evolving your company using a systems thinking
DESCRIPTION
Companies and their environments are complex adaptive systems. Evolving a company e.g towards Agile therefore is a complex endeavor. It is not possible to have a fixed change plan and then just execute it. Instead, you need to iteratively make change experiments to the company/organization and observe the emerging outcomes. In this workshop we will look at how to practically master this challenge. A tool that helps identifying/defining change experiments will be introduced and tried in practice. After the workshop attendees will know how the tool helps to take better decisions as they consider all aspects of the “company as a system”, i.e. including culture, behavior, processes and structures.TRANSCRIPT
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Hendrik Esser
Director, Portfolio & Technology Management
@HendrikEsser Supporting Agile Adoption
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Hendrik Esser | © Ericsson AB 2014 | 2014-10-22 | Page 2
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Why did our agile transition succeed?
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Our transition
People Practices Processes Structures
1 2 3 “Our process is
not good enough” “No Silos + Our structures
need to support the way we work”
“Oops! Almost forgot something!”
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Our transition: changes
People Practices Processes Structures
1 2 3 Scrum
Kanban
Uncertainty Management
New Organization
New roles
New Governance
Wanted culture
Leadership mindset
Recruitment of leaders
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Hendrik Esser | © Ericsson AB 2014 | 2014-10-22 | Page 7
Insight: We have addressed the (whole?) “System”
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Manage / Lead The company as a System?
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From Systems Thinking to Complex Adaptive Systems
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Hendrik Esser | © Ericsson AB 2014 | 2014-10-22 | Page 10
The Learning Organization
Peter Senge, The fifth discipline
Systems Thinking
Team Learning Shared Vision Mental Models
Personal Mastery
Real World
Decision Results
Decision Rules
Mental Model
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Cynefin
Dave Snowden, HBR Article, Nov 2007
SIMPLE
COMPLICATED COMPLEX
CHAOTIC sense-categorize-respond
sense-analyze-respond probe-sense-respond
act-sense-respond
DISORDER
best practice
good practice emergent practice
novel practice
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How could we (Leaders) make use of this, practically
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How could we identify our next experiment?
respond
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Understand the organization as a complex adaptive system
Lead by vision + setting/managing constraints (continuously)
Need to (continuously) align mental models
to achieve a shared vision
Evolving an organization
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Constraints
People Practices Processes Structures
1 2 3
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Constraints
People
Processes
Structures
Behavior
Capabilities
Inte
rdep
ende
ncie
s
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Basic procedure Develop a hypothesis on how the System works, explaining the observed phenomena (Discussion mental model alignment)
Decide what changes you want to trigger towards constraints (next experiment) (Discussion shared vision)
Observe the emerging system outcomes/response. (narratives, observations, …)
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The tool
Processes Structures
Behavior Capabilities
Vision/ desired state
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The tool
Processes Structures
Behavior Capabilities
Vision/ desired state
Behavior
Mindset/attitude Values
Competence Skills # people
Hidden talent
Processes Practices Tools
Habits
Organization Governance Remuneration Roles
(Informal) networks
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Development Project
MS MS
Observation: Classic Projects
Product Management
MS MS MS
Test
Study Implement Study Implement
Study Implement Study Implement Study Implement
Study Implement
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Hendrik Esser | © Ericsson AB 2014 | 2014-10-22 | Page 23
Things, that are impossible:
Key Insight
The Problem of
Planning and Committing
Correctly predict what the customers need
Correctly predict how long it will take to develop it
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Hendrik Esser | © Ericsson AB 2014 | 2014-10-22 | Page 24
(Many clever people)
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Mindset shift To
Accept uncertainty
Embrace Change
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Processes Structures
Behavior Capabilities
Deal with uncertainty
Behavior
Mindset/attitude Values
Competence Skills # people
Hidden talent
Processes Practices Tools
Habits
Organization Governance Remuneration Roles
(Informal) networks
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To embrace change and deal with uncertainty: › What desired behaviors do people in your organization need to show?
› What are undesired behaviors?
15 Minutes in teams of 5-7 people
Workshop 1: Behavior and attitude
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Workshop 2: Capabilities, Processes, Structures
To embrace change and deal with uncertainty: Which processes/practices support the desired behaviors? Which structures support the desired behaviors and processes? What capabilities need to be developed? 20 Minutes in teams
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Hendrik Esser | © Ericsson AB 2014 | 2014-10-22 | Page 32 Processes Structures
Behavior Capabilities
Manage Uncertainty
Communicate
Make uncertainty visible
Accept, that uncertainty is always there Share views and insights
Speak up when you see something unexpected
React constructively on surprises
Show and discuss uncertainty in governance meetings
Frequent meetings to digest updates/new insights
Distributed planning on different levels
Iterative development feedback loop
Communication structure
Manage expectations anticipate expectations and address them Translate uncertainty into realistic
expectations (customers, internal stakeholders)
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›Analyze/understand issues/problems/impediments ›Propose system solutions to issues/problems/impediments ›Propose system changes to achieve a goal/target/vision ›Follow-up on made implemented system changes ›Adapt to a changed goal/target/vision ›…
use cases
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