WANT TO CHANGE CULTURE? HAVE A PLAN.
So you want to change your company’s culture?
Because you believe that if we can’t change the culture we’ll never be able to be Agile?
The reasoning goes, if we don’t change culture…
People won’t be open to new ways of working. Managers won’t empower their people. People won’t be open to inspecting and adapting. Without inspecting and adapting… no Agile?
Right?
But let’s say you had the ability to flip your company’s culture overnight. People were instantly open to change? Willing to empower their people? Totally open to inspecting and adapting. Excited to become Agile?
WHAT’S NEXT?
What would you do with your functional organizational hierarchies? Your tightly coupled legacy systems? Your audit controls and governance? Your compliance requirements?
How would you ensure delivery?
How would you give the people spending the money… owners, investors, shareholders… some reasonable assurance that they were going to get the outcomes they are expecting? And paying for?
Culture is important, but if a company can’t operate profitably, make and meet commitments, deliver what it says it’ll deliver to its customer, there won’t be a culture to worry about. Your company will be out of business.