Culture & Agile & Change at the NYC Scrum Users Group

On March 20th, 2014, we had a great discussion.  The group was great, very active participation. Thanks especially to Rob and Mary, and also to many old and new friends.

Here is the slide share.

Mainly we discussed Fearless Change. This is the work of Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising. They are soon to publish a second version of their book: “Fearless Change” (see Amazon, for example). Here is the Appendix to the book — a wonderful list of the patterns. This article, “Leading Fearless Change,” roughly summarizes the book. Click here for more URL for more information.

We also discussed Open Agile Adoption. (Now google Open Space Agility.) My one sentence summary: Invite everyone to participate in the change, or express openly that they are bothered (and why).

The second sentence: Use Open Space to enable participants to self-organize in support of the change. (If you don’t know Open Space, then Google “Open Space Technology.” You need to know about it.) I see a relation to my “Little’s Second Law”: “People are remarkably good at doing what they want to do.” See the slide share above for more, and also click here.

Dan Mezick has the “Open Agile Adoption Handbook” coming out really soon. There is, of course, more to the ‘Agile culture change’ than just these two sets of ideas (fearless change and open Agile adoption).

There are many wise guides, but these are two great places and three terrific people to start. Do not be overly influenced by the characteristics of the people. I think their ideas ‘stand up’ upon closer examination. They are wonderful, simple and useful. The action is: We must do them more.

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