increased effectiveness for UK technology businesses
through transformational leadership

Rightshifting howtos

The following series of how-tos first featured in my #howtos week on Twitter, week commencing 1 September 2009.

• #Rightshifting to a more effective development organisation: Make things visible; pay attention to what's actually going on #howtos #1
• Learn to see: not just waste, but flow and value too. Consider mapping your org's value streams to spread this visibility #howtos #2
• Focus on building a trust-based working relationship with folks; essential for cooperation in attempts to #rightshift #howtos #3
• Actively seek constructive conflict, and promote dialogue, positive dissent, debate. Be human. #howtos #4
• Learn how to learn, and share that (meta) learning experience as widely as possible. #howtos #5
• Force yourself to try different things – and fail early and often. If that marks you out in your present org, go someplace else. #howtos #6
• Learn to use and then share, promote useful "thinking tools" such as Reality Trees, Evaporating cloud, A3s #howtos #7
• Engage people in learning. Book circles, lunchtime and evening sessions, workshops, sponsored outreach, guests speakers, etc. #howtos #8
• Learn to understand the people involved in #rightshifting; their motivations and allegiances, and how to play to their strengths #howtos #9
• Filter every idea through "will average folks get this?" and reject anything that can’t pass this test (average – NOT muppets!) #howtos #10
• Did I mention Systems Thinking yet? Read Senge, Ackoff, Bertalanffy, Checkland. But apply as you read (not after!) #howtos #11
• Be bold: "There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you" ~ Nelson Mandela #howtos #12
• Oppose the continuing balkanisation of your organisation: Break down the "Them vs us" and "Business vs Dev" mindsets #howtos #13
• Set up "crucibles" to focus and encourage dialogue between previously insular intra-organisational fiefdoms #howtos #14
• Eschew local optimisations – however that might seem the easier or more immediate solution. Pursue global optima only. #howtos #15
• Promote an "intentional (deliberate) approach" to problem-solving; e.g. LAMDA, OODA or PDCA #howtos #16
• Mapping an organisation's key value streams can help people see waste, flow and value(add) #howtos #17
• Leverage the skills you and your org already have (systems analysis, design, agile delivery) to the issues of #rightshifting the organisation #howtos #18
• Don't be embarrassed to question progress and demand improvement - if that marks you out in your present org, go someplace else. #howtos #19
• Don't focus on cost. Paradoxically, this will only drive costs up. Focus on flow and costs will come down of their own accord. #howtos #20
• Use Throughput Accounting (rather than Activity Based Costing aka Cost Accounting) to inform all management decisions. #howtos #21
• Don't expect folks to appreciate the benefits of Lean, Agile, etc. without showing them at first hand by doing. JFDI! #howtos #22
• Don't tolerate the status quo. Lean exemplifies the "struggle for perfection" ~ Womack & Jones #howtos #23
• Study, practice and learn about good practice. Following what other people do by rote or recipe won't get you far. #howtos #24
• Look beyond your immediate (often internal) customers (as much as you can, anyways) #howtos #25
• Use drama, pathos, suspense, comedy and other (humane) methods to help people engage with the issues of rightshifting. #howtos #26
• Limit work in process – not just development work but all work. Get Little's Law working for you rather than against. #howtos #27
• Demonstrate inquiring mind. Congratulate scholarship, study, analysis and investigation. Embrace the thinkers who do stuff. #howtos #28
• Ask yourself "Why?" In particular "why do things have to be this way, work this way?" Then ask others. #howtos #29
• Encourage responsibility-based planning: have the folks doing the work decide on (take ownership of) estimates, delivery schedules. #howtos #30
• Go to the Gemba – don't assume you know how the work works: go and find out from looking at real life #howtos #31
• Adopt the perspective that all sw development is a subset of product development and learn from PD folks like Reinertsen. #howtos #32
• Best till last: Lean Orgs see designing the "Whole Product" as synonymous with “designing the operational value stream”. #howtos #33(end)
• "Don't codify method" (Ohno) Which means: don't have a ponderous process manual, let it live in the minds and hearts of the workforce

And for an opinion on your own situation, straight from the horse's mouth, call Bob Marshall now on +44 (0)1474 703940.

A to Z of transformational leadership

is for Urgency

Many business are never able to create - or harness - enough of a sense of urgency to motivate effective and meaningful action. "Executives underestimate just how hard it can be to drive people out of their comfort zones". In those few businesses that understand the power of a focussed sense of urgency, people talk frankly about potentially unpleasant facts: about the new competition, flat earnings, decreasing market share, or other relevant indicators.

How much urgency is enough to get things moving? We have found that at least 75% of the people that matter have to become convinced that business as usual is no longer an acceptable plan, before meaningful transformation can begin to happen.

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