Agile transformations are often much slower than hoped for, and more painful than anticipated. In the end, you may be left with feelings of frustration and dismay rather than the benefits you hoped for. How can we make change–whether it’s adopting Scrum at the team level, or agile at the enterprise level–more successful, and more enlivening?
Through my work with many organizations, I’ve distilled principles for successful transformation into Six Rules for Change. These principles address both the complexity of the organization and the complexity of the human experience of change. They provide a set of touch-points to guide Change Artists as they support and enable change in their organizations.
Six Rules for Change
- Work from a stance of Congruence, balancing the interest of self-others-context.
- Honor what is valuable about the past and what is working now.
- Assess the current situation and system.
- Activate Networks to diffuse new ideas through the system. Weave in people who are trusted and who people turn to for advice.
- Guide the change. Consider where global principles apply, and what can evolve locally. Work by successive approximation.
- Design Experiments to facilitate learning and buy-in.
