Agendashift roundup, April 2022

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this earlier-than-usual edition (you’ll see why): Friday is pivot day; Interviewed by Mike Leber; Agendashift as framework, 2022 edition; German translations; Upcoming; Top posts

Friday is pivot day

Friday would have been roundup day, but we’re saving that for the next big announcement from the Agendashift Academy. Yes, there’s new content, the expected next module in the Leading with Outcomes curriculum, but the real news is more significant than that, a lot of hard work (and not just by me) coming together in a really exciting way.

If you’re not already on the mailing list, now would be a good time to subscribe.

Interviewed by Mike Leber

I was interviewed recently by Mike Leber – see below for the recording, and see also What I really think about Kanban, highlighting what was just one part of what was a wide-ranging conversation.

Leading with Outcomes. Breaking free from the Solution-driven Paradigm! (linkedin.com)

Hot on the heels of that one, Friday or soon after I’ll be making an appearance on the Lean On Agile (& Elevate Change) Show, interviewed by Shahin Sheidaei. I’ve had the chance to listen to the podcast already and look forward to sharing that one too.

Agendashift as framework, 2022 edition

As announced earlier in the month I’ve updated agendashift.com/framework to lead with the three strategies:

If you have access to Agendashift’s Commons or more specifically to Agendashift assets, there’s a new framework overview deck, Agendashift framework overview 16x10 2022-04 v3.pptx. Best viewed full screen and with the Source Sans Pro font installed. If you don’t have it, you can request access via the framework page.

Why is this important? Well, one important source of struggle for organisations and their leaders is that those 1990’s models of change (models still accepted as “doing it properly”) don’t work for most interesting kinds of business challenges, certainly not the kinds of challenges associated with transformation. As my friend Patrick Hoverstadt puts it:

If the model doesn’t work more than half the time, the model is wrong – so wrong indeed that it can’t be said to be useful.1

What if we stopped leading with solutions – solutions that are not only likely to be a poor fit to their intended context, are hard to implement, and meanwhile deny everyone the opportunity to do something better – and started leading with outcomes instead? What if we could hold the right conversations – strategy conversations – at the right time, agreeing on outcomes, organising around outcomes, and steering by them? And not just “rinse and repeat” (glibly assuming that this happens for free) but seeking opportunities to do this at every scale?

Only after the Why and the What if comes the How – Agendashift’s patterns and tools. I’m learning not to get to those quite so quickly as I used to, and the strategies bridge the What if and the How really nicely 🙂

1 See Patrick’s new book The Grammar of Systems: From Order to Chaos and Back. From memory, so I’m paraphrasing. Highly recommended.

German translations

A quick reminder that all of my books are now available in German:

I still have a few review copies of the recent Agendashift translation left. If you feel a review coming on, please get in touch!

Over the coming weeks, some of our translated resources will receive updates.​​

Upcoming

Top posts

  1. What I really think about Kanban (April)
  2. Updated: Agendashift as framework, 2022 edition (April)
  3. What I really think about Scrum (August 2020)
  4. Video: Leading and Transforming with Outcomes (March)
  5. What I really think about SAFe (October 2019)

What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

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