Ability to Change Isn't Necessarily the Problem

In my latest course, I asked the same question I pose to every class: “What are some characteristics of frustrating stakeholders or managers?” And every time I see a common answer: “Changing priorities/requirements.”  I’ve seen this frustration in practice countless times: organizations constantly changing directions, chasing the next shiny product or half-heartedly implementing a new process only to abandon it for the latest trend. We’ve all seen this! It’s nothing new.  What I find ironic is the claim that companies need to be able to adapt to change faster still in order to maximize value. It seems rapid change is exactly what organizations are best at!

What organizations lack is focus and understanding of when and why change should occur. Scrum tackles a lack of focus with commitments in the form of its Sprint and Product Goals. Focus is even a Scrum value. Kanban, as a workflow management and improvement technique, helps control a lack of focus by encouraging Work in Progress limits, and enabling a pull system.  Years of rigid project management and portfolio management techniques led to Change Control processes with lengthy approval systems. These weren’t designed to prevent change outright but to limit, minimize, and control it.  

This protection and management of change has been lost in recent years.  Describing agility as the ability to adapt to change and idolizing it as the key to value has led many astray.  When I think of agility, two people spring to mind. Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese footballer, and one of those ‘triple-jointed’ individuals you see on LinkedIn videos or YouTube who contorts, dislocates, and shifts in non-human ways. 

The difference here is effective agility.  Being able to contort and dislocate your joints and shift from side to side does nothing if you can’t put it to good use. In fact, it might be to your detriment.  Being able to move at a rapid pace, focus on a goal, and achieve valuable outcomes, like Ronaldo demonstrates, is using your agility effectively.

I am not suggesting reintroducing lengthy approval processes or reverting to days when teams would miss out on key opportunities to solve customer problems because it didn’t quite fit the scope of the project.  What I am suggesting is to start questioning whether your agility is effective. Are you changing for the sake of it? Is your change controlled and measured? Do you know why something should change and how do you know? Are you focused and achieving your goals? Is any of your change wasteful? I suggest exploring whether being more disciplined with focus and controlling (even minimizing) change, might actually help you maximize value.