Agile approaches are enjoying a very bright place in the sun. And that is to some extent deserved; they represent a very different way of working, especially when we are dealing with ill-defined problems and a need for experimentation and search. At the same time, we often define agile as needing to be different than what came before. The implication being that predecessor capabilities are inadequate, inappropriate and best relegated to the dustbin of history. The reality is very different.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
I’ve long argued that organizational practices need to be adapted to an organization if they are going to be effective. They need to fit the culture, and make sense in the way that the organization works. But what happens when you do all the right things, push all the right buttons, and the practices don’t get used? A curious case study.
So How Do You Keep Score?
We live in a world that wants concrete specifics. We have bosses that like measures. We have sponsors that demand proof, and want to know how you are going to demonstrate impact. And yet very often the more important something an initiative is, the less likely you are to be able to measure it. So what you can you do? What could you measure? And what are the cautions of doing so?
Got a KPI For That?
While this is likely to come across as controversial, I’m going to say it anyway: If you care most about key performance indicators, then you likely don’t care about what matters most. And that’s a challenge. In my view, it’s a challenge of terminology, of ideology and of narrow-minded thinking masquerading as holistic solution. But semantics are important. And the words you use say a lot about what you value.
This Is How It (Doesn’t) Begin
I had a meeting with a prospective client the other day. The opportunity was to provide some training and facilitation with their executive team to help prepare them for the implementation of a new set of organizational project management practices. To anyone that knows me, this certainly has the prospect of being something of interest. […]
The More Process You Have, The Less Process You Need
Process is important. It provides useful and relevant guidance on how to get things done. And yet process can also be a crutch, particularly when we presume the real world works exactly as the process prescribes. For process to be useful, then, we need to rethink how we relate to process.