It turns out that I haven’t spoken on Right to Left (the title of my third book) for quite some time and I have taken the opportunity to draw a new picture that shows Right to Left as one of three main patterns of Leading with Outcomes. It, the IdOO (“I do”) pattern, and Meaning, Measure, Method all feature in all four modules. Expect to see this picture or one very much like it appearing in future material!
“At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, (agreement on) outcomes before solutions“
Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.
To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
In this edition: Adaptive Organisation (II) is complete; Events in May; Events in June; Latest additions to the media page; Top posts
Adaptive Organisation (II) is complete
Never say finished, but the last chapter of the last part of the last module of our leadership and organisation development programme Leading with Outcomes was released this week. Already the first certificates of completion have been issued! Read more and watch a short video (11:39):
As mentioned there, I’ll be taking a break from recording during May, not least because we have the builders in. No later than next month’s roundup I’ll outline what’s coming next content-wise.
Related to that (my talk references his work), on May 15th at 15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10am EDT we are joined for our monthly webinar/AMA by a very special guest, Flight Levels creator Klaus Leopold:
Last but not least, on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings (UK time), May 16th, 16th, 23rd, and 24th is our next Leading with Outcomes: Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F). This is likely the only time this year that we will run TTT/F in this time slot. If you are based east of the UK, this may be your best option!
Also worth bearing in mind may be these two TTT/F alternatives that aren’t in the calendar yet: In Melbourne, Australia in October I’ll be doing a 3-day event similar to the June event in London that will be upgradeable to Facilitator, though not to Trainer. And in December there will be a full TTT/F in Bengaluru, India, in person. Thank you to the Kanban Australia and Kanban India conferences for their kind invitations. About that upgrade option:
That second event is really two or three events in one, and although all sales so far have been for all three days, there are other options. The equivalent self-paced modules:
Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.
To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
I say “complete” and not “finished” because I’ll always be making improvements. Adaptive Organisation went through two major revisions and I’ve lost count of how many iterations I’ve done on Foundation! That is not to say that I’m dissatisfied – far from it – but there is always learning to be done, especially now that there are other trainers and facilitators using the Leading with Outcomes material.
Next month we have the builders in at home so I’ll be taking a break from recording. No later than May’s roundup I will outline my plans for new content, and I have a book to finish (a commission, not a Wholehearted / Adaptive Organisation book, that one is yet to start). Today though, I will allow myself to enjoy the moment 🙂
Just to put Adaptive Organisation in some context, it’s the most advanced module of Leading with Outcomes, covering what I think of as the “deep magic” of organising, using a model that puts relationships (of several kinds) front and centre. Although there is more theory to cover, it does it very much in the style of Leading with Outcomes (outcome-oriented, “every scale” engagement, etc), it refers back to other modules, and it completes Leading with Outcomes nicely I think. That said, I have taken care not to assume too much in the way of prior knowledge. If the subject matter interests you, feel free to dive right in.
Check out the sections below for ways to access this material both in your own time and with me – mostly online, but in person in the case of the London event. The webinars and meetups (another one added only today) are all highly relevant and the next one is only two days away. One way or another (or several), please join me!
I leave you with this video (11:39), my closing thoughts from that final chapter of that final module. I hope that it makes sense standalone, or at least that it intrigues!
Closing thoughts on Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale (11:39)
Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.
To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
Perhaps the most Agendashifty exercise of them all, the Clean Language-inspired 15-minute FOTO in both Lite and Classic forms (days 2 & 3 respectively), and other key tools and patterns
Accordingly, as worked out with the Trainer community and as now described on the event page, you can take all three days of the London event and become an Authorised Facilitator without needing to take TTT/F:
Take out an Agendashift Academy subscription – from £24.50 per month, noting that an annual subscription (£245) will save you 40% on this training, so do this first!
Take out a Leading with Outcomes Authorised Facilitator subscription – free for the first year, then £245 annually, less the 10%-40% discount
Join me for a quick onboarding call over Zoom covering assessment/survey administration and customising workshop materials
As an Authorised Leading with Outcomes Facilitator, you can:
Administer surveys using our full range of assessment templates and without size restrictions
Facilitate with our workshop materials the Leading with Outcomes Discovery Workshop, the Assessment Debrief Workshop (use with our full range of assessment templates), and the Outside-in Strategy Review
That’s four sessions of 4 hours each on the mornings (UK time) of Tuesday 16th, Wednesday 17th, Tuesday 23rd, and Wednesday 24th May 2023, beginning 08:30BST, 09:30CEST. If you’re a subscriber or partner, don’t forget your discount code. Similarly, ping me for a code if you’re employed in the government, healthcare, education, or non-profit sectors.
Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.
To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
Klaus Leopold’s Flight Levels, described in his book Rethinking Agile (2020)
The Deliberately Adaptive Organisation, my 21st-century take on Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model, and here in particular, what’s happening in the relationships between different scales (between team and team-of-teams, for example)
And in the foreground, two more:
A phrase (“Reaching…”) borrowed from the opening question of my Outside-in Strategy Review, as described in my book Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile (2019, audiobook 2020), and below it, four questions: Who, Where, What, When
From his book The Fractal Organisation (2009), Patrick Hoverstadt’s four dimensions/axes of organisation (lower left) – how to understand an organisation structure that is at least trying to be good fit for its business environment
Not shown, but we’ll come to it in a moment:
Bob Moesta’s Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress (2020) – ostensibly about sales but really a great book on jobs-to-be-done (JTBD), a book I keep finding myself recommending
Let’s take the last three of those more slowly. The Outside-in Strategy Review – free template here, and the corresponding Leading with Outcomes module here – takes you from the outside of the organisation through to its inside, walking you through the five layers of Customer, Organisation, Product, Platform, and Team(s).
The challenge question for the Customer layer goes as follows:
What’s happening when we’re reaching the right customers, meeting their strategic needs*?
*strategic needs: their needs, our strategy
By design, facilitated dialogue around that question can explore any number of issues. Not to prejudge anything but to help ensure that nothing crucial gets overlooked, we like to unpack it explicitly, hence the Who, Where, What, When questions on the slide.
Notice the correspondences between those customer-related questions and Patrick’s axes/dimensions. These are about how you structure your organisation to best fit your business environment:
Where you have different teams serving different user personas or customer segments, you are organising in the Customer dimension
Where different teams serve different locations, you are organising in the Geography dimension
Where different teams provide different solutions to different customer needs, you are organising in the Technology dimension (technology used in its broadest possible sense here)
Where different teams work at (for example) different stages of a product’s lifecycle, or simply at different times of day, you are organising in the Time dimension.
Organisations don’t need to be enormous before using each of those. I once managed a global department of around 100 people; its structure divided along the time axis first, then geography (with some regulatory accountabilities reaching in from higher up too), then customer and technology together, those last two in an informal matrix. On top of all that, we had a time & geography follow-the-sun thing going as well!
Technology and time come together in jobs-to-be-done (JTBD), hence the Bob Moesta reference. In fact, they come together in at least two ways:
There’s the ‘when’ of what Bob calls a “struggling moment”, or what in one of my more successful posts I called an “authentic situation of need“. This is when the need arises, creating the job-to-be-done and your opportunity to be there for your customer.
There’s another lifecycle, that of the customer’s relationship with you. How do they go from not knowing of your existence to being your champion? Between those extremes, through what stages to they pass, and what are their needs at each stage? Crudely, you can think of the functional separation of things like marketing, sales, and support as organising along this dimension, but read Bob’s book to understand this dimension more deeply in customer and product terms.
Bottom line, if your organisation’s structure doesn’t help it enjoy a healthy and productive relationship with its business environment, it’s going to struggle. Being able to understand its structure in the above terms is a good sign, and a much better starting point I think than the one that emphasises bigger structures and bigger processes for bigger projects, which both sadly and ironically is where Agile seems to be these days¹.
All five models of the complete mashup are brought together in Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale, the fourth and final module of Leading with Outcomes (more on that in the informational section below). The first two models, Flight Levels and the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation are emphasised in my upcoming meetup talk (already two iterations on from the March version as I’ve done it privately since, and I’m aiming for keynote quality):
As always, there are discounts available to employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors – and of course to Academy subscribers. If in doubt, ping me for a coupon code!
[This post shared on LinkedIn here – interaction of any kind appreciated!]
Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.
To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
In this edition: Adaptive Organisation (I) and (II); Three days in sunny June (date change); The questions that drive us (Webinar/AMA); Top posts; Events, self-paced training, and media
Adaptive Organisation (I) and (II)
Three related news items:
Adaptive Organisation (I) part I of Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale has been out a few days now
Just two more chapters to go now! You can start part I now, claim your certificate for that, and you’ll be well placed to finish part II by the end of April.
Three days in sunny June (date change)
Please note: To accommodate two anticipated block bookings, we’ve pushed this event back by a week.
Three days, each available separately, each certified. Buy two consecutive days and save 20%. Buy all three together and save 30%:
Day 1. Tuesday, June 20th: Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
Day 2. Wednesday, June 21st: Adaptive Organisation (I): Business agility at every scale
Day 3. Thursday, June 22nd: Adaptive Organisation (II): Between spaces, scopes, and scales
Save a further 10-40% with the discount code shown on your Agendashift Academy subscription – see the What’s included page of your Welcome course in your Academy library.
Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.
To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
Announcing Adaptive Organisation part I (00:01:53)
Out now: chapter 3 of Adaptive Organisation, the fourth and final module of Leading with Outcomes. This latest chapter, Mutual Trust Building, completes part I, for which a certificate of completion applies.
Part I, Business agility at every scale covers the three overlapping “spaces” of the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation, an accessible, “start where you are”, and complexity-conscious rendition of the Viable System Model:
Delivery, Discovery, and Renewal:
Inside value creation’s inner learning loop
Turning intent into progress, and experiments into intelligence and insights
Reconciling Agile and business agility
Adaptive Strategy:
Making organising commitments, autonomy at every scope and scale
Understanding self and environment, creating and managing options accordingly
Actively maintaining coherent identity, purpose, and values
Mutual Trust Building:
Models of trust-building leadership
The systemic role of trust
Sensemaking – making meaningful progress in the presence of ambiguity
The Deliberately Adaptive Organisation as described in part I is already a fractal, “every scale” model. Nevertheless, when it comes to challenges of scale, there is still plenty to talk about that is not well covered elsewhere. What should be happening between scales? How can we think less statically about structure and process? How do we get the organisation engaged on all of this?
With all of that on the agenda, Part II, Between spaces, scopes, and scales should begin its rollout in the coming days, one chapter at a time:
Between and across scales:
Navigating formal structure
Your organisation in 5 networks
Between and across scales: Structuring, connecting, translating, and reconciling
Organising at human scale
Thinking in circles – organising without reorganising
Teaming and re-teaming
The developmental organisation
Possibility and purpose
Conversations on organisation in the language of outcomes
Developing and pursuing strategy
Read on to find out how to access Adaptive Organisation!
Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.
To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
What prompted Ryan’s comment was a talk I gave last week at the abovementioned meetup – see below for the recording. It draws from chapter 4 of beta 1, which remains available to subscribers until beta 2 gets that far, which shortly it will. Thanks in no small part to the conversations that my talk spawned, I’ll be updating both the talk and the training module – the talk iterating towards a keynote I’ll be giving later in the year, the training material benefiting in the process.
The theme of “balance, constraint, and freedom” comes up both in the video and in a short interlude that follows chapter 2 and is released with it today. The module and its underlying model draw on two perspectives on organisation, namely complexity and systems, and it’s nice to bring the two together:
What does it mean to have things in balance with each other – in healthy and productive relationship? (In the talk I expand both what might be meant by “things” and what gets in the way of that kind of balance)
What does it mean to have the right constraints – constraints of various kinds that in combination keep us away from unhealthy and unproductive states and steer us towards more desirable states, maintaining our organisation’s coherence all the while?
And both the flip side of constraint and the product of those healthy relationships: what does it mean when we have freedom – freedom to do the right thing, freedom to collaborate creatively, freedom to find innovative solutions, freedom to reimagine who we are, freedom to redefine ourselves?
The complexity and systems perspectives each bring their own ranges of tools, but before we get technical, what does that right balance, constraint, and freedom feel like? Already, that’s a starting point for an interesting conversation. A more detailed and theory-informed conversation might be the next step, but don’t neglect the informal opportunities either – sometimes they’re the most revealing.
To the recorded talk specifically, if you detected the hint of a health warning in my mention above of updates and iteration, it is only that in this version I risk getting into more detail than I would want in a keynote. Not that it was a problem here – in fact the feedback was very encouraging. Not for the first time, I’m being told that I’m describing something that is both needed and timely – something that others have been grasping at but didn’t quite have the words for.
Watch to the end for a special offer, and watch out for later versions. I have a good idea already of what the next one will look like.
Stop press: see Upcoming events below, 27th April.
Between spaces, scopes, and scales: What the scaling frameworks don’t tell you
Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.
To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
[Updated 2022-03-20 – dates changed to accommodate block bookings!]
London SW1, UK. Three days, each available separately, each certified. Buy two consecutive days and save 20%. Buy all three together and save 30%:
Day 1. Tuesday, June 20th: Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
Day 2. Wednesday, June 21st: Adaptive Organisation (I): Business agility at every scale
Day 3. Thursday, June 22nd: Adaptive Organisation (II): Between spaces, scopes, and scales
Save a further 10-40% with the discount code shown on your Agendashift Academy subscription – see the What’s included page of your Welcome course in your Academy library.
Just in the last few days, I’ve had some capacity free up in April; please get in touch if interested in hosting any of the above privately. I will throw in a free 3-month Agendashift for Business subscription for up to 25 people, and as mentioned in last month’s roundup, while the self-paced version of Adaptive Organisation remains in beta (see below) I will be glad to discount the in-person version substantially. Please note that my ability to travel outside the UK remains somewhat limited.
Happening this week:
I’m excited also to announce that beta 2 of the self-paced version of Adaptive Organisation (parts I and II) begins its chapter-by-chapter release today; if you’re an Academy subscriber, you’ll be notified in the usual way. If you’re not yet a subscriber, start here!
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
I have had covid for most of the past week, and though I don’t feel seriously ill, coupled with the facts 1) that with my wife I’m part of a 24*7 care team for a vulnerable family member, and 2) that I’ve been called to jury service next month, I’ve had to make some changes.
So, in calendar order:
Next week’s Foundation is unfortunately cancelled
Next week’s webinar (with guests) and meetup are still going ahead – and I’m greatly looking forward to both
If you’re in India next month, don’t miss Karl Scotland’s Foundation
My next public workshop is in April, by the kind invitation of Gervase Bushe and hosted by the Cape Code Institute, details here
The May Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) is now open for bookings – UK mornings, relatively APAC-friendly timings (less convenient for the Americas this time round)
If you’re wondering meanwhile how this month’s TTT/F went, check this out.
Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale
There has been some impact on the not-quite-finished Adaptive Organisation module too, but I’m seeing it very much as a blessing in disguise. As agreed at a Zoom call yesterday with trainers participating in its beta programme, I will:
Release the existing videos to Academy subscribers as-is as “Beta 1” – without captions, workbook, or the final chapter
Release a greatly improved Beta 2 chapter by chapter
I gave a preview of Beta 2 at this month’s TTT/F, where one participant described it as “all I hoped it would be”. Yesterday’s Zoom was similarly encouraging, and I’m confident that it will be worth the wait.
From April onwards I will have capacity for private training. While Adaptive Organisation remains in beta it will be available in multiple formats at preferential pricing – so shout now if it could be of interest.
At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
Agendashift 