Takeaways from the first Advanced Agendashift workshop “Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation”

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Mike Burrows

It’s fair to say that it went well:

Thank you again for the last 2 days, I have been raving about it to my manager today!

If I or any of our participants had any anxieties, they weren’t about our ability to fill two days (that was never in doubt), but that “Advanced” would mean “complicated” or “only for experts”. Thankfully, we can put those worries aside. The feedback demonstrates that Advanced here means “deep”, “inspiring”, “challenging”, “enabling meaningful discussion”, “causing new connections to be made”, “giving the confidence and determination to try these tomorrow”, and so on. All of these for a surprisingly diverse group of participants: some new to Lean and Agile, others experienced practitioners, some from industry, one there for his second Agendashift workshop!

The pictures below show the feedback stickies from the closing session (some really lovely messages there, thank you), followed by takeaways from the Discovery, Exploration, Mapping, and Elaboration sessions. Lots of love there for the models, the tools, their applicability, the discussions they provoked, and for Agendashift’s principled (but still very practical) stance that we summarise as outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation.

overall — Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation

Discovery

Exploration

Mapping

Elaboration

In reference to some of the tools mentioned on the stickies, go to our resources page for 15-minute FOTO, Changeban, the Agendashift A3 template, etc. Visit Karl Scotland’s blog for his X-Matrix template. All of these are published under Creative Commons licenses and you are encouraged not just to use them but to adapt them to your needs and to share (with appropriate attribution).

Upcoming Agendashift workshops (see Events ):

6 April, Raleigh, NC, USA – Mike Burrows, Kert Peterson
14-15 May, Munich, Germany – Mike Burrows, Mike Leber
22-23 May, Cardiff, UK – Mike Burrows

We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based evolution of process, practice, and organisation. Instead of Lean and Agile by imposition – contradictory and ultimately self-defeating – we help you keep your business vision and transformation strategy aligned with and energised by a culture of meaningful participation. More…

Updated materials for ‘15-minute FOTO’

Posted on February 5, 2018July 16, 2022 by Mike Burrows

As promised in last week’s roundup, there are now updated versions of the cue card and facilitation deck for our Clean Language-inspired coaching game, 15-minute FOTO.

PDFs of both are available for anonymous download at the above link, where you’ll also find a video of a workshop session that includes the game (among other Agendashift-related things). It’s also covered in chapter 1 of the book.

If you’d like the original PPTX files, just ask. Also, the #cleanlanguage channel in the Agendashift Slack is a good place for questions, and shout if you need an invite.

Changes:

At the top of the card, we’ve given the coach a question to initiate each conversation
We have given subtle emphasis to “What would you like to have happen?” and “Then what happens?”, the two most important questions in the game
We’ve included the most up-to-date poster on the reverse (a download for this is also available and we’ll email registered users about that separately soon)

Enjoy!

What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

Agendashift roundup, January 2018

Posted on January 31, 2018January 31, 2018 by Mike Burrows

In this edition: The latest on the book and related Agendashift resources; Director of Continuous Transformation; Workshops; Inverting the pyramid; Top posts

The latest on the book and related Agendashift resources

I’ve done a final revision on the Leanpub edition of the book in preparation for print publication in April. The most substantial changes are to the final chapter (more on this in “Inverting the pyramid” below), also:

A more digestible title: Agendashift: Outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation
The poster (downloadable) has been updated with feedback from Agendashift partner Steven Mackenzie
The cue cards (also downloadable) for our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO have been updated to ease the start of each conversation and to give greater emphasis to the most important questions
As per the announcement, the True North and principles are now Creative Commons. I’m finding it very handy to have memorable URLs for these and I’ve used the images in the book.

If you’re a registered user of any of these resources you’ll be contacted in the next few days with the download link for the new versions. If you don’t have them or you can’t wait that long, get in touch.

Director of Continuous Transformation

Over in the Agendashift Slack we’ve had some fun over the past few days discussing ideal job titles in the #coaching channel. As it happens, I have sufficient capacity now to declare for real that I’d love the title “Director of Continuous Transformation (part-time)”. If I could help bolster your leadership team or internal coaching team on a part-time basis, let’s talk. Will travel (within reason).

Workshops

It’s the Leeds Advanced workshop next week and there are a couple of places left if you’re quick. Workshops in the US and Germany (April and May) are yet to be listed – please contact (respectively) partners Kert Peterson or Mike Leber about those; after that it’s Cardiff in late May.

As ever, shout if you would like a public or private workshop somewhere near you, and there are more events listed in our events calendar.

Inverting the pyramid

Chapter 5 has gained a new figure:

inverted-pyramid — The inverted pyramid, Agendashift-style

All is revealed in yesterday’s blog post Inverting the pyramid, start-with-what-you-do-now style. Also, I’ll be speaking on this topic at London Lean Kanban Days 2018 (23-24 April) – see you there!

Inverting the pyramid, start-with-what-you-do-now style

Posted on January 30, 2018July 26, 2018 by Mike Burrows

The theory:

classic-inverted-pyramid

That’s right, the entire organisation supporting its customer-facing staff, the CEO at the bottom of the inverted pyramid. Intriguing!

Here’s my version, which you’ll find in chapter 5 of the latest revision of the Agendashift book (the last announced Leanpub revision before we go to print):

Key differences:

Instead of the CEO and senior managers we have processes. No need to promote power hierarchies!
It’s opinionated: each process begins with Discovery and ends with Validation. It’s both humbling and powerful – transformative, even – to acknowledge both that we don’t know everything, not least the eventual impact of our work.
Review meetings of various unspecified kinds – service delivery reviews, capability reviews, strategy reviews, and risk reviews, even standup meetings and planning meetings
Mutual accountabilities, horizontally and vertically

The lack of specificity in point 3 is deliberate: in Agile terms, we’re scaling, but we’re inviting a start with what you do now approach rather than insisting on a particular process framework. So how, exactly?

Here are three ways for you to look at your existing review meetings, three dimensions in which most such meetings can be improved:

How might they be more outside-in (customer before organisation, platform, product, team, etc)? Who best represents each agenda item? In what order? Sharing what metrics (and implying what values)? What contradictions are we likely to find between these different perspectives, and are we prepared to deal with them?
How might they be more right-to-left (recently-completed work first, then working backwards)? Do participants feel mutually accountable for an end-to-end process that focusses on outcomes and finishes with validation? What keeps those outcomes connected to authentic needs, and how are needs discovered and prioritised? What keeps workloads at appropriate levels?
Horizontally and vertically, do your meetings together cover the organisation (or at least the part thereof that is the focus of your interest)? Horizontally, does each contributing part feel sufficiently connected, with overlapping participation across meetings? Vertically, is the organisation adequately represented so that delivery work, capability-related work, and mission can be kept in alignment?

The trick is to recognise that you don’t have to turn everything upside-down in one giant upheaval – the reorientation can start locally, and at any level. Locally doesn’t mean “timidly” though – in fact the way these strategies encourage accountability horizontally and vertically across organisational boundaries makes them both silo-busting and bubble-busting. Scary perhaps, but if you want to influence the rest of the organisation, then maybe you must be prepared to be influenced back…

More on this in my talk at London Lean Kanban Days 2018 (23-24 April) – see you there!

Upcoming Agendashift workshops (see Events ):

6-7 February, Leeds
22-23 May, Cardiff

Will anything change after the meeting?

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Mike Burrows

In order of importance:

You understand the needs of others differently
You made a personal decision
You agreed something with other participants
You know how you will hold each other mutually accountable for what happens next

And who is responsible for those – you or your facilitator? Yes!

Related:

Two more Agendashift resources are now Creative Commons

Upcoming Agendashift workshops (see Events ):

6-7 February, Leeds
22-23 May, Cardiff

Reading Peter Block

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Mike Burrows

Results are achieved when members of a system collectively choose to move in a certain direction. It is this act of choice that is critical. … No change – no matter how wise and needed – will help if there is not a widespread and deep sense that each individual exercising choice and working together must make this work.
~ Peter Block, Flawless Consulting, 3rd edition

That’s from Flawless Consulting – I’m nearing the end of the audiobook. Not for nothing do we have “Agree on outcomes” as principle #2!

Lasting impressions:

The power of authenticity – impressed that he makes it such a practical issue without in any way risking cynicism. I was reminded of Schein and I make this connection explicit in the Advanced workshop
His regard for “whole system” and positive, asset/strength/gift-based approaches (as opposed to the more traditional “3rd party” consulting model).

You get the sense that he has been on a bit of a journey on that second one. I’m planning a longer blog post on the issues there in the context of Lean-Agile transformation.

Upcoming workshops (see Events ):

6-7 February, Leeds
22-23 May, Cardiff

Two more Agendashift resources are now Creative Commons

Posted on January 11, 2018January 19, 2018 by Mike Burrows

[Updated Jan 12th with the two images below]

I found myself wanting to be able to reference the Agendashift principles and True North via memorable URLs, so here they are:

agendashift.com/principles

principles

agendashift.com/true-north

true-north

In the process, they have joined a growing list of Agendashift-related resources available under a Creative Commons with-attribution licence, to enable their wider use and to encourage adaptations. To make this encouragement more visible, if you go to our Resources page you’ll notice that several of the items listed there are now marked with the CC-BY-SA logo:

Use them, adapt them, translate them. And pass them on!

Related:

Agendashift in 5 principles
A True North for Lean-Agile?

Upcoming workshops (see Events ):

6-7 February, Leeds (early bird expires Tuesday, January 16th)
22-23 May, Cardiff

Agendashift as leadership development

Posted on January 9, 2018June 5, 2018 by Mike Burrows

Not everyone who attends our 1-day practitioner (now “Core“) workshops has been a coach or consultant. A significant proportion have held positions of responsibility within organisations of all kinds, technology-centric or otherwise. For workshops held privately, that can mean everyone in the room!

We’re now able to take this to another level, offering an Advanced Agendashift workshop that not only gives participants the opportunity to practice some important transformation-related skills, it goes on to help them explore, reflect on, and grow their understanding of the (overlapping) roles of coach and leader. It is Lean-Agile leadership development of a much deeper kind than you’ll get from studying a process framework or attending a bootcamp. My goal is to get it onto the leadership development curriculum of at least one major organisation this year. Yours (or your client’s) perhaps?

Readers of this blog will recognise the 5-part structure below. Everything shown here in italics is specific to the Advanced workshop; the remainder is Core (so no, you needn’t have attended a Core workshop previously):

Discovery: Describing where we would like to get to
- Exploring organisational context, objectives, obstacles, and outcomes
- Plan on a page
- Culture, values, and Systems Thinking
Exploration: Prospecting for opportunities
- Mission, purpose, and identity
- Organisational self-awareness and empathy
- Debriefing your Agendashift delivery assessment
- Generating outcomes
- Exploring different approaches
- Understanding and supporting the learning process
Mapping: Building a visual transformation plan
- Transformation mapping
- Strategy model reconciliations
- Other mapping tools
Elaboration: Framing actions, testing our thinking
- Changeban: a Lean Startup flavoured variant of Featureban, our popular simulation game
- Creating options, framing hypotheses, developing experiments
- Cross-checking your experiment design
- Authenticity: stories, requirements, and needs
Operation: Change as real work
- Operating continuous transformation
- Organising for alignment, follow-through, and mutual accountability
- The Agendashift adaptability assessment and followups

We now have two UK dates in the calendar:

6-7 February, Leeds (early bird expires on January 16th, a week from today)
22-23 May, Cardiff

Over the next few weeks we’ll be adding locations in Europe and further afield. Wherever you are, I’m particularly keen to explore opportunities to hold these workshops internally, on my own or with partners.

Partners have already reviewed the new material over video, and some will no doubt be planning to use all or part of it with their clients. The way it is built around the Core material means that even those who don’t expect to use it anytime soon have additional resources to fall back on should the need or opportunity arise.

About that New Year strategy workshop…

Posted on January 2, 2018January 11, 2018 by Mike Burrows

Happy New Year! In lieu of the December roundup some seasonal updates: strategy workshops; website changes; top blog posts of 2017.

Strategy workshops

It’s the New Year: fresh starts, new beginnings, strategy workshops! We have three transformation strategy workshops to choose from:

Core Agendashift: Facilitating Outcome-Oriented Change – the 1-day introduction to outcome-oriented change, a practitioner-focused version of the Applied workshop. Hold this one in-house if you have consultants, coaches, and others with change responsibility (managers included) on your staff.
Applied Agendashift: Co-Creating Your Transformation Strategy – the same Core material, but focused on your organisation and its transformation. We’ve had all kinds of participants – new joiners sat next to C-suite leaders, for example. Usually an intense 1-day workshop, but it can be shortened or done in smaller chunks over a period as part of a longer engagement. For obvious reasons, this one is only ever run privately.
Advanced Agendashift: Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation – We’re very excited about this one, running our first public 2-day workshop early next month. “Transformation strategy as leadership development” is a good way to think about this one.

Get in touch with us or one of our partners if you’d like to explore these further, or if you’d like to become a partner yourself so that you can offer them to your clients.

There are currently three public workshops in the calendar with more to be added soon:

Advanced Agendashift, 6-7 February, Leeds, UK
Core Agendashift, 6 April, Raleigh, NC, USA (also a partner day on the 4th)
Advanced Agendashift, 24-25 May, Cardiff, UK

In lieu of the December roundup, a couple of seasonal updates: website changes and top blog posts of 2017.

Website changes

We used the break to give the website a lick of paint. As well as making the place generally more inviting, we have:

Made room on a simplified home page for our first wave of corporate partners – companies who have multiple individual practitioner partners or who have generated Agendashift-related business for other partners
Consolidated multiple pages onto single pages for workshops and assessments

Screenshot 2017-12-29 12.41.18 — https://www.agendashift.com

Poster updates

Posted on December 15, 2017January 11, 2018 by Mike Burrows

Today I’ve been busy updating the website, the book, and our workshop materials with a new version of the poster:

poster-main-2017-12-15 — Because every framework needs a poster…

Changes from the original version:

Fewer words, bigger font
Removed the line that went between 2. Exploration and 4. Elaboration (it raised more questions than it answered)
Specific mention of “Aspirations” as an output captured from 1. Discovery, improving the setup to the brief reference to X-Matrix I make in the Mapping chapter of the book (see also the Lean-Agile Strategy Days workshops I do with Karl Scotland from time to time)
No more “values-based” – we no longer use this as a description of Agendashift (dropped in favour of “outcome-oriented”) and the names of the two assessment tools have been shortened

You can click the image to request a PDF version. Enjoy!

Agendashift

Agendashift

Serving the transforming organisation

Author: Mike Burrows

Takeaways from the first Advanced Agendashift workshop “Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation”

Updated materials for ‘15-minute FOTO’

Agendashift roundup, January 2018

The latest on the book and related Agendashift resources

Director of Continuous Transformation

Workshops

Inverting the pyramid

Top posts

Inverting the pyramid, start-with-what-you-do-now style

Will anything change after the meeting?

Reading Peter Block

Two more Agendashift resources are now Creative Commons

Agendashift as leadership development

About that New Year strategy workshop…

Strategy workshops

Website changes

Top blog posts of 2017

Poster updates