Tag: changeban

Agendashift roundup, February 2024

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: A big update to 15-minute FOTO; The Featureban Flow Experience; Coming in March: Obstacles Fast and Slow and more; Adaptive Organisation (Berlin & London); The Great Consolidation; Top Posts; Upcoming events

A big update to 15-minute FOTO

On Monday I released v13 of our Clean Language-inspired coaching game, 15-minute FOTO. This was the most significant release for a long time, making it easier for participants and facilitators alike to get things started. Read all about it here:

The Featureban Flow Experience

Also last Monday was the Featureban Flow Experience, a two-hour workshop which I co-hosted with Allan Kelly. Featureban is my open-source kanban simulation game, and we played it online using the KanbanZone tool. We had KanbanZone founder Dimitri Ponomareff in attendance also, and behind the scenes the three of us are working out how best make a Featureban template available to other KanbanZone users.

It was a lot fun, and given that this one sold out within 24 hours, I’ve no doubt that there will be more. The next one might see us use Changeban, a Lean Startup-flavoured and more gamified variant.

Speaking of kanban, my first book, Kanban from the Inside, has its 10th anniversary in September. I’m thinking of marking the occasion with a 1-day in-person event, most likely in London. It will be of interest to anyone looking for ways to introduce kanban in a manner more resonant with continuous improvement than the one most often taught. It could be described – at least to those in the know – as “Reverse STATIK meets Leading with Outcomes”, and it leaves you with not only a working kanban system but an organised agenda for change too. If you’re not sure what that all means (let alone what it might look like), watch this space.

Coming in March: Obstacles Fast and Slow and more

Hot on the heels of the 15-minute FOTO update comes Obstacles Fast Slow. This is a rename and an update to Good Obstacle, Bad Obstacle, the exercise that typically precedes 15-minute FOTO. The exercise in short: How you frame obstacles matters, and the process of reframing them can an interesting challenge! The March webinar slot is given over to this exercise so that we can record a new video:

The following week I’m ValueGlide’s guest with a new talk that expands on the short opening keynote I did at SEACON 2022:

The third of three free events in March is a regular fixture, a monthly experience/practice session – a chance perhaps to practice 15-minute FOTO:

April’s by the way breaks from the usual format. See Upcoming events below.

Adaptive Organisation (Berlin & London)

I did my first 1-day Adaptive Organisation Workshop at MBDA last week and was very happy with how it went (“Massive thumbs-up to the whole workshop” was one response). I only do these privately (do get in touch if you’d like to hold one; within reason I am increasingly able to travel) but yesterday I added two public Leading in a Transforming Organisation events to the calendar:

There are substantial savings offered on the first few tickets so get in there! The Berlin venue may be confirmed as soon as tomorrow (update: it was!), so be in little doubt that it will happen. For London, I have a venue in mind but am very open to it being hosted by a sponsoring organisation (so to speak) in return for seats. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if that could be of interest.

Leading in a Transforming Organisation is the longer form of the Adaptive Organisation workshop; the latter was extracted from the former. Presented in workshop format, it integrates the following modules of Leading with Outcomes, which you can take self-paced online if you can’t get to do it in person:

  1. Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
  2. Adaptive Organisation (I): Business agility at every scale
  3. Adaptive Organisation (II): Between spaces, scopes, and scales

The Great Consolidation

Slowly but surely, the Agendashift Academy is moving off its old platform and onto the new one, relying less and less on the gubbins that held it all together, making for a much smoother experience. Subscriptions are now native to the new platform, and a number of people whose yearly subscriptions were approaching renewal moved theirs across this month.

Over the next few weeks while this process continues, both in recognition that two modules have yet to be transferred (I’ll be re-recording them) and as an incentive to move subscriptions across, a substantial discount of 25% applies. Visit the Academy’s Store page to take advantage.

Top Posts

  1. A big update to 15-minute FOTO (February)
  2. From Flow to Business Agility (January)
  3. My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)
  4. From Reverse STATIK to a ‘Pathway’ for continuous transformation (October 2019)
  5. 15-minute FOTO’s cheat mode (October)

Upcoming events

Recent changes:

  • Leading in a Transforming Organisation (London) is brought forward a week to 25-27 June
  • Due to a venue clash, Leading in Transforming Organisation (Southampton) pushed back a couple of weeks to October 22-24
  • Webinars and experience/practise sessions are taking a break now until the autumn

May

June

October

*For TTT/F and Leading in a Transforming Organisation, ping me for coupon codes if any of the following apply:

  • Employees in public sector, education, and non-profit organisations get 40% off, as do authorised trainers and facilitators
  • There are subscription-specific discounts for Agendashift Academy subscribers
  • Members of the old partner programme get 30% off
  • Past participants of Leading in a Transforming Organisation can re-attend with 60% off (75% if you work for a public sector, education, or non-profit organisation)
  • Past TTT/F participants can re-attend online for free

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:

  1. Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
  2. Inside-out Strategy (I): On the same page, with purpose
  3. Inside-out Strategy (II): Fit for maximum impact
  4. Part I: Business agility at every scale
  5. Part II: Between spaces, scopes, and scales
  6. Outside-in Strategy: Positioned for success

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. Our next TTT/F training takes place in May (online).

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

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.

Up and Down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation

Posted on by Mike Burrows

As mentioned in last week’s roundup, I was the guest speaker last night at a #bacommunity webinar hosted by Adrian Reed of Blackmetric Business Solutions. I am blown away by the response (still ongoing), and Adrian has kindly made the recording available already. You can watch it here (below, ad free), on YouTube, or on Adrian’s webinar page (blackmetric.com).

A modern take on a 70’s classic, we take some of the tools of modern product and organisation development and plug them into Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model, a model that (still) describes organisations of all sizes that have the drive to survive in a changing environment. The result of this exercise will feel remarkably familiar to Lean-Agile eyes, and yet it helps to reveal some of the serious dysfunctions too often experienced with current frameworks, both team-level and larger.

Mike Burrows

About the Speaker
Agendashift founder Mike Burrows is the author of Agendashift: Outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation (2nd edition March 2021), Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile (2019, audiobook 2020), and the Lean-Agile classic Kanban from the Inside (2104). Mike is recognised for his pioneering work in Lean, Agile, and Kanban and for his advocacy for participatory and outcome-oriented approaches to change, transformation, and strategy. Prior to his consulting career, he was global development manager and Executive Director at a top tier investment bank, CTO for an energy risk management startup, and interim delivery manager for two of the UK government’s digital ‘exemplar’ projects.

Links shared in the talk:

  • deliberately-adaptive.org
  • agendashift.com/changeban
  • agendashift.com/assessments
  • agendashift.com/a3-template
  • agendashift.com/book (the 2021 2nd edition of Agendashift) and its recommended reading page, looking out in particular for these authors:
    • Stafford Beer (VSM originator)
    • my friend Patrick Hoverstadt – for The Fractal Organisation, the second of two of his books I reference
    • Robert Kegan & Lisa Laskow Lahey – here for An Everyone Culture.  Despite my oft-expressed aversion – alluded to in my talk – to staged development models, maturity models and the like, they impress hugely. The name ‘Deliberately Adaptive Organisation’ is totally inspired by their ‘Deliberately Developmental Organisation’, referenced towards the end of my talk. To integrate strategy, delivery, and development to the depth envisioned in Agendashift’s wholehearted mission, you need this stuff. Their Immunity to Change resonates too.
  • agendashift.com/subscribe – per the last slide, a ton of stuff still brewing and you don’t want to miss out 🙂

Enjoy!

What if we put authentic agreement on meaningful outcomes ahead of solutions?

Welcome to Agendashift™, the wholehearted engagement model

Agendashift™, the wholehearted engagement model
Links: Home | About | Our mission: Wholehearted | Become an Agendashift partner | Assessments | Books | Resources | Media | Events | Contact | Mike | Subscribe
Academy: Home | Store
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

1

Agendashift roundup, October 2019

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Berlin; Working at the intersection / a monster post on SAFe; Right to Left; Changeban, Featureban, and 15-minute FOTO; Upcoming workshops – Berlin, Oslo, Malmö, and online; Top posts

Berlin

I have a free day in Berlin today, arriving a day early to avoid travelling on what threatened to be Brexit day before a private workshop tomorrow. That workshop is actually the first of three November engagements in Berlin, with a 2-day Advanced Agendashift workshop and (through happy coincidence) the Open Leadership Symposium:

I keep saying it and I will say it again:

  • The Berlin workshop consistently delivers – not just a full house and a great experience, but a reliable source of great feedback and new ideas. Thank you Leanovate not just for hosting but for participating
  • The inaugural Open Leadership Symposium in Boston last May was a key coming together of multiple communities and it launched a new one. I have high expectations of the Berlin event, which takes place on the 19th with a selection of masterclasses on the 18th & 20th. If you’re thinking of coming to the main event, ping me for a chunky discount code (big enough to make a real difference, so don’t miss out!).

Working at the intersection / a monster post on SAFe

This was just a quick picture posted to LinkedIn and Twitter, but it has struck a chord with many people and it has already established itself as a way to introduce both myself and the communities I participate in. You’ll see some of the language reflected on the Agendashift site, the partner programme page most especially.

Who/where we are on one slide: People working at the intersection of Lean-Agile, Strategy, and Organisation Development – bringing balance & perspective, focus on needs & outcomes, helping each other up their game in new areas

working at the intersection

That picture is a good scene-setter to a post that within 36 hours was my most-read post of the year:

Also doing well is a Kanban-related post:

And I can only apologise for this related tweet 😉:

Right to Left

Thank you Paul and Justyna! Two podcasts for the price of one, a book review and an interview:

After a long delay, Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile is at last available in EPUB format. That means you can download it as an ebook from more online booksellers, including Apple Books, Google Play Books, and Kobo – just search “Right to Left Mike Burrows”.

There were two more 5 star reviews on Amazon UK this month (thank you!), making eight so far. We’re still waiting for the first one on Amazon US though, so who will be first?

Changeban, Featureban, and 15-minute FOTO

Some news about three of our Creative Commons-licensed resources.

Changeban 1.3 is now the recommended version (it was in beta until properly tested). I’ll be making the equivalent changes to Featureban before making a separate announcement. Also, their respective Slack channels have merged into one, #featureban-changeban.

The updated 15-minute FOTO cue card is definitely an improvement and it too is out of beta. A new ‘Lite’ (gentle introduction) version of the game has been through a number of iterations and we’ll announce it soon. It’s available to try if you know where to look! Slack channel #cleanlanguage, and it’s enabling some new #workshops (we’ll announce those properly soon too).

Upcoming workshops – Berlin, Oslo, Malmö, and online

Top posts

Leading change in the 21st century? You need a 21st century engagement model!
Links: Subscribe| Home | Partners | Books |Resources | Events | Contact | Mike
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

0

At last! Featureban 3.0 and Changeban 1.2

Posted on by Mike Burrows

As long promised, there is now an official 3.0 version of Featureban that incorporates the best of Changeban, making it easier to facilitate and more fun to play. Changeban itself has a new version 1.2 after some weeks in beta.

For the uninitiated, Featureban is (and I quote) our simple, fun, and highly customisable kanban simulation game. Since its creation in 2014 it has been used by trainers and coaches in Lean, Agile and Kanban-related events the world over. Changeban was derived from Featureban and retains many similarities, which is how improvements to Changeban have ultimately benefited Featureban too.

Which to use?

  • Featureban if you’re teaching Kanban in a development context and/or want to teach Kanban metrics
  • Changeban for most other purposes

I don’t go out of my way to advertise Kanban training. No big drama there but I have other priorities now and there’s no shortage of people who can do it. However, being the author of a recommended book has its privileges and I do get asked from time to time! In accordance with my “experience before explanation” mantra I always start any training with Featureban. I get to use Changeban rather more often these days – it’s a fixture at Advanced Agendashift workshops (see public workshop listings at the end of this announcement).

Key changes:

  • For Changeban, version 1.0 represented the completion of a transition from the use of coins as the source of variation to the use of cards instead (more on those in a moment). Featureban 3.0 does the same, with a transitional (coins or cards) version 2.3 and a classic 2.2 version (coins only) still available for old times’ sake in the Dropbox.
  • Affecting Featureban only, its biggest source of confusion has been eliminated. There is now no mention of pairing and gone are the well-intentioned but non-obvious restrictions that went with that; instead players may “help someone” (anyone!) if they’re out of other options. There is a small price to pay and it’s the reason for my hesitation to address the frustration: the flow efficiency calculation in the spreadsheet is now merely an estimate.
  • Changes to the slides to make both games quicker and easier to introduce. Changeban has improved in this regard even since the recent video! Thank you (once again) to Steven Mackenzie for the nudge and for your own experiments.
  • For practical reasons, it was a mistake on my part to distribute Featureban by sharing links to individual files. There’s now a single combined Dropbox folder with all the files (original sources, PDFs, and translations) for both games. Once you’re subscribed, you’ll always have access to the latest.

Cards:

Coins are not only less ubiquitous than once they were (it’s amazing how times change), they’re fiddly to handle, and they lack the replayability of cards. Trust me, once you’ve made the switch, you won’t want to go back!

Regular playing cards work well enough but I prefer to use these printed cards with the colour-specific rules on them:

These 65mm square cards were done by Moo (advertised as square business cards). We’re very happy with the results from testing but will continue to experiment with other formats. One small niggle here: the accept/reject rule shown here at the bottom of each card applies only to Changeban; this is made clearer in the most recent sources.

Open!

Featureban was one of my earliest experiments in Creative Commons licensing, and never a moment’s regret! Both games are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

Check out blog posts tagged open for more on our commitments in this area.

Subscribe! Collaborate!

Go to either Featureban or Changeban and request your combined Dropbox invite there. It’s not essential that you subscribe to the two individually – the folder is the same but feel free if you want to signal your interest in both.

And if you haven’t already, I would strongly recommend joining the #featureban and #changeban channels in the Agendashift Slack.

Upcoming Agendashift workshops
(Online, Stockholm, Athens, London, Istanbul, Berlin)

Leading change in the 21st century? You need a 21st century engagement model:

Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | Partners | Books |Resources | Events | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

 

0

Agendashift roundup, May 2019

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Martin, this one’s for you; Two kinds of organisation development (OD); Featureban and Changeban; Upcoming workshops – Stockholm, Berlin, and online; Top posts

Martin, this one’s for you

This month the Lean-Agile community mourned the sudden and tragic loss of Martin Burns, a friend to many. My tribute, with links to several others – all of which well worth reading – is here:

Right to Left

Everything crossed, Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile comes out next month (sorry, I can’t give an exact date yet). Watch out for a Q&A with Ben Linders on InfoQ soon, always a pleasure!

Two kinds of organisation development (OD)

“So many books, so little time” (Pliny the Younger or Frank Zappa – take your pick). I began the month with a book I wish I had known about soon enough to reference in Agendashift, Bushe & Marshak’s Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change. In a highly encouraging way it had a profound effect on me and continues to do so; read my initial thoughts and then some practical follow-through in these two posts:

Featureban and Changeban

For months I’ve been promising a big update to Featureban, a Kanban simulation game that is used around the world and remains one of my most popular downloads. Not only do I now have a 3.0 beta version that I’ll be playing next week and releasing soon, we’ve tested some improvements too in Changeban (see below a photo from Berlin last week) that benefit both games. So watch out for an announcement, both here on the blog and in your inbox if you’re a registered user of either game.

2019-05-23 13.28.28-1.jpg

Meanwhile, we have at last a video for Changeban (thank you Steven Mackenzie for producing it), announcement here:

Upcoming workshops – Stockholm, Berlin, and online

Watch this space for autumn dates in Greece, Turkey, London, and the Benelux region.

Top posts

Recent:

  1. Martin, this one’s for you
  2. What kind of Organisational Development (OD)? (And a book recommendation)
  3. A video for Changeban (and related: what’s in store for Featureban)
  4. Takeaways from Boston and Berlin
  5. Needs-based, outcome-oriented, continuous, open

Older:

  1. ‘Right to Left’ works for Scrum too (July 2018)
  2. How the Leader-Leader model turns Commander’s Intent upside down(June 2018)
  3. Stringing it together with Reverse Wardley (February 2019)

Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence 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…

 

0

A video for Changeban (and related: what’s in store for Featureban)

Posted on by Mike Burrows

Changeban is our Lean Startup-flavoured Kanban simulation game. It is based on our classic game Featureban, with easier mechanics, a Lean Startup-inspired board design, and some different learning objectives. Both games are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (Yay! Open!).

As promised a couple of days ago in the April roundup, the Changeban page now includes a video of a game session recorded at last month’s London workshop. I’m grateful to Agendashift partner Steven Mackenzie for its production. You’ll find it and loads more information at agendashift.com/changeban.

Questions? Channel #changeban in the Agendashift Slack; request access here. 

In store for Featureban

At around the 37:05 mark you will notice this exchange:

Dragan: Can a work item – a sticky – move more than one step in a round?

Mike: Yes they can. I know where that question is coming from – if you’ve played Featureban, the rules discourage the cards from moving more than one column per round (per day). The reason for that is technical, and it’s annoying, and it makes the rules unnecessarily complicated. The language is changed in Changeban so that it’s just that if you can’t do anything for yourself, you help somebody.

The Featureban rules in question are those that mention pairing. Instead of helping someone (anyone!) as Changeban allows, you’re allowed to pair up only with someone who can’t otherwise move. These rather frustrating rules generate more questions than the rest put together! The technical issue I mention in the video is that disallowing cards from moving more than one column in a day happens to make the calculation of flow efficiency in the metrics iteration very easy. I’m convinced now that the complication and restrictiveness is an unnecessarily high price to pay.

Admittedly I’ve been saying this for a while (I also had a book to finish!), but soon(ish) I will publish a Featureban 3.0 beta version that ditches the pairing rules in favour of Changeban’s much kinder “help someone” rules. While I’m at it, I’ll complete the transition from coins to playing cards as the source of variation.

Upcoming workshops – Boston, Berlin, Oslo, and Stockholm

Watch this space for Greece, Turkey, London, and the Benelux region in the autumn.

Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence 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…
0

Agendashift roundup, January 2019

Posted on by Mike Burrows

A shorter and less structured roundup this month – there are a number of additions and changes to the events calendar in the pipeline and I’ll begin to announce these separately in the coming weeks. Watch out for details of 2-day Advanced workshops in the UK, the Netherlands, in Germany, Scandinavia, Greece, and the US. The last of those will be announced as a masterclass linked to an exciting new event, The Open Leadership Symposium, which takes place in Boston in May.

Right to Left

Before things get crazy again I have a quietish February in prospect and there’s every chance that I’ll have a decent draft of Right to Left done by the end of the month. I’ve been aiming for early summer for publication; dare I say late spring now? We’ll see!

To whet your appetite, the first few paragraphs of the introduction now appear on the Right to Left landing page. If you’d like to read the whole introduction, drop me a line or visit channel #right-to-left in Slack.

Changeban and Featureban

My recent trip to India plus a private workshop back in the UK has given me three more opportunities to run Changeban sessions, two of them for 50+ people at a time. Based on the experience of those larger sessions (both of which were recorded; fingers crossed we’ll be able to share at least one of them) I’ve switched around some of the introductory slides – in the ‘endgame’ part, if you’re familiar with it. If you’ve signed up to the Changeban Dropbox, look for a version 1.1 deck. Nothing fundamental, it just flows better.

I’ve still not had the chance to test Featureban with Changeban-style rules and it seems likely that others will beat me to it. When that does finally happen (and I’ll be grateful), watch out for Featureban 3.0. Until then it remains at version 2.3.

Questions? #changeban and #featureban in Slack.

Top posts

  1. My favourite Clean Language question
  2. A Grand Unification Theory for Lean-Agile?
  3. How the Leader-Leader model turns Commander’s Intent upside down (June)
  4. Right to Left: a transcript of my Lean Agile Brighton talk (October)
  5. My kind of Agile (November)
Agendashift-cover-thumbBlog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence 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…

 

0

Rejection, insight, and learning

Posted on by Mike Burrows

Two questions:

  • When did you last reject an idea as a result of deliberate testing?
  • What did you learn in the process?

And a followup question:

  • How does your process encourage that kind of rejection and learning to happen?

If your process doesn’t keep asking the right questions, you can be pretty sure you’re over-investing either in stuff no-one needs, or in changes that won’t deliver the organisational benefits you expect. But if you program in the time to reflect on your rejected ideas (however sporadically they’re currently happening), the rest might just follow.

Here’s how at the end of the Changeban [1, 2] game we model that reflection and introduce two key concepts: the hypothesis and double-loop learning [2] (notice the two levels of learning identified by the red callouts):

changeban-retrospect-on-experiments-2018-12-03

In theory, if you have an organisational design that encourages double-loop learning, the rest of your process will soon catch up. In my experience however, it’s rare to see it outside of those organisations that haven’t already chosen to pursue a hypothesis-driven, outcome-oriented, ‘right-to-left’ kind of delivery process.

For example, heavily ‘projectised’ organisations typically learn painfully slowly. This is only partly explained by the fact that they do everything in large batches that take a very long time to process. There are deeper issues:

  • Once the scope of a project has been decided, the mere thought that there might be more needs to discover and respond to is often actively discouraged. If discovery happens at all, it is done by people outside the delivery team in preparation for future projects, greatly limiting the opportunity to integrate new learning into current work.
  • Similarly, when the ironically-named ‘lessons learned’ meeting finally arrives, it is already too late for the project in question to test any proposed process changes, and it’s unlikely that other projects will be ready to do much with the insights generated either.

Not that Agile has this stuff completely sorted either:

  • Backlog-driven Agile projects (four words that will never gladden my heart) remain susceptible to the scope problem, and typically they don’t make a habit of framing individual pieces of work in ways designed to invite challenge
  • Even where the delivery process is a good generator of insights, team-centric Agile tends to limit the organisational scope of any learning

In Right to Left [4] (due summer 2019) I will describe a style of delivery organisation that has i) managed to let go of that old left-to-right kind of thinking, and ii) explicitly created not just opportunities for organisational learning to happen but the clear expectation that it will will be happening all of the time, a natural part of the process, and ‘real work’.

Fortunately, there are enough real-world examples of right-to-left thinking out there that I know that it is no idealistic fantasy. Neither is it a doomed attempt to shoehorn diverse experiences into a single and over-complicated delivery framework or to extrapolate from the experiences of just a few. Rather, the right-to-left concept represents a concentrated essence of Lean, Agile, and Lean-Agile working at their best, a helpful metaphor, and a unifying theme, one that allows me to celebrate a wide range of models, tools, and examples. Each of those is unique and special, but a commitment to learning connects all of them.

In the meantime, don’t forget Agendashift [5, 6]! This is no stopgap, but rather an approach to change and transformation through which that same right-to-left philosophy runs very deep. If you’re in the business of change in what could broadly be described as the Lean-Agile space and are hungry for alternatives to 20th century change management, the book and the tools it describes could be just what you’re looking for.

[1] Changeban (www.agendashift.com)
[2] Changeban has reached version 1.0 (blog.agendashift,com)
[3] Double-loop learning (en.wikipedia.org)
[4] Right to Left (www.agendashift.com)
[5] Agendashift: Outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation (www.agendashift.com)
[6] Agendashift (www.agendashift.com)

Subscribe here for monthly roundups and very occasional mid-month announcements

Upcoming public Agendashift workshops (India*2, Netherlands):

Agendashift-cover-thumbBlog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence 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…
0

Changeban has reached version 1.0

Posted on by Mike Burrows

After several iterations (including runs at multiple workshops just this month) I’m delighted to announce that our Lean Startup-flavoured Kanban simulation game Changeban has reached version 1.0. As with its older sibling Featureban, it is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

changeban-crazy-wip-2018-11-26
Some crazy, off-the-board WIP happening there…

In recent weeks we have:

  • Removed all mention of coins (the source of variation in Changeban’s older sibling, Featureban), coming down firmly on the side of using playing cards.
  • Clarified instructions, with fewer slides and fewer words
  • Amplified certain concepts, most notably rejection (the positive, celebration-worthy decision to deem an experiment as failed), pull, and double-loop learning

I created Featureban in 2014 and it has been very good to me. In that time it has seen multiple adaptations and translations (thank you!) and has been used the world over. This year, I’ve played Changeban enough times to know that it’s a worthy successor, and it’s my preferred choice unless I have a particular need for Featureban’s metrics coverage (enough justification to use both with some clients, on separate visits). Changeban doesn’t just teach mechanics, it teaches a learning process, and because it feels less tied to a development process it removes a potential obstacle for some non-techies. In short: if you like Featureban, I think you’ll love Changeban.

Attendees of my 2-day Advanced Agendashift workshop in Gurugram (below) will definitely get to play it, and attendees of 1-day Core workshops (Julia’s in Munich or mine in Mumbai) might also. In Core workshops it would be at the expense of other things, but that’s a trade that participants are often happy to make.

Want to know more? Head over to the Changeban page – it’s all there!

Registered users will be emailed download instructions in the next few hours. Agendashift partners will find it under the Commons folder in the partner Dropbox.

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

Agendashift-cover-thumbBlog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence 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…

 

0

A small revision to Changeban

Posted on by Mike Burrows

Friday was quite a big day! Agendashift’s second birthday, plenty of attention for the article Engagement: more than a two-way street, and an Agendashift Studio*, a small-scale workshop held in my studio office.

After lunch at our local farm shop we played Changeban. Changeban is based on our popular Featureban game, with slightly different mechanics, a Lean Startup-inspired board design (below), and an introduction to hypothesis-based techniques.

Screenshot 2018-09-18 11.42.20

It went down a treat, generating these interesting comments:

Featureban’s great but I think I will start using Changeban with my clients instead. By not simulating a software development process, people who work outside of technology will relate to it much more easily.
– Steve

Absolutely agree. Not once during playing the game did we reference or talk about anything tech-related.
– Karen

Always keen to make language as accessible as possible (something the Agendashift delivery assessment is appreciated for), I’ve done another pass on the Changeban deck and removed all references to “features”. Instead of “feature ideas”, we have “product ideas”; “feature experiments” becomes “product experiments”, and so on. Small changes, but every little helps!

These new references to “product” also help to reinforce an observation made in the Agendashift book: tools designed for the product development space often have applicability in the organisational/process improvement space, and vice versa. Lean Startup is the perfect example of that!

If you’re a registered Changeban user, you’ll receive an update by email from me sometime in the next few hours. If you aren’t registered and would like to be, sign up here. We’re now up to revision 0.4; it seems stable enough to go to 1.0 once I get round to preparing a page of facilitation instructions (there’s a #changeban channel in the Agendashift Slack meanwhile).

*There is no calendar for these Agendashift Studio events – they’re self-organised via the #agendashift‑studio channel in Slack. If 3‑4 participants can agree on a date that works for me too, then we’re on! We’re based in Chesterfield, UK, close to the Peak District National Park.

Upcoming Agendashift workshops (UK, IT, DE)

Agendashift-cover-thumbBlog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Links: Home | About | Partners | Resources | Contact | Mike
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

We are champions and enablers of outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation. Building from agreement on outcomes, Agendashift facilitates rapid, experiment-based emergence 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…
0