, I just From one. Yeah, I want something. I want it now I don't want to have to wait and go through a journey go through a process And you know when you think about it actually a lot of the time a lot of your life You're going through some kind of change journey some kind of process And if you're only really happy when you've got there You're gonna be miserable for most of the time So if you can if you can enjoy the journey Then you're on to a winner. That doesn't mean you shouldn't care about the end result and sure But you know enjoy while you're on the path and because it's always it's always some ups and downs no matter What's happening so Enjoy it. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a great suggestion And where can people connect with you online? Do you have a Twitter account a website? Yeah, so I I'm all over the place and my my hub if you like is my website inspect and adapt.com I'm on twitter jeff c. What's I'm on instagram inspect and adapt I'm on facebook inspect and adapt. There's probably other things as well, but that's a good start Cool. Awesome. Thanks. Jeff. I will link all those in the show notes And I'd like to thank you for coming on to this episode and chatting with us a little bit about what organic agility means to you You're welcome. It's fun. There's organic agility.com is a website. We can find that more information It's not my website. I don't get any money from from promoting organic agility. I just like it. So Awesome. Thank you, jeff