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Agile: Gateway Drug to the Learning Organization

This post is how Agile is really just a gateway drug than can lead to a hard-core habit of Organizational Learning. However, that progression from merely ‘playing Agile’  to becoming a full-blown Learning Organization is by no means guaranteed.

 

In 1990-1991, Peter Senge wrote a book called THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE. In that book he describes the 5 characteristics of a ‘Learning Organization’. In my view, describing a Learning Organization is far easier than building one. Finding a learning organization as described by Senge is also quite difficult. In fact, it is about as difficult as finding an organization that has implemented and achieved real Agility, what I call Free-Standing Agility.

Agile is a culture hack, and the intent of the hack is to produce a small learning organization- we call it a Team.

What is Agile then?

Agile is a gateway drug to real organizational learning. All of the Agile techniques are in a sense very small A-B-C prescriptions  for learning how to be a Learning Organization.

Scrum.

Kanban.

Task Boards.

Information radiation.

Retrospectives.

XP.

Pair programming.

Iteration.

Burndown charts.

Work-in-process limits.

Test-driven development.

Etc.

ALL of these practices are nothing more than gateway drugs to the ultimate enterprise high: organizational learning.

Working at an organization that rapidly learns is the ultimate high. You are respected as you respect others. The space is safe for the best idea, asking for help, and calling bullshit when we start sidetracking. You love working with the people there, even as you strongly disagree with them.  Mistakes are learning events. Differences are raw material for innovation. You use specific techniques and behaviors to rapidly learn as a group. The people there value what you value. You feel in sync and are in fact highly engaged.

Participating inside a true Learning Organization is the ultimate career high.

We are in the late-majority stage with respect to Agile. Most organizations are “playing Agile”, in effect “smoking the dope” of Agile practices to get a quick buzz. These organizations are not focused on organizational learning as the end game. They are out in left field, missing the boat, asleep at the switch. The buzz you can get from Agile is nothing compared to the transcendent bliss of experiencing social membership in a genuine Learning Organization.

Team learning is by no means automatic. We must intend it as a group. Everyone and every organization gets what it wants. To know what an entity wants, examine long-run results. Intentions == Results.

The next chapter with Agile is business agility. A business that is truly Agile is in fact a Learning Organization. The primary tool for getting there is a focus on creating and maintaining a culture that is 100% conducive to extremely high levels of Tribal (group) Learning.

Culture hacking is one way to get there. Culture hacking is the intentional modification of culture, with or without permission…with intent to change the game. Agile is a great example. Agile is a total culture hack.

I explain ALL of this in great detail in my book, The Culture Game. It is a culture hacking tutorial and reference guide– the handbook for game-changers and innovators who live and work in the corporate “reality-distortion” field.

The Culture Game book explains the 16 learning patterns that, if implemented, can almost automatically generate much higher levels of business agility.

Summary

Is organizational learning addictive? It might be.

Scrum, Kanban and the rest….they are mere gateway drugs to the real deal: the enterprise-wide mainlining of the habits that lead to the ultimate organizational buzz: The Learning Organization.

Agile is a gateway drug to organizational learning and the blissful state and status that any rational organization must aspire to: the learning organization.

The Learning Organization: Argyris and Schon defined it. Senge popularized it. The Agile movement made it real.

But not at scale.

Agile is a convenient gateway drug to the ultimate buzz: participating in always-on, enterprise-wide organizational learning.

Who wrote this? Learn more here.

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Gaming Happiness at Work

Happiness at work is a game. If the core requirements for happiness at work are not present, you disengage and check out. If the core requirements are there, you automatically experience fun, satisfaction and potentially, a deeply engaged sense of well-being. THE CULTURE GAME book shows how to deliver happiness through the intentional design and implementation of good-game mechanics.

Work is BROKEN when it is not fun to play. The THE CULTURE GAME book provides tools for playing an all-new game of engagement and learning. By doing this you are delivering happiness at work by injecting good-game mechanics into the structure of work and meetings.

The core requirements for happiness at work are:

A sense of control
A sense of progress
A sense of belonging and membership
A sense of wider purpose and meaning

Agile patterns and practices, authentically applied, definitely deliver happiness. The game of Scrum is simply one example.

The next thing to realize is that work is a game and that Scrum is a game, Kanban is a game, all your meetings are games, and that big Agile adoption underway at your company is in fact a game. Your company culture is also an elaborate game.

When viewed in this way, it is possible to more fully game your interactions, your meetings and work itself, so that participating is optimized towards a satisfying, fun and naturally productive experience.

Games

Games have 4 basic properties. When the values for each of the properties are well-formed, the game is enjoyable, fun and satisfying. When the 4 properties are not well-formed, the game is not fun and you either opt-out or, if this is not possible, you disengage (“check out”) almost automatically.

The 4 basic properties of a good game are:

A clear goal
A clear set of rules that are uniformly applied
A clear way to “check the score”, get feedback and track progress
Opt-in participation

Agile patterns and practices are usually (but not always) well-formed games. Well-formed games associate with satisfaction, happiness and even joy; poorly defined games associate with disengagement, low levels of learning, and a distinct lack of enjoyment.

THE CULTURE GAME book draws on the work of four big authors: Jane McGonigal (REALITY IS BROKEN), Dave Logan (TRIBAL LEADERSHIP), Tony Hsieh (DELIVERING HAPPINESS), and Peter Senge (THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE).

The objective of THE CULTURE GAME book  is to introduce you to the tools and dynamics of happiness at work, and the basics of good-game design for work. As a result of reading the book, you are able to:

  • More fully understand business agility
  • More quickly analyze and diagnose the specific business agility problems you are facing
  • More easily design for successful meetings
  • More easily design for successful Agile adoptions
  • More easily design for satisfying work, and
  • Begin to encourage the emergence of a genuine learning organization in your company.

Drawing from wide-scope academic research, several core-foundation books and 4 years of real coaching in real organizations, THE CULTURE GAME takes you through a specific 8-part framework. This is a framework for designing and developing more learning at work by leveraging some very specific game mechanics for re-designing the way you do work with other people.

Are these ideas intriguing to you? Contact us to arrange a 2-day CULTURE GAME WORKSHOP for your organization. In this workshop, we teach you how to game your culture by gaming your meetings, so these meetings convert from soul-sucking death marches to fun and enjoyable and energizing team-learning events. During the workshop, teach you very specific business agility techniques, and we train your people as CULTURE GAME facilitators. Click here to learn more about THE CULTURE GAME WORKSHOP.

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Story and Language: Why Do You Care?

Language is the code of culture.

Stories and narratives are core, platform applications that execute the cultural operating system. Repeat:  The culture is the operating system, composed of the stories— the core applications. The language is the code used to create these core ‘applications’. If you have no stories, you do not have a culture.

Got that?

Dave Logan has all this covered in TRIBAL LEADERSHIP. You listen to the language- the code— of the stories you hear. That tells you the level of the culture. The level dictates what the culture can aspire to. What it can do.

What it is capable of doing. And being.

Example. You show up. People are talking in ‘We’ language and telling ‘We’ stories. That’s a tribe that can dominate their market space. That’s a tribe that can get to Stage 5 in the TRIBAL LEADERSHIP stage development model of culture. This Stage 4 tribe has the capacity to reach Stage 5 and be world-changing.

Another example. You show up and people are speaking ‘I’ language. The stories are all heroic in nature. He did this, she did that. I think this; I do that. Hear it? That’s Stage 3 culture. “I am great. (You are not.)”

This culture can function in a minimal way. It cannot change the world.

To change the culture, change the stories people are telling. There are many ways to do this. It’s not a trivial task. I explain some specific techniques in THE CULTURE GAME book. When you change culture, you change the stories. This is an axiom that does not change.

The culture is the operating system.

The stories are the core components and core applications that make up the operating system. They encapsulate what the culture means. This operating system is composed of stories.

The language is the high-level (story) programming medium.

Last thing: recall that the best computer programmer is up to 10X better than the average. This is ALSO TRUE for those who ‘code’ stories.

Interested in culture? Wise up about story. There is no better place to start than the web site www.GetStoried.com. That site has a boatload of tips, techniques and specific guidance on how to leverage narrative. The individual responsible for that site has PLENTY to teach you.

Michael Margolis is a brilliant man who knows more about narrative than ANYONE I know.

Tell him Dan sent you, and that you want to know how to get a bigger story.

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Speaking in “We”, thinking in “Me”

Psst. Want to change the world?

If so, you’ll need the right kind of folks on the bus, the kind of people who “get it”.  You’ll need some leadership. Some TRIBAL leadership.

Me vs. We

My friend Dave Logan, author of TRIBAL LEADERSHIP, outlines 5 specific stages of culture. At each stage, the majority of the people in the culture are telling each other a standard story for that level. Stage 3 is “I’m great, (you’re not)” and Stage 4 is “We’re great (they’re not).” The difference is in where you get your identity from. At Stage 4, most (but not all) of the people get their identity from the group, rather than individual-ego….

The five stages of tribal culture, expressed as stories, from most basic to most advanced,  are as follows:

1. Life sucks!

2. MY life sucks!

3. I’m great! (You’re not.)

4. We’re great! (They’re not.)

5. Life is great!

There is a specific pattern of behavior that can rapidly create a dystopia in organizations and teams. It happens when people in a team or org “talk a good game” about Stage 4 and use “we” language, while behaving in Stage 3 “me” language.

I call it “speaking in “We” and thinking in “Me.”

“Thinking in We” is required if you are out to do something big that is literally impossible to do alone. It’s a Stage 4 way of being. At Stage 4, the language is about being the best tribe in a given domain or market. “We’re great” is the place where many successful companies START. Existing companies can do rework, to “refactor” or upgrade their culture by developing new “tribal” language. It’s all explained in Dave’s remarkable book.

If you cannot get big things done at Stage 4, “We’re great”, you have NO SHOT at Stage 5.

And what is Stage 5?

Stage 5 is the platform for manifesting world-building initiatives. Stage 5 the “Life is great” stage, where a focus on competitors literally disappears. The tribe has loads of alignment around a huge, world-changing  idea, and all of them together execute on making it happen. Stage 5 culture is rare.  When it occurs, the people in the culture are predominantly Stage 4 folks who know that game, and want to play a much BIGGER game.

(NOTE: These folks always seek each other out. And find each other. And help each other. It’s automatic behavior at Stage 4.)

Bottom line: We cannot do Stage 4 work unless we are at Stage 4 in our heads, in our mindset. This is why Stage 3 individuals have no shot at executing on big, huge, Stage FIVE work that requires a world-building mindset. That’s because, according to Dave Logan, you have to “own” each stage completely before you can move to the next. You cannot skip a grade. Stage 3 “I’m great” type people literally have no shot at Stage 5, because they are attempting to skip Stage 4 and do not have the essential “We” skills necessary to actually execute on genuine world-building.

Scrum and agile set up at least the potential for a Stage 4 culture, that  “We are great” mindset. We can argue that people that do not “get” agility are stuck at Stage 3, 2 or 1. You can learn all the stages of Tribal Leadership, in detail, by getting the book and reading it.

My book THE CULTURE GAME leverages the best ideas from Dave’s TRIBAL LEADERSHIP book. THE CULTURE GAME employs triads for socializing agile (group) learning up and out of IT, from teams to tribes. You can learn more here.

Dave Logan and I are developing products and services that combine the best of TRIBAL LEADERSHIP, agile, and what I call trans-agile or Tribal Learning patterns and practices as described in THE CULTURE GAME. There are 16 specific practices in the book, that any manager can put to work, today, to upgrade team culture.

If you want to sign up for interesting tutorial podcasts that Dave and I are doing around these ideas, click here to  sign up.

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Trans-Agile and the Learning Organization

The organizations that LEARN FAST are the new winners in game of business. They have more fun and make much more money doing it … by learning faster that their competitors, and then eating their lunch.

Let me explain.

Recently, I went out to LA to work with my friend Dave Logan at the offices of CultureSync, Dave’s management consultancy. Dave is  the lead-author of the book TRIBAL LEADERSHIP. This book introduces the triad, a very robust 3-person structure for getting amazing amounts of work done. This book also enumerates a stage-development model of culture in organizations. The book is brilliant– and so is Dave. My book THE CULTURE GAME is based in part on Dave’s TRIBAL LEADERSHIP concepts.

We did work over 2 days using all the tools in the framework outlined in my book, THE CULTURE GAME. In this book I lay out the 16 specific practices that create nearly-automatic organizational learning. These practices are derived from agile, mostly from Scrum. These are the “trans-agile” practices. I call them Tribal Learning practices. If you commit to do them, your group learns fast, and almost automatically.

The Scrum framework is actually an amazing learning lab for teams. Teams literally “learn how to learn” when the framework is implemented in a genuine and authentic way… that is, in alignment with the spirit of Scrum, as described in the Scrum Guide.

My book is an enumeration of the practices I see the very best Scrum teams doing consistently inside my Agile coaching practice. Part 3 of THE CULTURE GAME details how use Dave’s triads to socialize the 16 trans-agile practices described in THE CULTURE GAME  book.

 

Playing the Culture Game at CultureSync

There were 5 of us present. We spent two days together. We ended up using all 16 of the practices described in my book, across those two days.

We got LOADS of work done.

The CultureSync team made these comments during the daily retrospectives:

“What just happened is amazing”

“I cannot believe how much we got done in one day!”

“It’s shocking how much fun this was. How much fun this IS!”

“Normally, after a full-day meeting, I’m glazed over. The day is over and I actually feel super-energized right now.”

“I’m in shock about how these simple practices completely change the tone and tempo of our meetings.”

“Some of these practices seem uncomfortable at first, and then it’s like: why weren’t we working this way years ago?”

I want you to notice that CultureSync has NOTHING to do with information technology and does not develop software.  CultureSync sells management consulting services, and training that supports leadership development.

Also, keep in mind that Dave Logan is the co-author of THE THREE LAWS OF PERFORMANCE and is tight with David Allen, the celebrated author of GETTING THINGS DONE.

The CultureSync folks are a tribe of over-achievers, much like Dave himself.

That made the feedback especially sweet !

 

The Coming Revolution in Work

It’s ten years since the Agile Manifesto. In my book, I explain how the high failure rates in software projects actually spawned a solution, and a revolution: agile, and Scrum.

In the book, I explain what Scrum is: a framework for creating shared knowledge, also known as team learning. Scrum itself creates small, team-sized learning organizations as described by Peter Senge and others. The habits of good Scrum teams are group learning practices. Being punctual, facilitating your meetings, opening the space, structuring your interactions … as described in the book, each of these (and the other 12) encourage and support absolutely massive levels of organizational learning.

The time has come to say it like it is: Scrum and related practices create a learning organization. We call it a Team. When that Team gets really good, it exhibits 16 specific habits I call Tribal Learning practices. When these practices are socialized using triads as described in TRIBAL LEADERSHIP, the results are truly amazing. Your organization gets smarter, adapts faster, has loads more fun, and makes loads more money, often at the direct expense of all your competitors.

The trans-agile revolution has arrived. Enterprise agile is here. It’s called the learning organization, powered by the Tribal Learning practices described in THE CULTURE GAME book.

Looking to ways for your organization to learn faster? Be more adaptive? Interested in how this works? THE CULTURE GAME books ships in February. You can learn more and pre-order the book, by following this link:

Learn more, and PRE-ORDER The Culture Game Book

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Team Learning is Not Random

Team-level learning requires intent. Team learning, and group learning generally, is NOT random. If it was random or automatic, then our families, our teams, our organizations, even our societies, would automatically learn, and evolve. Instead, in terms of learning, we typically DEVOLVE in groups. We become ineffective after a while. That is what is automatic.

If we want to adapt, we must learn quickly as a group. Especially in times that feature lots of change, like the times we are living through right now. Organizations that learn faster than peers eclipse them, leave them in the dust, call it whatever you want. If we can figure out how to learn as a group, we have the secret to just about everything.

A valid question to ask is: why are we so dumb when we get into groups? Why do we design and implement soul-sucking interactions, stupid meetings, and ineffective team and organizational structures? Why do we behave badly? Why don’t we wise up??

One answer may be found in a community of folks called the Group Relations (GR) community. They are curators of a body of knowledge based upon the work of Alfred Bion. He developed a kind of depth-psychology for explaining what goes on in groups.

I attended a GR conference in 2008 and it opened my eyes. A pure experiential conference, the event focuses on the study of leadership and authority in groups. The object of study is the behavior of all attendees over a 4-5 day period.

Team learning, and group learning generally, is NOT random. If it was random or automatic, then our families, our teams, our organizations, even our civilization, would automatically learn, and evolve. If learning in groups was automatic, we’d be done with world hunger, and cancer, and war. We’d be colonizing other planets. We’d be done with poverty on earth. 

We get dumb when we get into groups. Period. That is what is automatic. Opposing this pattern requires full intent. My book is one small contribution to the body of knowledge around team learning. Team-level learning requires intent. The good news is, We now know how to do it. People like Jim and Michele McCarthy, Jeff Sutherland, Ken Schwaber, folks in the GR community … all of these folks are pointing the way. We can literally create genius teams- IF WE WANT TO.

We have the technology to routinely do this. The problem is conquered. 

What is missing is the intent. Are you in?

 

 

 

 

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Rights of Man by Thomas Paine

Ok, now that I have your attention, I want you to go out, and buy a copy of the book RIGHTS OF MAN by Thomas Paine.

Turn to page 107, and read this:

Quoting Thomas Paine, RIGHTS OF MAN, page 107:
“…society performs for itself almost everything that is ascribed to government.”

Another way of reading it:

“…self-organizing teams perform for themselves almost everything that is ascribed to managers ”

RIGHTS OF MAN is a small and important book for Agile folks to read. It may even be essential reading.

I work in Boston. Now, it is important to realize, the American Revolution started in Boston. I think it is also important to realize, the Scrum revolution also starts in Boston. The Agile manifesto is over 13 years old, and the American revolution is a lot older than that.

Invite me, and I’ll consider your offer. Attempt to make me, and you reduce my happiness by reducing my sense of control and belonging… via techniques of manipulation, coercion, etc.

People don’t need convincing. All they need is an invitation. All you need to do is explain the game clearly enough for the listener to make an informed, rational, intentional decision. And then invite them to play.

Self-managed, self-organizing individuals know exactly what to do: opt-in, or opt-out.

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Kanban and Scrum are Verbs, Not Nouns

Is it just me? The Kanban community folks appear to encourage and be fond of bashing Scrum. This is unfortunate since the Kanban and the Scrum are so closely related. These are not distant cousins but rather, brothers. They both encourage a generative flow of We.

Positioning Kanban as superior to Scrum and vice-versa is contributing to a sense of meaningless around the word Agile. Agile is beginning to mean “whoever had the biggest ego and yells loudest. Whoever can grab the socio-apparatus of the Agile community (The Scrum Alliance, Agile Alliance, the conferences etc) to steer them. Whoever can advocate their position even louder and more convincingly.”

Exhibit A is the artificial debate between which is better for Agile teams: Kanban or Scrum. Yes, Scrum fails in some organizations and does not  create much improvement in results. Kanban also suffers from these failures, typically in the same organizations.

In general, any failures of either are related to the culture in the implementing organization. In either case, Scrum and/or Kanban, the organizations doing the implementation need pain-killing drugs (commonly called a prescription) and a doctor (commonly called a coach). If they do not need a prescription or a doctor (to help them heal) they’d already be healthy, right?

 

Language is the Key

In the post The Flow of We I discuss nominalization, the act of changing verbs and adverbs (and other kinds of words) into nouns. Click the link to learn about it. We all do it all the time. It creates space to compare, contrast, disagree, and debate. Naming people, places and things is the primary way we make sense of the world we live in.

Scrum and Kanban are most useful to us in the English language when referred to as verbs, not nouns. We Scrum, and we Kanban. When we Kanban, We pay attention to the flow of work items through our group. We work with upstream and downstream partners to increase the flow of value. When We Kanban we increase the flow of We, by paying attention, as a group, to things that matter, like work items, classes of service, cycle times etc.

Likewise, we Scrum. When we Scrum, we first agree to some basic understandings, about roles and meetings and rules. Then We Scrum. When We Scrum, We open conversational space to discuss the actual details of requirements. We time-box most of these discussions. After We do some work, We reflect formally during a meeting We call “the Retrospective”. We also timebox this meeting.

Scrum is a verb. We Scrum. Kanban is a verb. We Kanban.

The Kanban community already realizes this, well below the level of collective awareness. What, you disagree, and do not think so? Guess again.

Check out this poster and slogan again, it says:

[Yes] … we Kanban. THAT is using the word Kanban as a VERB.

 

 

 

 

Post Script: 3 hours later, I already got three emails on this from folks out there. Moral of story: language matters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Flow of We

The goal of a good team is continuous flow. Continuous Flow of what? Some say, “value”. Not so fast. Value is a function of We.

There is a “state of flow”. We think of this flow as an individual state, where personal productivity soars as time passes very quickly for a single person, where that person enters a slightly altered state of consciousness. That is an individual concept.

Some are talking about how, in the industrial revolution, We measured productivity by the widgets-per-day count, and how We are now 100% out of the industrial revolution. So far so good. Now,  these same folks argue that the new widget, the thing to measure, is something called flow. I totally disagree with using flow as the unit of measure of productivity, because flow as defined in pop-culture is an individual concept, not a collective concept.

In the modern world of work, productivity is a macro-property of teams, not individuals.

What really needs to be measured is the group-level flow of We or We-flow.

 

The Flow… of We

We is the collective sense that all of us (in the group) have substantial alignment, and that we all know what we are collectively doing. Alignment is the sense that We agree on some specific ideas, such as core values, that guide our collective and individual actions. So, flow is a pop-culture concept that applies to individuals. We is a collective sense. Flow of We is that flow of a collectively held sense of alignment.

Still with me? Flow of We is that exact same pop-culture individual-flow concept, experienced as a team. The flow of We has several subsidiary flows, or constituent parts:

  • We-Communication. This is the flow of Sending and Receiving at the level of We. It is verbal, and non-verbal. Think serendipitous interactions.
  • We-Knowledge. Knowledge flow requires We-Communication flow. This flow includes knowledge of the work, and each other.
  • We-Feelings. The flow of this social substance increases and can substantially accelerate flow of We-Knowledge.
  • We-Awareness. The flow of this social substance raises the level of consciousness of the group, resulting in more flow of We overall.

These elements manifest the overall flow of We. When one of these subsidiary flows gets clogged, the We-flow can suddenly stop. Reduced flows of the 4 elements above can literally stop the flow of We.

When it stops, it is a symptom that We have some fundamental problems with our team. Our sense of shared vision is diminished. This is what happens when Scrum and Kanban break down as devices. Scrum, Kanban and all the rest offer the possibility but not the promise of a flow of We. From the flow of We comes a nearly-guaranteed flow of insanely great products and services.

In the modern world of work, being great means being great with others. Greatness is being in the flow of We.

When the flow of We is continuous, you have a genius team. Jim and Michele McCarthy argue that average people can form a collective We-genius, at will, in the form of a team. I tend to agree. When you get there, you get flow at the level of team: time passes quickly, productivity soars, there is collective immersion.

The McCarthys often talk about how We no longer have to wait 30-35 years for individual geniuses like Einstein, Mozart, Freud or Jobs to show up and make a dent in the universe for us. Instead, We can make that dent in that universe right now, by building genius teams with currently available and well-understood socio-technologies like Core Protocols, Triads, Kanban, etc.

There are specific socio-technologies that can be used to increase the flow of We. These include Kanban, Scrum, Lean, Core Protocols and other practices with specific names.

Note that Kanban “Classes of Service” are a key device for generating both flow of We and the derivative flow of value so often discussed in Kanban circles. Likewise Scrum can help teams create insanely great products, by the same method: creating a steady flow of We on the team. Scrum encourages the flow of We through its mechanisms of the Daily Scrum, Retrospective etc.

This is somewhat stilted since Scrum has a start/stop nature by virtue of iterations. Thus Scrum is training wheels to help begin generating a flow of We in teams. Both Scrum and Kanban are used in teams and organizations with alignment problems. If they have good alignment, the We is flowing and in theory, there is no need for Scrum or Kanban.  Since these flows are almost nonexistent on most teams, we must use these devices. When we do, we get some good results right away, but not because these are great technologies. Rather it is because our We-flow is nonexistent. The subsidiary flows of Communication, Knowledge, Feelings and Awareness are low or otherwise not working well.

Scrum, Kanban and other social/team technology is just the starting point. Remember, team learning is not random. You have to intend it. If you have no intent to learn together, you literally have no shot at doing so. Teams that want to be great find the coaches and technologies and techniques they require to achieve their aims. And often, the great coaches find them.

That’s just the way it works.

Related Post: Team Learning is Not Random

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Stop Having Meetings

If you are really in a state of Free Standing Agility, you probably are not having very many meeting. That is because you have replaced them with serendipitous interactions.

Serendipitous interactions are nodes in an endless flow or chain of interactions. Examples include brief conversations of 2,3 4 or more people. These conversations are usually ‘listenable’ by others in proximity.

Think about co-located space. When a team is on one room, the entire space facilitates one flow-chain of conversation through time. I can initiate a conversation, or be invited to converse, or listen to the conversations of others. Co-location is a very good tool for eliminating the typical meeting.

The typical meeting is complicated to arrange, and has nearly-automatic dysfunction potential. I plan to explain this dynamic in much more detail a bit later. Let’s just assume for now that meetings are generally counter-productive. Don’t agree? OK, here, I have a question for you: when is the last time you participated in a KICK-ASS conference call? When is the last time you can out of meeting energized? OK, now let’s change channels: when is the last time you were in a meeting and wondered why you had to be there? When is the last time you told yourself, “this meeting is a complete waste of my time”. And so on. STOP HAVING MEETINGS.

To engineer these interaction flows, you need certain elements to be in place. These are depicted in the Swiss Cheese Model of Serendipity, depicted below:

 

Source of clip: http://informationr.net/ir/16-3/p491fig3.jpg

 

For now, suspend your disbelief. Act ‘as if’ this might be true, OK? Imagine a world of ‘no meetings’. What does it look like?

Now …..imagine a perfect score for number-of-meetings is ‘zero’, just like a perfect golf score is ’18’. We can never reach this ideal perfect score, and that is OK. What is more important is that we know the perfect score, and try to get closer and closer to it.

Yes, some meetings are essential. MOST ARE NOT.

Pay attention and notice that Scrum minimizes the meetings. It still has three. Scrum tends to minimize the number of necessary meetings. Scrum can get you questioning why you have 87 meetings a month. Co-location also tends to do this same thing.

Stop having meetings. Instead, focus on communication-flow in your work place, and engineer as much of this as you can. Did I mention that meetings can actually reduce communication flow across your organization?

In what other ways can you reduce your meeting count?

What changes can you make? What online tools might reduce your meeting count?

How many meeting that you attend do you actually enjoy?

What meeting are essential for your context? Which ones do not really matter?

What is energizing your organization’s focus on non-essential meetings?

Why are you attending meeting that you do not enjoy?

A good Agile Coach can help you think about (and execute on) reducing your meeting count while actually increasing your overall communication frequency and level of alignment across teams and the entire organization.