Complexities of Culture
There were a few great discussions about culture and the impact organizational culture has on how you can approach Agile transformation or adoption at this weekend’s Toronto Agile Open Space. During one session we dove deeper into the people behind the culture and talked about why labelling an organization with a certain culture and thereby aligning practices to that culture isn’t as simple as it appears to be. Take the example we used of a control culture. Control cultures, as...
Read MoreCulture, People and Systems Part II
A few weeks ago I posted about the relationship between organizational culture types defined by William Schneider in ‘The Re-Engineering Alternative” and MBTI types and temperaments. My theory is that as a change artist, whether it be an external or internal coach, can you increase the odds of creating a successful change by understanding these factors: organizational culture type type and temperament of the influential people or ‘change sponsor’ flow of power...
Read MoreCulture and People and Systems…Oh My!
I received my copy of The Re-Engineering Alternative by William Schneider a couple days ago. I’ve always been fascinated with culture and people (particularly MBTI) and how, IMO, they impact how effective you can be with Agile. Michael Sahota has written some fantastic posts about organization culture and I’m excited to read this book to expand my knowledge about culture. What I’m more interested is how those cultures develop, after all, it’s the people in your...
Read MoreThoughts on Agile 2011 – Culture Matters
This year was my first visit to Agile 2011 and I came home with a suitcase full of learning to go along with the suitcase full of vendor handouts. I think the conference organizers did a fantastic job. The location and facility was great and accommodated many hallway conversations, especially in Coach’s Corner (thx Mark Levison for setting that up) and the Open Jam area. I also want to thank the volunteers, particularly Charlotte who was the volunteer in my session. She gave me some...
Read MoreWhy Personal Safety is Important
I just finished a lunch and learn at the company I work for on Root Cause Analysis. The ‘root cause’ behind this session was the output of an Agile self-assessment that suggested, based on our answers, we could get some benefit from using root cause analysis. I’ll share the presentation as well, however I really stressed the importance of a creating a “no blame society” as when you are talking about problems, different people are going to have different...
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