Tag: foto15

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

February

March

*TTT/F and (where shown) LIKE events include free one-year membership of the Leading with Outcomes Authorised Facilitator programme, upgradeable to Authorised Trainer at any time. Both of those include access to the video-based Leading with Outcomes training and the full range of Agendashift assessment tools.

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. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

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.

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.

A big update to 15-minute FOTO

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this new version of our Clean Language-inspired coaching game:

  1. Integrating the Classic and Lite editions formats
  2. Cheat mode
  3. General tidyup
  4. Standard and premium versions

1. Integrating the Classic and Lite formats

The Lite format (or ‘edition’, as it has been called up to now) was introduced in 2019 in version 7 thus:

To understand why we’ve wanted to make changes, consider what each participant is doing when they play the game for the first time:

  • Familiarising themselves with the Clean Language questions (from the cue card if it’s an in-room workshop, from the screen if it’s online)
  • Taking turns in the role of client, coach, scribe, or observer, participating in or supporting what can be an intense 1-on-1 coaching conversation
  • Worrying about the game’s objective, which to generate and capture outcomes

That’s a lot! Instead of doing this all at once, the Lite edition starts with a familiarisation exercise, turns the conversation into one for the table group as a whole, and the objective matters only after everyone has had a chance to get comfortable with it all.

If, as happens in many of our workshops, you plan to do 15-minute FOTO twice, you can start with the Lite edition and do the classic edition the second time round.

Since 2021 and version 11, the Scribe and Observer roles have been combined into a Host role. With the latest wording for the Lite format, the formats and roles are now described as follows:

  • Classic format – rotating every few minutes through the roles of Client, Coach, and Host so that everyone gets a turn in every role
  • Lite format – anyone can ask, anyone can answer – but don’t get stuck too long in one role or on one obstacle

Role responsibilities:

  • Client: Chooses obstacles, responds to the coach’s questions with short, bullet point answers
  • Coach: Guides the conversation using only the clean questions from the card and the client’s own words
  • Host: Helps others enjoy a productive conversation, ensuring that “anything that sounds like an outcome” gets captured

Previously, the slides for the Lite format didn’t mention roles until the debrief. We have found however that participants find them helpful, to the extent that some facilitators choose to skip the introductory Lite format and go straight to the altogether more intense Classic format. They are now integrated such that with just one Classic slide, Lite participants gain a clearer picture of how the game can proceed, and are free to play the game anywhere on a wide spectrum between only loosely coordinated and the highly structured Classic format itself.

Facilitators may skip/hide slides or explain both formats as they prefer, perhaps leaving decisions on that until the last moment. Training and workshop decks need only one set of 15-minute FOTO slides, not two. These benefits are substantial – not least to me, who maintains it all!

2. Cheat mode

Introduced recently in the blog post 15-minute FOTO’s cheat mode, the game now allows an additional question (or variants thereof):

  • Why is that important?

For reasons explained in that article, this question is not included on the cue card.

3. General tidyup

I won’t describe them all in detail, but there has been a raft of minor-to-moderate changes, including:

  • The sequencing of slides in the facilitation deck
  • A thorough overhaul of the 15-minute FOTO page on agendashift.com – well worth a read
  • Wording aligned with Leading with Outcomes

An example of that last one is this tip:

  • Treat What would you like to have happen? as inviting a small outcome – a first, tiniest sign that something interesting might be beginning to emerge

That wording comes from the commentary I use behind a progression familiar to Adademy students. Long before we introduce 15-minute FOTO in a later module, we see this from Foundation onwards:

  • Signs of emergence
  • Indicators of progress
  • Measures of success
  • Goals and aspirations

It’s outcomes all the way down!

4. Standard and premium versions

As ever, the standard Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA) version of the materials that has the same look and feel as other open source resources is available via the 15-minute FOTO page on agendashift.com. This format also includes translations in to French, German, Swedish, Danish, and Italian, some of these more up to date than others. If you’ve accessed it via Dropbox previously, you’ll find the latest materials – deck, cue card, etc – already there for you.

The premium version of 15-minute FOTO has the Agendashift Academy look and feel, some bonus slides, and a short video. Together with other premium resources, it is available to Academy subscribers and supporters here. For access to that and much more, visit the store. The bonus slides:

  • A nice introductory slide that facilitators can practice speaking over as it builds up
  • An extra slide in the debrief exploring the relationship between coaching conversations and strategy conversations
  • A parting shot: Client, Coach, Host: Who’s the leader here?

All of that is explained in the Leading with Outcomes module Inside-out Strategy (I): On the same page, with purpose. We will take a second look in Inside-out Strategy (II): Fit for maximum impact (recording beginning shortly), and it is used in the Adaptive Organisation and Outside-in Strategy modules also. 15-minute FOTO features also in nearly all of our workshops – often the highlight!

While we’re here, Obstacles Fast and Slow

One prerequisite for 15-minute FOTO is a list of obstacles, suitably framed. To that end, don’t miss our upcoming webinar:

Obstacles Fast and Slow is an update to the exercise formerly known as Good Obstacle, Bad Obstacle, and the webinar recording will go on the revised page.

Related

Upcoming events

February

March

*TTT/F and (where shown) LIKE events include free one-year membership of the Leading with Outcomes Authorised Facilitator programme, upgradeable to Authorised Trainer at any time. Both of those include access to the video-based Leading with Outcomes training and the full range of Agendashift assessment tools.

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. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

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.

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.

15-minute FOTO’s cheat mode

Posted on by Mike Burrows

15-minute FOTO, Agendashift’s Clean Language-inspired coaching game, has a cheat mode! It’s a question that’s not on the card*:

The secret question:

Why is that important?

If you’re starting with an obstacle that seems to beg the answer to “What would you like to have happen?”, try “Why is that important?” instead. Much more interesting! Yesterday in Melbourne, it worked so well that nearly every conversation in the game began that way. You can’t be sure that what gets generated will be an obstacle or an outcome – if the answer is long, probably some of both – so listen carefully and choose your next question accordingly.

That’s not its only use. If you feel that you’ve exhausted “Then what happens?”, try “Why is that important?”. Want to go back to something mentioned earlier in the conversation? Same question, prefixing it with “And when…” to reference the thing of interest.

If “Why is that important?” works so well, why is it not on the card? Well, it’s not a canonical Clean question; it’s only “cleanish”. In the wrong context, that question can be loaded with assumption. If I ask it of (say) an obstacle that someone has taken the trouble to prioritise, refine, and so on, it’s important, no problem. But if I ask it of something whose importance isn’t established, I’m making an assumption. If our goal is to explore the model existing or being built in someone else’s mind, let’s treat it (and by implication, that other person, the client) with due respect. To bring our own assumptions into the conversation would risk tainting that model, perhaps irrecoverably. So use with care!

I have no plans to add that question (or any other – Clean or cleanish) to the cue card. I’m in no hurry to add it to the facilitation deck either. It can be our little secret 😉

While we’re here, a couple of special offers:

Both of those links have the discounts already applied for you. For the first one, larger discounts are available for for public sector, non-profits, etc; ping me if they apply.

*Note that the card has received some minor updates recently, most notably the four bullets upper left, straddling the Obstacles/Outcomes boundary – not a replacement for the facilitation deck but a useful reminder. Grab the latest from here if you’re an Academy subscriber, from the 15-minute FOTO dropbox if you have access to that, or request access here.

Related

Upcoming events

February

March

*TTT/F and (where shown) LIKE events include free one-year membership of the Leading with Outcomes Authorised Facilitator programme, upgradeable to Authorised Trainer at any time. Both of those include access to the video-based Leading with Outcomes training and the full range of Agendashift assessment tools.

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. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

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.

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.

Agendashift roundup, June 2022

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Outside-in Strategy (I) and (II); Lean Agile London 2022; 15-minute FOTO; Top posts

Outside-in Strategy (I): Positioned for success

New at the Agendashift Academy, Outside-in Strategy: Positioned for success is the third of four planned Leading with Outcomes training modules. In its video-based self-paced incarnation (other formats are available) it began its rollout this month. I have enough recorded now to be confident of the release schedule:

  1. Monday, June 20th: Customer
    – “What’s happening when we’re reaching the right customers, meeting their strategic needs?” (their needs, our strategy)
  2. Friday, July 1st: Organisation
    – “When we’re meeting those strategic needs, what kind of organisation are we?”
  3. Friday, July 8th: Product
    – “Through what products and services are we meeting those strategic needs?”
  4. Friday, July 15th: Platform
    – “What are the defining/critical capabilities that make it all possible?”
  5. Friday, July 29th: Team(s)
    – “When we’re achieving all of the above, what kind of team(s) are we?”

Here’s a quick introductory video (05:33):

This leaves the Leading with Outcomes curriculum nicely on track to complete its rollout this year:

  • Leading with Outcomes: Foundation – already live (take this one first)
  • Inside-out Strategy: Fit for maximum impact – already live
  • Outside-in Strategy: Positioned for success – rolling out now
  • Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale – due in the autumn

All four self-paced modules are included in your Agendashift Academy subscription. Beginning from as little as €29 per month, there are affordable plans for both businesses and individuals, yearly and monthly options in both cases, and a 7-day risk-free trial period for all card-based plans. If you’re a leader in a transforming organisation, you aspire to that role, or you support others in that journey, you’ll find plenty there for you and your colleagues.

Take me to Leading with Outcomes


While we’re here, a Zoom-based Train-the-Trainer (and Facilitator) event isn’t far away, probably September. Details should be ready in time for next month’s roundup.

Outside-in Strategy (II), the new assessment tool

This was developed for the training, but as I’m keen to see how it applies elsewhere I’m making it available in the form of a free (registration required) public survey. It’s a super-short (15-prompt) Agendashift-style assessment tool, three prompts for each of the five layers of Agendashift’s outside-in strategy review. Like all the Agendashift assessment tools it can be used as the template for an organisational survey too; if you’re an Agendashift partner, you’ll find it on the templates dropdown.

Take me to the Outside-in Strategy Readiness Assessment

Lean Agile London 2022

Last month I spoke to a packed room at Lean Agile London 2022, the first time I have taken the new 3 strategies model (see the Agendashift home page) to an in-person conference.

You’ll the recording and slides here and listed on our media page. To access all the rest of the conference videos (which I encourage you to do – it’s one of my favourite conferences) you can register here:

Sign me for the LALDN2022 Videos (actineo.xyz)

15-minute FOTO

I announced version 12 of our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO a few weeks ago (see Top posts below). It has since gone through a couple of minor revisions (12a and 12b) announced so far only in the #cleanlanguage channel on Slack; they’re worth picking up if you have an older version. Re-download if you have the Dropbox link in your inbox still, or subscribe here:

Take me to the 15-minute FOTO page


Spot the difference – version 12b (the newest) first:

Top posts

  1. On values, meaningfulness, and change – parallels with Bateson and Mead (May)
  2. Resistance – or feedback? (June)
  3. 15-minute FOTO, version 12 (May)
  4. My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)
  5. You can’t deliver a task (August 2018)

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Home | Store
Links: Home | Subscribe | Become an Agendashift partner | Events | Contact | Mike
Resources: Tools & Materials | Media | Books | Assessments 
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

15-minute FOTO, version 12

Posted on by Mike Burrows

The facilitation deck for our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO is now at version 12. Just one change: for the Lite format of the game, what previously were announced under a heading of “Tips:” are now announced as follows:

Help your colleagues enjoy a productive time:

  • Start small: 5% and 15% outcomes, bullet point answers
  • Be generous in the outcomes you accept (and write down)
  • If a minute passes without an outcome being captured, something is wrong

A renamed heading might seem a trivial change, but in the debrief after the game we will introduce (retrospectively) the three roles of Client, Coach, and Host, which in the Lite format any player can adopt at any time. Client and Coach correspond very obviously to the tasks of answering and asking the questions from the cue card, but until this version, it didn’t seem that we had done enough to set up the Host role.

Bonus

Emphasising the “leading” in Leading with Outcomes (the Agendashift Academy’s core curriculum), this discussion question comes from the Academy version of the 15-minute FOTO debrief:

Reflecting some more on the Client, Coach, and Host roles, which one is the leader?

There it’s pre-recorded; I have tested it “live” also.

For some background on prior changes that led up to this one:

As ever go to agendashift.com/15-minute-foto for tips, download instructions, and an ancient but still fun video.

What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Home | Store
Links: Home | Subscribe | Become an Agendashift partner | Events | Contact | Mike
Resources: Tools & Materials | Media | Books | Assessments 
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

Agendashift roundup, November 2021

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Leading with Outcomes: Foundation; 15-minute FOTO, version 11; New video on Agendashift assessments; Top posts

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation

As announced this morning to current and existing students, the “old” Leading with Outcomes will be retired soon, and its replacement will look and feel strikingly different.

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation goes into limited private beta this week, to be launched in full around the end of the year. We’re aiming for a much broader audience – all “leaders in transforming organisations” – and as the name suggests, it’s also the starting point for more. Henceforth, the name “Leading with Outcomes” covers a whole curriculum that reorganises the Agendashift Academy’s existing offerings (both self-paced and interactive) into three parallel tracks, for which the highly accessible Foundation module will be a prerequisite.

For more detail than that, you’ll have to wait for the announcements. Remember meanwhile our guiding principle: Agreement on outcomes before solutions – literally, leading with outcomes! If you share our desire to see more of that, up and down transforming organisations everywhere, then you understand the level of our ambition. We’re going to make it easier for more people to participate in the realisation of that vision, so if you’re with us, get ready.

15-minute FOTO, version 11

The latest version of our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO was announced this week, and the announcement drew a lot of interest. Read it here:

15-Minute-FOTO-cue-card-2020-09-v16

New video on Agendashift assessments

Added this month to our media page:

Top posts

  1. Announcing 15-minute FOTO version 11
  2. Get unstuck and get going: Starting small with 5% and 15% outcomes (August)
  3. The 1967 Manifesto for The Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (October)
  4. My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)
  5. Up and Down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (September)

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

Announcing 15-minute FOTO version 11

Posted on by Mike Burrows

The facilitation deck for our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO is now at version 11. Minor tweaks aside, the two main changes:

  1. The tip to “start small” with 5% and 15% outcomes
  2. The four roles of the Classic edition of the game have been reduced to three (the Lite edition doesn’t mention roles until the debrief)

You can read some background to the “start small” advice in the recent post Get unstuck and get going: Starting small with 5% and 15% outcomes. Thinking about it more tactically, if the objective of the game is to produce a quantity of outcomes, jumping straight to “world peace” leaves a lot of space unexplored! So start small, see where “Then what happens?” takes you, and in the process uncover not just meaningful objectives to pursue, but places to start, outcomes to organise around, outcomes that tell us when we’re winning, outcomes that (at the right time) will lead to solutions, and so on.

The change to the roles in the Classic edition takes us from the four of Client, Coach, Scribe, and Observer to the three of Client, Coach, and Host. The host’s job subsumes scribe and observer but goes further: it is to ensure that within the deliberate constraints of the game, everyone has an enjoyable and productive time. It covers things like:

  • Making sure the client and coach who they are and what they are meant to be doing
  • Making sure the client has chosen the obstacle that will be the focus of the next conversation
  • Making sure that outcomes get captured – whether or not that means performing the scribing task themselves
  • Safety officer (noting that whatever the coach might think, “I can’t answer that” is a valid answer)
  • Referee – keeping the conversation to the rules (it is a game after all)
  • Time-keeper – it takes some time discipline to ensure that everyone gets to play every role within the game’s 15 minutes
  • Intervening when a conversation hasn’t got started (distracted by meta conversations perhaps) or is running out of steam (perhaps it’s time to choose another obstacle)
  • Observer – from a perspective outside the conversation, noticing things that might be useful to recall later in the debrief

As per the 2014 book Host by Mark McKergow and Helen Bailey, hosting is a powerful metaphor for leadership. If ever you’ve struggled with the notion of servant leadership or feel that the leader’s responsibility to “create the environment” is never properly explained, then host leadership is for you. It’s worth noting also that Mark McKergow is also a co-author of one of the references / inspirations for 5% outcomes – see the abovementioned post for details.

As ever go to agendashift.com/15-minute-foto for tips, download instruction, and an ancient but still fun video.

15-Minute-FOTO-cue-card-2020-09-v16

 

 

What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Home | Store
Links: Home | Subscribe | Become an Agendashift partner | Events | Contact | Mike
Resources: Tools & Materials | Media | Books | Assessments 
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

Agendashift roundup, October 2021

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Agendashift Academy update; The 1967 manifesto for the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation; Get unstuck and get going; Upcoming; Top posts

Agendashift Academy update

What really happened: on the brink of releasing a new intermediate-level self-paced training module Outside-in Strategy with Outcomes, we decided that it would be much better to revisit Leading with Outcomes, our first self-paced training module. A big decision not taken lightly! As part of a significant pivot for the Academy itself, we’re now re-recording it, repositioning it for a much broader audience.

We’re adding, not taking away, and if you’re a practitioner of some kind (the main audience for the first version) there’s still plenty to be had from the second version. Still the familiar and well-tested exercises, but every session now connecting with leadership, speaking to a specific leadership theme, and with practical takeaways for leaders at all levels of experience. We think of it now as doing something foundational for transformational leadership, the Academy aimed squarely at “leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”.

What to expect:

  • We’ll release each session of the new Leading with Outcomes as it becomes available, the first one mid-November and the remaining three sessions at intervals of a couple of weeks (ish). While it remains incomplete (we know that some of you like to binge on these things) we’ll offer it at a discount.
  • As a thank you and in the hope of fresh feedback, past purchasers of the old one – even those whose purchases have now expired – will be granted access to the new one up to the end of January 2022
  • We’ll announce the next interactive workshop Coaching with Outcomes soon, conducted now over four sessions to match Leading with Outcomes – you can take them in either order but you’ll be encouraged to take them together as cohort-based training, publicly or privately
  • The two in combination effectively replace the first half of the old Agendashift Deep Dive; its eventual replacement will go quite a bit further, covering the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation also
  • A re-recorded Outside-in Strategy with Outcomes (intermediate) and a new Transforming with Outcomes (advanced) will follow in the early months of 2022; complementing them will be more interactive workshops both old and new

As allowed by the quantity and growth rate of the content – soon if we hit our stride as we expect – we plan to move to a subscription model, covering what will be an ever-growing portfolio of self-paced material and offering substantial discounts on interactive workshops. Meanwhile, we’re putting in place the infrastructure to better support corporate purchasers also.

Let me finish this update with a massive thank you to everyone who gave feedback on LwO version 1. Highly encouraging for the most part, and we took to heart your ideas for improvement. We think you’ll love version 2 – not just a refinement but a bold step!

The 1967 manifesto for the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation

The first of two more-than-usually successful blog posts this month:

It has provoked some interesting conversations and no doubt I’ll be returning to the topic soon.

Get unstuck and get going

The second of those posts was this one:

For “Practice Outcomes” (the name of a warmup exercise), now think “5% Outcomes, 15% Outcomes”. Typically we do it just before doing 15-minute FOTO for the first time, and an updated 15-minute FOTO will make reference to it. There’s another change in the wings to come on top of that, so watch out for version 11 soon.

Upcoming

Per my Academy update above, there are still no workshops in the calendar but we’ll be addressing that soon. Other events:

Top posts

  1. The 1967 Manifesto for The Deliberately Adaptive Organisation
  2. Get unstuck and get going: Starting small with 5% and 15% outcomes
  3. My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)
  4. I’m really enjoying Challenge Mapping (June 2020)
  5. Celebration-5W version 6, “your next big breakthrough” (September)

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

Welcome to 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

Get unstuck and get going: Starting small with 5% and 15% outcomes

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In chapter 1 of Agendashift (2nd edition 2021) you’ll find a crucial but awkwardly-named exercise, Practice Outcomes. It’s there because the main event, the Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO, goes so much better if players have been primed to start small. If your first outcome is a small one, the chain of consequences that follows – “Then what happens? Then what happens?” – is so much more productive.

5% outcomes, getting unstuck

I’ve been working on making not just the exercise of Practice Outcomes but its outputs and its rationale easier to reference. Hence “5% outcomes”, the kind of teeny-tiny outcomes you get from the miracle question (source: Solutions-focused brief therapy, via the 2006 Jackson and McKergow book The Solutions Focus). The version of the miracle question we use in Practice Outcomes isn’t exactly canonical but it’s close enough:

  • If that obstacle disappeared overnight (it doesn’t matter how), what would be the first thing you would notice? (something positive)

The rationale? Make your outcomes small enough, and perhaps they’re there already if only you knew where to look. And if they’re there, so are what causes them – solutions! A great way to get unstuck.

If you find yourself not wanting to explain the miracle question, something simpler:

  • What first, tiniest signs of success might we see?
  • And before that, even tinier?

Context for those questions might be a some kind of obstacle, an outcome (a larger one, obviously), or even our overall objective. Here I’ve visualised it in terms of the IdOO (“I do”) pattern:

5-percent-outcomes

15% outcomes, getting going

If we get unstuck with 5% outcomes and their corresponding 5% solutions, then 15% outcomes and their corresponding 15% solutions are how we make faster progress. I’m riffing on the Liberating Structures pattern 15% Solutions, whose rationale speaks to the stuckness issue but invites us to think a little bigger. If our attitude is that “15% is always there for the taking”, then we’re primed to iterate towards our goals. Faced with an adaptive challenge, the sooner we embrace that kind of approach, the better. Here, 100% solution are worse than unlikely, they’re a route to failure.

15% is always there for the taking

15% Solutions: Discover and Focus on What Each Person Has the Freedom and Resources to Do Now (liberatingstructures.com)

The questions here:

  • “How will we know that we’ve made a small but significant step in the right direction?”
  • “And then what happens?”

Anticipating one of the three most important questions in 15-minute FOTO, the “And then what happens?” is already getting us to think more iteratively. Visualised:

15-percent-outcomes

5% and 15% outcomes, yes outcomes

You might be wondering why I start with Solutions Focus and 15% Solutions and invite participants to capture not solutions but outcomes. Is this some strange insult to my sources? Not a bit of it!

Think of Agendashift as a two-pronged approach to adaptive strategy:

  1. its formation through an ongoing process of meaningful participation
  2. integrated with innovation and learning processes

In the context of an adaptive challenge in a changing environment (one we’re actively changing, no less), if we take the attitude that solutions are always there for the taking – a core premise of both our sources –  the right time for solutions is just in time. To solutionise sooner is to invite solutions that may be beyond their shelf life by the time they’re really needed. Worse, having them designed only by the people who happen to be in the room at the time is another recipe for failure.

We are not merely counting on but institutionalising the emergence of solutions “from the people closest to the problem”, to quote my friend Karl Scotland. Keeping that innovation process well fed, appropriately oriented, and with room to breathe, strategy is developed in the language of outcomes.

Going as far as mostly as avoiding the term change management for fear of being associated with it, this is the very antithesis of 1990’s-style managed change. Great for upgrading your email server, but completely the wrong paradigm for anything transformational. Catch yourself thinking that a preconceived solution – worse, a borrowed one – should be your main response to your adaptive challenge? Tempting, but think again. You’d be making a category error, already a terrible place to start. Rolling it out, overcoming resistance to change and all that? Well that would be doubling down, compounding the mistake, and the consequences will be yours to own.

So solutions come well after outcomes, not before. But if you hear a solution prematurely – even a 5% or 15% solution – don’t worry. They’re easy to deal with:

  • Then what happens?

Get unstuck and get going with 5% and 15% outcomes. Small – tiny even – but powerful!

What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Home | Store
Links: Home | Subscribe | Become an Agendashift partner | Events | Contact | Mike
Resources: Tools & Materials | Media | Books | Assessments 
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

Agendashift roundup, September 2021

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Academy update; Up and down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation; Celebration-5W version 6; Upcoming events; Top posts

Academy update

Time to come clean: our next public workshops (there are still private workshops taking place) won’t happen until the new year. Honestly, the desire was there, but with all the behind-the-scenes work we’re currently doing, it just got too complicated.

For a taste of things to come, Coaching with Outcomes will return in the format of four 2-hour online sessions over four weeks. Although (like the current one) you will be able to take it standalone, it will also:

  1. bring together cohorts of students taking Leading with Outcomes, and
  2. form part of a modular replacement for what was the Deep Dive workshop (actually we’re up to something more ambitious than that, but more than that I can’t say at this stage)

Outside-in Strategy with Outcomes (originally planned to be out by now) and the advanced modules based on the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (more on that below) are similarly postponed. We’re confident though that the delay will be well worth it.

Up and down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation

This month’s big event was the webinar Up and Down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation. Read about it and watch the video!

Meanwhile, the Deliberately Adaptive assessment pilots are going strong – three have their debrief workshops scheduled for October.deliberately-adaptive-image

Celebration-5W version 6

Also this month, an update to our context-creating workshop kickoff exercise Celebration-5W. Read about that here:

I am also testing some changes to 15-minute FOTO, our Clean Language-inspired coaching game. More on that next month I hope, and in the #cleanlanguage channel in the Agendashift Slack meanwhile.

Upcoming events

Top posts

Predictably perhaps:

  1. Up and Down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation
  2. Celebration-5W version 6, “your next big breakthrough”
  3. My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)
  4. From Reverse STATIK to a ‘Pathway’ for continuous transformation (October 2019)
  5. ‘Right to Left’ works for Scrum too (July 2018)

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