Organic Change - Beyond Scaling Frameworks

www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2017.
Gaetano Mazzanti
@mgaewsj
agile42
Organic Change
Beyond scaling frameworks
April 3, 2020

agile42 | the agile coaching company www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2018.
Gaetano Mazzanti
Enterprise Coach & Trainer 
agile42 Italy 
gaetano.mazzanti@agile42.com
www.linkedin.com/in/gaetanomazzanti
www.agile42.com - www.organic-agility.com
@mgaewsj 
@agile42/coaches

Change, Resilience and #COVID19

Change - Wrong assumptions and expectations
You think you can “buy” a new model, you think you can buy Agile.
You think you just need to copy someone else's structure and practices.
You think you can start big (at scale).
There is nothing to scale if you are not (already) agile
and scaling is not necessarily what you need
Scaling Frameworks can’t buy you agility

Change - Wrong assumptions and expectations
You think “Agile” is what teams do
You think “Agile” will fix everything—as long as the teams do it
Agile teams have nothing to do with agility!

“We’re so freaking Agile. Yay!”
Klaus Leopold
Agile Teams
Slow End To End Process - Long Time To Market
Where’s agility???

Scaled Agile Frameworks
WTF?
Scrum only
🤔

Don’t care so much (or at all) about:
Organizational Culture
Leadership Model
Context
Scaled Agile Frameworks 🤔

There can’t be One Right Answer for everyone,
there can’t be universal Best Practices.
So what?
Use guiding principles and discover what works for you

Practices = Principles + Context
Dan North
Uphold Principles, Observe Context, Adapt Practices

Outside-in perspective
Inside-out perspective
Making sense of context

Early majority
Market Cycles 20-25y 5-7y
Innovators Early adopters Late majority
Chasm
11% 16%
44% 29%
SELL TO MAKE MAKE TO SELL
Market Adoption Curve
Increase Resilience 
rather than 
Strengthen Robustness
(people vs structure)
Exaptation
Point
Symbiotic
Point
Outside-in perspective
#COVID19

How we achieve results
Experiences
Beliefs
Actions
Culture
Results
Manage
Leadshiftthe
balance
“Doing”"Being"
The “Results Pyramid” is copyright of Partners in Leadership LLC
Inside-out perspective
#COVID19

nt

Organizational Resilience by
Growing Autonomy and
Nurturing an Inter-dependent Culture

Last century - Industrial Era. Traditional leadership.
A static checklist of behaviors; Leader as a person
Now - Exponential Era. Dynamic and situational leadership as an organizational
capability. Distributed leadership
ORGANIC Leadership

ORGANIC Leadership
organizational capability
emergent behaviors
cultural and situational context
all complexity leadership theories include situationally based behaviors as well as emergent ones;
they also support the idea of co-evolution of leadership behaviors and environment

Organizational Archetypes
Expert
Coordinator
Peer
Coach
Strategist
There is no right or wrong

• Directing
• Demanding
• Conducting
• Inspiring
• Coaching
• Catalyzing
ORGANIC agility leadership behaviors
There is no right or wrong

“This is how we do things around here…”
Culture is the set of behaviors that have been
established and accepted within an organization
1st Principle: Increase Cultural
Awareness and Coherence

Culture Type: Hierarchy
Orientation: Controlling
Leader Type: Coordinator, Monitor,
Organizer
Value Drivers: Efficiency, Timeless,
Consistency and Uniformity
Theory of Effectiveness: Control and
efficiency with capable processes produce
effectiveness
Culture Type: Market
Orientation: Competing
Leader Type: Hard driver, Competitor,
Producer
Value Drivers: Market share, Goal
achievement, Profitability
Theory of Effectiveness: Aggressively
competing, customer focus produce
effectiveness
Culture Type: Adhocracy
Orientation: Creative
Leader Type: Innovator, Entrepreneur,
Visionary
Value Drivers: Innovative outputs,
Transformation, Agility
Theory of Effectiveness: Innovativeness,
vision, and new resources produce
effectiveness
Culture Type: Clan
Orientation: Collaborative
Leader Type: Facilitator, Mentor, Team
Builder
Value Drivers: Commitment,
Communication, Development
Theory of Effectiveness: Human
development and participation produce
effectiveness
Flexibility & Discretion
Stability & Control
Internalfocus&Integration
Externalfocus&Differentiation
Organizational Culture Profile (CVF)

Agile Values &
Principles
10
20
30
40
50
60
10
20
20
20
10
10
30
40
50
60
30
40
50
60
30
40
50
60
Ad-hocracy
Hierarchy
M
arket
Clan Most of the organization today have a
strong Hierarchy oriented proﬁle
They struggle to introduce a more agile
and lean approach to work, because the
hierarchical culture is not supportive of
agile values and principles
Hierarchy
Ad-hocracy
M
arket
Clan

Most of the organization today have a
strong Hierarchy oriented proﬁle
They struggle to introduce a more agile
and lean approach to work, because the
hierarchical culture is not supportive of
agile values and principles
To create the right context to move
toward a more agile and lean culture, we
need to transition toward Clan or Ad-
Hocracy
10
20
30
40
50
60
10
20
20
20
10
10
30
40
50
60
30
40
50
60
30
40
50
60
Ad-hocracy
Hierarchy
M
arket
Clan
Hierarchy
Ad-hocracy
M
arket
Clan

“If you can make
culture explicit, you
can agree where you
stand, and where you
want to go…”

Organizational ScanClan
Hierarchy
Ad-hocracy
Market
Leader Type
Clan
Hierarchy
Ad-hocracy
Market
Quality Strategies
Clan
Hierarchy
Ad-hocracy
Market
Theory of Effectiveness
Clan
Hierarchy
Ad-hocracy
Market
Value Drivers
Orientation

Market adoption curve and culture
Early majority
Market Cycles 20-25y 5-7y
Innovators Early adopters Late majority
Chasm
11% 16%
44% 29%
SELL TO MAKE MAKE TO SELL
Culture:
● Innovative
● Adaptive
● Quick reaction to feedback
● Prototypical
Culture:
● Structure
● Quality
● Process
● Effectiveness
Culture:
● Efficiency
Culture

Cyneﬁn Framework
2nd Principle:
Situational Decision Making

Complicated
Obvious
Chaotic
Complex
Cyneﬁn Framework Dynamics
• Learning Loop: allows to learn and
consolidate the learnings (e.g.: Scrum,
Experimentation…)
• Standardization: acquired knowledge is
commoditized into standard usage
procedures
• Innovation Loop: shallow dive into
controlled chaos to allow innovation to
emerge by removing constraints
• Entrenched Expertise: experts are stuck
into their models, and underestimate the
complexity, dive into disorder and
recover through complexity
• Fall into Chaos: over-simplification,
causes chaos and recovery is very
expensive
Learning
Innovation
Standardization
Entrenched
Expertise
Fall into chaos
Disorder

Complicated
ObviousChaotic
Complex
How do different
leadership
archetypes fit?
?
How do different
leadership
behaviours fit?
?
Cynefin domains and leadership

The Power of Scaffolding
leadership attitude (behavior)
culture
situation
given a speciﬁc situation we want to choose the most appropriate
attitude which has the least possible (negative) cultural impact

leadership attitude (behavior)
culture
situation
i.e. 6 leadership behaviours model (Goleman),
each org could have its own model
Cynefin
Framework
i.e. CVF model, each org could
have its own model
nudging to a
better place

attitude
(behavior)
Expert
agree on
naming
remap leadership
model through
archetypes
Peer
list of
characteristics
cultural
connotation
culture
in common -
continuity link
less of
this
more of
thatExpert
nudge
situation

3rd Principle:
Focus on Value Creation

4th Principle:
Validate Changes in Small Increments
A portfolio of safe-to-fail experiment will help emerging options that can then be
vetted and tested, before being implemented, significantly reducing risk.

The traditional approach to change
management…
…focused on standardization, before stabilization…
t
Design
Documentation
Rollout
Fix Issues
> 9-10 months…
if you create a change project and plan it in a
traditional way you are doing it wrong!

5th Principle:
Optimize Flow

Optimize End to End Flow
Not This!
This! End To End

Manage dependencies

5 Classes for Dependencies Management
Cost of Delay Action Notes
Very Low Don’t Care -
Low Risk Mitigation
Trusted Availability (reserve capacity on the called
service)
More Relevant Check if Dependency Exist Reserve Capacity for it
Significant or Critical Trusted Service Delivery
Reservation System on calling service, DoR requires
reserved slot for the called service
No Margin for Error Guaranteed Delivery
Guaranteed Reservation on calling service, DoR
requires Guaranteed reserved slot for the called service

ORGANIC Agility - No recipes

You can’t buy Agility.
You can’t copy it.
Agility is not a Team aﬀair. Great teams in a bad system suck.
Agility is an outcome of culture, behavior, rituals, of the whole organization.
So…

Agility can be achieved only through an evolutive approach.
It is organization/context specific.
It starts with awareness & understanding.
It requires constantly adapting to context and situation.
It requires a dynamic and distributed leadership model.
So…

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Organic Change - Beyond Scaling Frameworks

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