Agendashift – an engagement model – is sometimes mistaken for a maturity model. I can imagine how this happens, but let me explain.

At no point did we specify a number of stages or steps and further corroborate with characteristics (what Wikipedia describes as a top-down approach). Neither did we determine distinct characteristics or assessment items and cluster into steps (the bottom-up approach).

Yes, we do have an assessment tool, and after many iterations of community refinement (much of it in #assessments in the Agendashift Slack) we think that it’s one to be proud of. No, it doesn’t tell you where you fit on a journey described by someone else’s narrative (one that often says more about the vendor than the client). And the more we look at how our data clusters (we’ve tried), the more sure we are that a linear model would at best a gross oversimplification. We try to avoid those – people spot them a mile away.

What our tool does do is help teams and organisation find opportunities, whether that’s to build on strengths, address weaknesses, or to bridge gaps. The subsequent process is far from prescriptive (a material risk if the job of the aforementioned assessment items is to identify specific practices that you’re not doing by the vendor’s book); instead it’s generative:

1. Decide what prompts (our assessment items) are important. When I’m facilitating, my opinion is not important, and not shared unless I’m asked directly – I value authentic agreement too much to risk undermining it.
2. Identify what obstacles are in the way and prioritise them, in the process making sure that obstacles aren’t sneaking in prescription or premature judgement by the back door
3. Identify the outcomes that lie unrealised behind those obstacles, the outcomes behind those outcomes, and so on (visit 15-minute FOTO to see how this is done)

You have by now plenty of raw material from which an agenda for change (see principle #3 in the graphic below) can be organised. As for realising those outcomes, the approach to take very much depends on what kind of outcome it is:

• Where there’s already widespread agreement on what needs to be done and what the impact will be: It’s done already (well almost)
• Things that need a bit more analysis and planning: Delegate someone who will circle back later with a plan
• The outcomes that you’ll never achieve in one go: Frame a big hypothesis and some smaller/cheaper/safer experiments that will test its assumptions and get you moving in the right direction

I’ve just described Exploration, Mapping, and Elaboration, the middle three chapters of the book and most of the top row in the graphic below. Typically, it’s preceded by Discovery (chapter 1), a way to build broad agreement on what the destination might look like (a broad brush picture, not a design or a detailed plan). At the bottom of the graphic is Operation, which is about the feedback loops and behaviours that sustain change (the fifth and final chapter in the Agendashift book and to be expanded upon in Right to Left).

(Yes, I’m still tweaking the graphic. The new circular arrows? The moment you learn something, you might decide to revisit your earlier work. You’ll want to do so periodically anyway.)

Upcoming public Agendashift workshops (Italy, Germany * 2):

• 9 November, Brescia, Italy: Pre-conference workshop: Facilitating Outcome-Oriented Change (Mike Burrows)
• 21-22 November, Berlin, Germany: 2-day Advanced Agendashift workshop: Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation (Mike Burrows)
• 03 December, Munich, Germany: Core Agendashift: Facilitating Outcome-Oriented Change (Julia Wester)

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