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The Virtue of Coercion

Is coercion a VIRTUE?

Someone has proposed a session for the Agile2015 conference entitled:

“The Virtue of Coercion” …it goes like this….quoting:

“…There almost no chance of Agile transformation without the imposition of Agile practices on teams. Pushing Agile practices on teams is the primary way to obtain lasting enterprise-wide Agile adoptions.

“…in this session we present 4 years of data proving that employee engagement actually has nothing whatsoever to do with successfully scaling Agile. Rather, the right underlying conditions for agility have more to do with buy-in (and appropriate funding) at the C-level.”

 

Is this blasphemy….or just good business?

…if you elect to add a comment this session, you may be in good company!

Others (besides myself) who have commented include:

  • Tobias Meyer, author of THE PEOPLE’s SCRUM
  • Harrison Owen, formulator of Open Space and author of OPEN SPACE: A USERS GUIDE
  • John Buck, expert on consent as applied to Sociocracy, and co-author (with Sharon Villenes) of WE THE PEOPLE
  • …and many more !

Can a genuine process-change take root in ANY organization WITHOUT THE CONSENT of the people affected?

Has this EVER worked?

Consider the American BILL OF RIGHTS. Here is how it starts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_of_the_governed

“…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

And so…here is THE question: Do you care to comment?

Steps:

 

Kind Regards,

Daniel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Does Software Influence Culture?

Does software inform– or even create— culture? Probably.

We know from Conway’s Law that people in an organization will create systems that match their general pattern of communication. I think it is a little deeper than that, and has more to do with the formal pattern of authority distribution inside the organization. The communication paths follow from that.

In organizations that take the hierarchy literally, we find that loosely-coupled, peer-to-peer, well-interfaced, object-oriented “design patterns” of software design are usually hard to get implemented. Instead, more centralized and hierarchical designs are favored. This is “Conways Law”:

organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations

 

Now it gets interesting.

The inverse– is it also true? This is my expression of the inverse:

organizations are constrained to employ organizational designs which are copies of the authority distribution structure underlying the software systems they use.

 

Call it Mezick’s Inverse if you like.

 

Consider the internet. It is built on TCP/IP: the down-low substrate, the fundamental “under it all” stuff that connects everything.

It is a P2P network protocol. Peer-to-peer. No one computer has any more “control” than any other regarding how packets (data) make it from A to B.

On top of that, higher-level, P2P-oriented layers of protocol emerge: HTTP, IRC, SMTP.

On top of those protocols, applications like instant messengers show up.

Then, still later, very rich P2P apps. Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn.

These are rich, end-user P2P apps… with P2P architectures… that encourage and in fact enable P2P relationships by and between the users.

What is the result… at the highest level of abstraction? Peer-to-peer culture. Or, at least more demand, more pressure, for genuine P2P culture.

Worldwide. And, in your country. And, in your org. And, on your team…

 

And so: does software create culture? Prob-ab-ly.

Just take a look around.

***

Related Links:

Conways Law (link)

McCarthy Show podcast “Software Creates Culture” (link)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Return On Attention

Random thoughts bring random focus; intentional thoughts bring intentional focus.

Your attention- that which is being focused- is a scarce resource. We spend attention over the course of our day. In social interactions, attention takes on some aspects of a currency. It starts to look and feel like a store of value, and a medium of exchange.

“A fool and his money are soon parted”, says the proverb. Said another way, “a fool and his attention are soon parted.”

We may routinely squander our attention unintentionally. When we do that we receive little or nothing, per unit of attention spent.

We may “squander” or “leak” or “burn” some of our attention on purpose, for example, to relax. The fundamental difference here is the intention to do so.

When we intentionally choose to focus our attention on this or that, we receive more and more, per unit of attention spent. If we do this for awhile, we figure out that there is a clear “return on attention” that can be outlandishly positive. Over time, we can experience at least the potential to do more and more, with less and less, as we “pay” attention.

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Related Link:

Attention Economy (link)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Authority Distribution in Open Space

Open Space is a most interesting format for a “gathering,” also known as a “meeting.”

What exactly is going on in Open Space?

(NOTE: If you are new to Open Space, see the links at the end of this essay to get oriented. Open Space is a key component of OpenSpace Agility, a method for introducing agile ideas into your organization.)

Here are some facts about the Open Space meeting format:

  • No one has to attend the meeting. Attendance is 100% opt-in. That means anyone can opt-out of attendance.
  • No one that attends the meeting can be made to do anything they do not want to do. Specifically, no one (authority figures or otherwise) can make you: attend an Open Space session, initiate an Open Space session, speak or otherwise contribute to an Open Space breakout session, etc.
  • No one can make you stay the whole day.
  • If you want, you can do absolutely nothing during the meeting. For example, you can just enjoy the coffee, snacks and food all day, and not attend a single session during the day.

What is going on here? Why is Open Space a 100% opt-in meeting?

As it turns out, Open Space is much more than a mere meeting or gathering format. Open Space has the potential to completely shift your culture towards a stronger capacity to adapt.

 

Authorization

Let’s call authorization the “right to do work.”. Authority is something you grant someone else… on an opt-in basis. When you take a job, you opt-in to respecting the authority of your manager to define your job and your work.  Your manager in turn is opting-in to that role, a role which is authorized by the organization itself.

 

Formal and Informal Authorization

In the example above, your manager has formal authorization to manage people. It comes from the organization. Your manager is “duly authorized” by the organization. This is formal authorization.

Informal authorization is the “right to do work” that others grant you, or that you grant them…informally. It does not come from the organization. Instead, informal authorization comes from individuals and is inherently peer-to-peer. You may be recognized by another person on your team as an expert, or recognized as someone who just knows “how to get things done.” In slang terms, they have “street credibility”, also known as “street cred”. You respect their skills… and are happy to say so.

 

Drafting or Nominating Someone Into a Role

If you are perceived as someone who can get some work done, people may attempt to draft or otherwise nominate you to occupy a role, or otherwise take up a task. When you accept this invitation, you are consenting to it. You are opting-in.

Sometimes,  a person (or persons) may attempt to draft you into a role without your consent. They might try to “volunteer” you. And they may pressure you in some way (via guilt, peer pressure etc) to accept the invitation to play that role.

 

Dynamic Sending of Authorization

In the authorization game, you can play as a sender. If you are a member of a group, and you see something that needs doing, you might draft or nominate someone into a role, to do some specific and important work. In effect you support and sponsor them in that role.  If you are on a software development team, and the work is about databases, and you think PersonX has that expertise and is qualified to lead, you might suggest to the group that PersonX might be able to best be able to provide direction, and make some key decisions, and lead the group’s effort for some period of time. This is the dynamic sending (by you) of informal authorization.

 

Dynamic Receiving of Authorization

In the authorization game, you can also play as a receiver. When an individual or the group attempts to draft you into a role, you can either opt-in or opt-out. Since being offered more authority can be very flattering, we often find ourselves occupying an authoritative role without our explicit, fully conscious consent.

If you are on a software development team, and the work is about databases, and you have that expertise, some other team member may suggest to the group that you might be able to  lead the group’s effort for some period of time. This is the dynamic receiving (by you) of informal authorization. Receiving authorization is one thing; consciously consenting to it is quite another.

 

Drafting Someone Without Their Explicit Consent- aka “Coercion”

We often draft others into roles without their explicit consent. We don’t ask. We might “volunteer” someone, perhaps by threatening them with feeling of guilt, or getting them to “move” in some other way. Persuasion is a mild form of coercion and is in fact a kind of manipulation.

In high-functioning self-organizing teams, this does not happen very often. Inside high-functioning teams, attempts to manipulate others are rare, and coercion is typically non-existent.

 

Self-Organization in Teams and Groups

Now that we understand the basic mechanics of informal authorization, we can address self-organization as it pertains to groups of people.

Self-organization can be said to be the process of the dynamic sending and receiving of authorization by and between individuals and the group. In other words, “self-organization” is actually the act of dynamically establishing who has the right to do what work.  Figuring out who has the right to do what work is a dynamic process and is by no means static of fixed. It’s a flexible process that responds to the situation at hand.

A major and essential aspect of social system organization is the dynamic sending and receiving of authorization. Without this, the group cannot accomplish what we currently call “self-organization.”

Some of the most important work in a group is the work of deciding. People who make decisions that affect others have higher authorization than others in the group. This higher authorization comes from the members of the group.

Authority is something that can be granted, and taken away.

Self-organizing teams routinely and dynamically authorize one individual and then another as time progresses, in response to ever-changing internal and external conditions. As you think about this, you may notice these dynamics in your own working life, inside the teams and groups where you have membership. High-functioning teams have extremely flexible and fluid authority-distribution behaviors.

When seen in this light, we can safely say that self-organization is actually the dynamic sending and receiving of authorization and information related to it. This dynamic allocation of authority tends to be responsive, highly adaptable… and highly efficient. This is the informal authorization system. The formal authorization system (the one represented by the org chart) is no match in a test of adaptability with a self-organizing system. It’s not even close.

The informal system of dynamic authority distribution changes moment by moment as needed to respond to conditions. The formal system does not do this, and might be up to 1000 times slower than the informal authorization system which dynamically and continuously adjusts to changing conditions.

 

Authorization Dynamics in Open Space

Now we can scrutinize what might be going on in Open Space. Recall that no one can “make” or compel you to do anything at all during and Open Space event. This includes your manager. Repeat, this includes your manager, the person “in authority over” you.

Open Space has a theme, one “law”, five “principles”, one slogan, and a few roles. That’s it.

(NOTE: Describing all of these components is beyond the scope of this essay. If you are new to Open Space, keep reading and later investigate the related links that appear below.)

 

When a genuine and authentic Open Space meeting starts, at least in theory, everyone except the Sponsor and the Facilitator have equivalent authorization. Folks may attend the opening circle, or not. They may initiate a breakout session, or refrain from doing so. They may (or may not) attend sessions throughout the day. Since there is no defined lunch break, a participant in Open Space can elect to eat and drink whatever is available, and do that whenever and wherever they like. Whenever they like.

 

Reputation

Yes, it is true that each person brings their “story” and reputation into the meeting. Yet, even with that fact, Open Space creates the conditions where, in theory at least, everyone in the room (with the exception of the Sponsor and the Facilitator) has an identical level of authorization and/or identical “right to do work” during the event.

 

As the Event Progresses, Authorization Changes

The one slogan in Open Space is “Be Prepared To Be Surprised.” And nowhere is this more true than in the domain of authorization.

The structure of Open Space creates the conditions necessary for self-organization to happen. Recall that a big part of self-organization in a social system is actually the dynamic allocation of authority, in real time, moment by moment, in the here and now.

Open Space helps this to happen. And so, for example: a normally very shy and retiring person, Beth may rise from her seat in the opening circle of the Open Space meeting, and define a session, and invite people to participate in it. If the session is a hot one, and of interest to lots of people, there may be some cheering as Beth places the session description on the wall. During Beth’s session, lively dialogue and debate may ensue. In defining this session and helping to make it happen, Beth has spoken for the group as a whole.

Most everyone notices, and pays attention, and makes note of this. Formally authorized leaders may also be attracted to the session and attend, to investigate what is going on.

At the closing circle of the Open Space event, several people refer to Beth’s session and express positive feelings about that session, and about Beth. After the event, formally authorized leadership examines the Open Space proceedings (a written document) and pays particularly close attention to the report on Beth’s session. They later invite Beth to chat about the session after the event, as they meet to decide how to address the organizational issues surfaced during the Open Space meeting.

 

Summing Up

The above scenario is but one example; there are many other dynamic Open Space examples and scenarios I could describe here.  The point is very simple: the Open Space meeting format creates the necessary conditions for self-organization to emerge. And as we now know, what we call “self-organization” in human groups is largely the dynamic allocation of authority by and between the members of the group and the group itself.

What’s going on in Open Space? It’s the dynamic, responsive, and flexible informal authority distribution system that is in charge. There is no formally authorized “boss” of your work there. There’s just you and the other participants in a single meeting event that we call “Open Space.”

The reality is that in that place, at that time, everyone– and not just formally authorized leaders– can influence what is happening inside the group-as-a-whole.

Who is present? Who is “the boss?” There’s just us— figuring out what work is important to the group, and how to best get it done. In that time and in that place, if it is done well, Open Space sets up what we often call a “level playing field”, a place and a space where everyone has a legitimate shot at influencing what happens next.

And so, in Open Space: be prepared– to be surprised– about authority and authorization. Because, in a self-organizing world, the dynamic distribution of authority (in real time) is how it actually happens.

 

Related Links:

Authority Unpacked: BART Analysis (Boundary, Authority, Role & Task) (link)

OpenSpace Agility– a template for moving forward with process-change (link)

Introduction to Open Space (link)

Pictures of Open Space Meetings (link)

A Brief User’s Guide to Open Space (link)

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Broken Promises

We are at a tipping point in the Agile story.

For almost a decade now, highly authoritative “agile enablement firms” have been telling management that it is perfectly OK to mandate the use of agile practices, and that everything will be OK.

They’ve been told that the opt-in engagement of the people who do the work does not actually matter. As long as the highly authorized leaders are in, we will be OK. The people and the culture will change if you authorize the agile coaches to implement this new set of practices, and/or this new “structure”.

In the present day, we have large corporations trying 2, 3, 4 times to get it right by using this approach. Millions upon millions are being spent on management-mandated agile training, management-mandated agile practices, and management-mandated agile “coaching”.

It’s the elephant in the room. The leaders of the agile institutions and those who orbit around these institutions are saying absolutely nothing about this in the public square.

And there is a term for this: it’s called whistling past the graveyard.

The answer of course it to replace the management-mandate of agile practices with an enterprise-wide invitation.

And invite everyone in the organization into the story, and into the process of writing the new story.

That requires the formally authorized leadership to actually admit they do NOT have all the answers.

It also requires agile coaches to routinely and deliberately deflect all projections of authority.

These are huge impediments to the successful implementation of agile ideas at scale– the implementation of agile thinking across an entire enterprise.

The solution is actually very simple. Instead of pushing a process change, use “pull” instead. Use invitation, instead of that nasty mandate.

Open Agile Adoption (OAA) is one way to use invitation and “pull” to successfully introduce Agile into your company.

If you are considering a new Agile adoption, OAA and “pull”– powered by invitation– can actually help you get traction right away.

If you already tried a management mandate of Agile, OAA can help you do a reset…and turn that thing around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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My Guru is Google

It’s a natural human instinct to be sensitive to authority. To want to be led.

Most of us are only too happy to have someone else tell us what we want, what we think and what we feel. If you poke around the web, in various communities, you can observe how certain participants actively contend for authority to lead.

This is changing, little by little. Each day, more and more people are waking up to the fact that THEY are their own authority. They THEY are the managers of what they believe and what they want. That they are at least passively authorizing (tolerating) some of what they actually disagree with.

By doing nothing at all about it.

For the younger people, this is not something to learn. Instead, it comes completely natural to them. The youth have been born into it.

The easy thing to do is to tolerate the lack of responsibility, the lack of sincerity and lack of stewardship from illegitimate leadership. The leadership you are (at least passively) authorizing.

The more difficult thing to do is to think for yourself- and demand more from leadership. To be highly selective about who– and what– you are authorizing.

Right now, there is lots of change in society, powered by highly intense technological change. With so much in flux, the leadership game has completely changed.

Technology and several others forces at play in society are encouraging– and almost instantly rewarding– independent thinking.

And that’s why my guru is Google.

 

Related Link:

The End of Guru Culture (link)

 

 

 

 

 

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Being Generous With Your Gift

Everyone has some innate talent, some “thing” they have.

That “thing” is available in nearly endless supply, since it’s part of every person’s essential nature.

Some people are helpful. Some are just full of hospitality. Others are humorous. Still others are organizers.

Everyone has lots of whatever talent they were born with. I like to play with ideas. I’m not sure that’s a talent. This is OK, because other people who value this tell me they enjoy me sending them interesting links and books on topics of interest. So, apparently I do have some kind of valuable talent there.

If you have a nearly endless supply of something, it is easy to offer it to others.

If the receiver does not have that talent or that “thing” you have, and you provide it absolutely free, including being free of any obligation to reciprocate whatsoever, then you have just created something out of nothing.

Repeat: Something out of nothing.

That thing that you have loads of: helpfulness, a talent at being organized, your ability to do research, humor, whatever it is– it costs you next to nothing, because you have an endless supply of it. It’s part of your nature. You cannot stop yourself. It’s not like you have any choice in the matter.

I have a friend, she is totally amazing at Myers Briggs and other personality profiling tools. I gain tremendous value from what she perceives as automatic and natural- and in 100% abundant supply.

I value her talent in this area higher than she does!

Surprise: The thing you have so much of is often valued more highly by others than it is by you yourself. And when someone who lacks your gift receives some of it from you, you create value from nothing.

At scale, as a norm, in a culture, this idea has the potential to create tremendous amounts of value and wealth in various forms.

This is emphemeralization: doing more and more, with less and less, until we are doing everything with nothing. The idea as expressed by Buckminster Fuller has to do with technology, yet it can be applied to social technology, too.

As a culture hack, being generous with your gift is hard to beat.

The Moral of the story:

You have a gift.

You have loads of it.

You can afford to be freely generous with your gift.

 

Related Links:

Ephemeralization (link)

 

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Microgenerosity

Can large acts of generosity be harmful? Yes, they can.

Consider the potlatch, a ceremonial event in the lives of certain Pacific Northwest indigenous tribes. According to the history of potlatch, large acts of generosity were used to signal wealth and high social status in the tribe. Taken to extremes, hosts of potlatch events sometimes ritually destroyed valuable objects as a signal of power and wealth. When generosity is used for social posturing, the resulting sense of obligation can be harmful for giver and receiver alike.

In a previous post, I discussed the radical and potentially revolutionary nature of developing a practice of mindful generosity. It comes with some pitfalls of course.

One way to stay out of trouble as a generous person is very simple: intentionally keep your acts of generosity small. By doing this, you avoid creating discomfort on the part of the receiver,  signaling real consideration for the person who is receiving what amounts to a small gift. Small acts of generosity amount to an invitation, from the giver to the receiver, to be in relationship.

The practice of “gifting small”  sidesteps the difficult feelings of obligation that are often associated with large gifts.

Small acts of generosity are useful for creating a new and far more interesting world than the one current one– the one dominated by contract and economic exchange.

What might be called microgenerosity — the art of engaging in small and frequent acts of interpersonal generosity– is an interesting idea to play with.

Small acts of generosity can make your world a place where interpersonal  relationships– rather than impersonal transactions– are the new normal.

 

Related Links:

The potlatch (link)

“…In the potlatch, the host in effect challenged a guest chieftain to exceed him in his ‘power’ to give away or to destroy goods. If the guest did not return 100 percent on the gifts received and destroy even more wealth in a bigger and better bonfire, he and his people lost face and so his ‘power’ was diminished.”

Generosity Gone Bad (link)

“…Knowing the signs of the wrong kind of generosity can help you spot them, in others or even in yourself, in advance.”

Previous Post: Generosity, Thrivability and Self-Organization (link)

 

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Generosity, Thrivability and Self-Organization

Harrison Owen is the formulator/composer of the Open Space meeting format.

 

Harrison is fond of saying these two things:

  • All systems are open
  • All systems are self-organizing

In this essay, I am assuming you have a good grip on what ‘open’ and ‘self-organizing’ mean.

With that established, let’s move right into a discussion of generosity and its role is self-organizing systems.

Self-organizing systems are composed of agents. Like people, for example. Agents exercise their agency, that is, their autonomy. Law of 2 Feet. One way to express your agency is in the withholding or releasing of your time, or your effort, or your attention. Or your money! When you choose to release some of your time, effort, attention, money etc to someone else, you are exercising your agency (Law of 2 Feet) by being generous.

By giving a gift. It’s an act of agency. An act that contributes to the level of self-organization overall.

This has very serious implications for building a new & thriving world.

Because anyone at any time can be generous to anyone else for any reason, generosity has very serious implications for building a new & different (thriving) world.

In a culture that strongly values generosity, anything can– and will– happen.

Acts of generosity contribute  to (and are part of) the mysterious, unknowable process of self-organization.

Now, what’s really interesting about this is that every act of generosity, however small, is immediately disruptive to the current system…the broken one…the one with the story that’s not clearly not working.

The one that’s going away.

The one dominated by contract, and economic exchange.

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Open Agile Adoption: Why It Matters Now

This is a note to organizational leaders and my friends in the Open Space community, folks who want to bring Open Space to every organization that is stuck, and every organization that needs help in getting movement towards a more open culture, whether they actually know it– or not.

Open Agile Adoption and the Current (Uninviting) Workplace

Lifeless work with no meaning is a recipe for depression or worse. We all seek meaningful connection to each other, and our work. An inviting workplace connects us to the work… and each other. People all over the world are signaling that they are not longer willing to tolerate an uninviting workplace.

Creating an inviting workplace is a game. The best move now is to exploit any available entry points.

Where are these opening located?

A perfect and readily available entry point is the now-mainstream adoption of Agile software development methods. The perfect tool for cracking open the world of work is Open Space. By using Open Space meetings inside mainstream Agile adoptions, we can crack it wide open. This is because the Open Space meeting format is super-effective at generating engagement. Open Space meetings, as used in the Open Agile Adoption method, are attended by many key business people who are patrons and sponsors of IT. My experience doing numerous Open Space events inside Agile adoptions shows that from 50 to 65 percent of the attendance is business people with some connection to information technology.

Does that shock you? What might this mean?

These are the facts:

  • Organizations need IT to be more responsive, and correctly look to Agile adoption as a solution
  • Most Agile adoptions are far from robust. That’s the polite way to say it. The way these Agile adoptions are currently implemented does not produce rapid and lasting improvement. Many Agile adoptions are train wrecks.
  • Agile is going mainstream even as traditional ways of implementing Agile are producing marginal-at-best results on a repeatable basis
  • Open Agile Adoption (OAA), based on invitation (instead of mandates) creates at least the potential for much more robust Agile adoptions.
  • OAA is built upon the Open Space meeting design, a design that optimizes increasing levels of engagement.
  • Business people connected to the IT department attend the Open Space meetings via the Open Agile Adoption technique. These people can and carry back very positive and uplifting stories about what is going on in IT into the wider organization as a whole. They will carry and spread the open culture/ Open Space meme.

Open Space Small
This is the secret leverage point: once the business people experience the inviting vibe of Open Space and the good results that can come from a rapid & lasting Agile adoption, the cat is out of the bag.

The horse is out of the barn.

The genie is out of the bottle!

The wider conversations that need to be taking place actually start happening. Beyond the IT department!

The business people who attend tell very positive stories about that meeting.

Open Agile Adoption (OAA) with Open Space is the technique to help you make this happen.

OAA is a tactic in a wider strategy, a means to an end.

Our cover story is that OAA is about Agile adoption, when in fact Agile adoption is actually about cultural change.

Therefore, OAA is about igniting the start of enterprise-wide cultural change, starting in the IT department.

This is where it starts!

OAA addresses the crisis in IT, and the now-mainstream adoption of Agile methods, to usher in a new era of openness in organizations, using the IT crisis as an opportunity, and using Open Space to address it.

If We Cannot Do It Here, It Ain’t Gonna Happen

Now, what this means is very simple: if we cannot successfully bring Open Space into the huge opening created by failed Agile adoptions, it is unlikely any headway can be made whatsoever.

Agile has gone mainstream. Meanwhile, the crisis of weak and failing Agile adoptions represents a huge opening to bring in a new way of implementing Agiity. If we cannot exploit this opening, we probably have NO SHOT at bring more openness into the wider enterprise as a whole. We need to execute well in Agile adoptions if we are to have any shot at the enterprise as a whole.

On Wider Ambitions

We need to do this in steps. I’ve been talking to people who want to just flip some kind of switch, skip the 1st 10 steps, and change the world with Open Space. That just is not going to happen until and unless we are able to routinely get good results using Open Space in the obvious opening: the crisis of failed Agile adoptions. Which is occurring just as Agile itself is going mainstream!

We need to recognize this wave, and ride it.  Harrison Owen’s book Wave Rider pretty much spells this out. We need to identify the waves, and ride them.

If we can routinely improve weak and failing Agile adoptions with the Open Agile Adoption technique, the Holy Grail of enterprise-wide transformation (with Open Space) might be within reach. But: if we fail in using Open Space to successfully reform the way Agile adoption is currently done, we have NO SHOT at the enterprise.

For typical organizations with soul-sucking culture, Open Agile adoption with Open Space represents our best step now for beginning a wider process. A wider process of creating rapid and lasting enterprise-level change beyond software.

To be clear: the OAA technique is a tactical play, and a mere means to an end. It is the right way now, to get the right conversations going, across an entire enterprise. OAA has the potential to reliably and repeatedly bring rapid and lasting change into IT departments in organizations around the world.

Agile adoption as currently practiced gets very weak results, because culture change is hard. Open Agile Adoption represents a different approach: a people-first approach based on invitation… using Open Space. As such, it has the potential to get much better results than current approaches are getting.

It is very hard to argue with great results.

There is an Agile adoption wave. We can get on, and ride it. Right now.

Open Agile Adoption with Open Space is the way to get on.

 

Related Links:

Open Agile Adoption Home

Open Agile Adoption Explained

Deviation from the Norm

Wave Rider (book) by Harrison Owen