Agile

In: Agile, Innovation, Transformation, Transformation

Book Review by Neil Rainey of Neil’s Books What is it really and is it worth the effort? In this review of “Digital Transformation – Build Your Organisation’s Future for The Innovation Age” by Lindsay Herbert, Neil gives us an insight into the key topics and learnings. What does REAL Digital Transformation look like? Do not assume everyone understands the same thing when they hear “Digital Transformation”. It is a powerful concept, often misunderstood. Digital Transformation is about finding the new business as usual. It takes the right people with the right attitudes and mindsets to get there. Real Digital Transformation is about the organisation’s ability to be able to react to use new processes, technologies and ways of working. Most organisations are slow to react and bogged down. Real Digital Transformation breaks down the barriers of hierarchical inertia and creates real adaptability. New devices, platforms, ways of working and processesContinue Reading

In: Agile, FWOW, Leadership, Motivation

Over recent years the term ‘Servant Leadership’ became mainstream in business schools and leadership education. Synonymous with Agile Teams the servant leader empowers and enables the teams, effectively reversing the traditional role of staff making the manager successful. This article from McKinsey Quarterly explores the link between employee satisfaction and how managers are improving the quality of workplace relationships and in particular driving cultural change through servant leadership which includes engaging everyone within the organisation with “compassion and genuine curiosity”. Substantial research has documented that a good workplace is established when managers are able to provide workers with a work environment that is meaningful (clarity, context of the work; as well as autonomy, tools and guidance to do the work) and offers psychological safety (the absence of interpersonal fear as a driver of employee behaviour). “a good manager instills a sense of trust and confidence, with a clear set ofContinue Reading

In: Agile, Leadership

More and more organisations are moving to adopt Agile Transformation not just in standard project methodologies but transforming all resource management. The goal is to better align organisation strategic priorities with scarce resource utilisation ensuring that company is always working on what is highest priority. This article was adapted from an original article published by Forbes in 2018. 1. Today’s Organisation In a recent study by McKinsey 90% of executives identified agility and collaboration as critical to the organisations success. McKinsey also went on explain that in their findings organisations that adopt agile processes do financially better than those that don’t. Agile management seeks to renew itself, adapt, change quickly and succeed in rapidly changing, ambiguous, turbulent environment. As well as the ability to quickly reconfigure strategy, structure, processes, people and technology toward value creation and value protecting opportunities. If you need more proof that agile management works this isContinue Reading

In: Agile, Culture, FWOW, Leadership

Transforming your organisation requires a mindset transformation, the excellent illustration below was shared this week on LinkedIn by an ex-colleague and it sums up how organisations need to think about and plan for transformation. Well done to Thoughtworks and Tanmay Vora who created this image. “The most profound business challenge we face today is how to build organizations that can change as fast as change itself.“ Gary Hamel, Global Peter Drucker Forum, Vienna Austria The authors start by pointing out that John Kotter wrote a paper on “Leading Change” in 1996 (required MBA reading) where he highlighted that only 30% of change initiatives are ever actually successful. The reason is that there is a lack of commitment to drive a change of culture. Culture is created and solidified over time through expressed actions and reactions and not cooked up based on generic sounding mission statements that are disconnected from realContinue Reading

In: Agile, Leadership

Agile organisations develop products five times faster, make decisions three times faster, reallocate resources to highest priorities quickly and effectively (McKinsey, 2019). However middle management makes or breaks that agility, remaining a barrier to adoption and blocking the potential gains that come with holistic transformation to the agile way of working. “Managers like to take ownership and enforce a controlled leadership style. For organisations trying to adapt agile ways of working into their business, this presents a real problem as it goes against the very essence of what agile tries to promote,” says Marc-Olivier Hilgers, principal, agile transformation and enablement, at Capgemini. “Middle managers, in particular, are among the biggest challenges in becoming agile”, says Mick Burn, head of organisational change management, Europe, at Infosys Consulting. Most middle managers, rose to that opportunity by building specific leadership skills and competencies, the agile model does not have the same roles whichContinue Reading