8 ways to break down the wall of a beourocratic mindset and become agile

Hi David

Thanks for these interesting insights, which resonate with me.

A few points.

"the principles of agile - it’s very hard to disagree with them as desirable outcomes."

It may be very hard, but many managers do disagree. They look at the diagram of the Agile network (picture #4) and see a nightmare.

For instance, at one of the sessions at the McKinsey Global Agility Hackathon, after a fairly good presentation of an Agile organization, the McKinsey partner said, "That sounds like having a triple root canal operation."

So it will take quite a few bankruptcies of big firms before there is more general acceptance.

On the meaning of mindset, I agree with you idea that it is like an onion with the different layers. In the Learning Consortium and elsewhere, we see managers have "got" the Law of the Small Team, but not the Law of the Customer or the Law of the Networks.  We also see managers who have "got it" for the team, but not for the organization or as a view as to how the world works. And so on.

On the acquisition of an Agile mindset, we hope to shed some light on that in the Learning Consortium report to be issued next month. Some hypotheses include:

- it's easier if you can start with the young and less experienced (like the military boot camp). For someone with 15+ years experience being successful in a bureaucracy, it's much more difficult.

- training by itself is not enough. It's an experiential thing.

- the pace of change varies greatly from individual to individual. Some get it very quickly. Some, probably never. And everything in between.

- the environment plays a huge influence. In an Agile environment, it's hard not to be Agile and survive. In a bureaucratic environment, it's the opposite.

- it's neither top-down or bottom-up. You need both top-down and bottom-up.

- peer-to-peer learning works better than top-down instruction.

- it's more difficult to achieve Agile mindsets in the back-office functions.

​- the war is never won: even in strongly Agile firms, it's takes constant effort to prevent backsliding, at a time when most of the rest of the world is strongly bureaucratic. New external recruits at a high level in the organization (e.g. a new, externally-recruited CMO, CFO or head of HR) represent a particular risk.

Thoughts? 

Steve Denning
Forbes blog: http://blogs.forbes.com/stevedenning/
The Leader's Guide to Radical Management
http://www.stevedenning.com/Books/radical-management.aspx
Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevedenning
Email: steve@stevedenning.com
Web: http://www.stevedenning.com/About/default.aspx

Can a beaurocracy organisation have an agile mindset?

What is an agile organisation? 

Apparently everything that a good organisation should be.....

- Nimble 

- self-organizing teams 

- Customer focussed 

- work is done in an iterative fashion with continuous interaction with users almost in real time. 

- teams work on a common cadence, many teams can work together on large complex challenges in a coordinated fashion. 

- Working smarter not harder

- Continuous collaboration among internal silos 

- Ability to take opportunities in market place as they emerge 

- What it's not - Unwieldy clunky slow unfriendly, set in ways, focussed on internal processes

There are 3 Laws of Agile - writes Steve Denning from Forbes - 

www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2016/09/08/explaining-agile/

1. The law of the small team - if you can't feed them on a pizza and a few beers on a Friday night it's too big! Characteristics of Trust, face to face , performance, nimble 

2. The law of the customer 

3. The law of the network - this is the lynchpin of agile - the organisation is fluid and transparent network of players that are collaborating towards a common goal of delighting customers. The organization is an organic living network of high-performance teams. 

The organization operates with an interactive communication dynamic, both horizontally and vertically, writes Denning. Anyone can talk to anyone. Ideas can come from anywhere, including customers. As a network, the organization becomes a growing, learning, adapting living organism that is in constant flux to exploit new opportunities and add new value for customers.

He cites Spotify and Barclays as proponents of agile 

- Spotify to provide personalized music playlists to over a hundred million users every week, 

- Barclays to start becoming an Agile bank that can provide easy, quick, convenient, personalized banking at scale, 

- After listening to Pip Marlow yesterday , it has enabled  Microsoft to still be relevant in a rapidly changing world .

So - can Agile be embraced in a bureaucracy ?

It is not about “doing Agile.” It’s about “being Agile.”

It's about having an Agile mindset - When people in the organization had the right mindset, it hardly mattered what tools, processes and practices they were using, the Agile mindset made things come out right. 

Conversely, if they didn’t have an Agile mindset, it didn’t matter if they were implementing every tool and process and practice exactly according to the book, no benefits flowed. Agile is a mindset.

So the big question is..... Can a beaurocracy have an agile mindset ?