Human centred transformation

This blog post is a write up of a talk I’ve done a couple of times over the years. I’ve finally got round to writing it down (procrastination is one of my super powers)

Some of the techniques we used, user testing, service mapping, sketching were very new to them but they really jumped in to it willingly and got stuck in.

To give an example of how different the digital teams working approach was for Emma and her food colleagues, In the time it would take us to have researched, built and tested a prototype with users, they would be still only in the scoping phase of a waterfall project.

At the time there wasn’t a culture of doing user research with colleagues and often colleagues were scared to talk about things in case they got reprimanded by their managers. There was lots to do both from a technical perspective and a people perspective.

Emma is someone who has worked her way up from working in stores, to store manager, area manager to now being asked to work on this large programme of work for the food business. It was a big deal for her to be given the responsibility. She was put into an SME/Product owner role and assigned a team of us digital folk to work with.

Once this manic and exciting discovery phase was finished and we started to get into a rhythm of working on a product and delivering, some tensions started to bubble up and things started to unravel a bit. On the surface there was silence and some slightly grumpy faces. After talking with people I learned that this is what was going on from two different perspectives.

On the surface this can feel like the Emma is making unreasonable demands and the team are being difficult for the sake of it. It doesn’t feel like there’s any place we can meet in the middle as people just aren’t talking to one another. The things that stood out for me when I reflected on it were:

Here are some things that I’ve taken from that, and other client work that I make sure to consider on every new piece of work, or new working relationship.

It’s important to acknowledge what might come up when you start working with people who haven’t worked with an agile team before. We don’t need to pretend that it’s going to be a totally smooth process or that we won’t come across lots of bumps in the road or misunderstandings.

2. Silence doesn’t equal understanding — never assume someone knows what you mean

Emma told me that there were times when she felt too embarrassed to question what was happening so said nothing. The team took her silence as disengagement but it wasn’t that. She didn’t want to ask a question to clarify what was going on.

As a delivery manager or coach your job is to ask the clarifying sometimes stupid questions. The ones that remind people of why we’re doing this. This makes people feel safe enough to ask questions too and ultimately saves a lot of time in that place of misunderstanding.

2. Focus on getting the key relationships and roles right and the rest will follow

You can really set an example to the rest of the team by working on some key relationships with your client/colleague you are working with. For example as a delivery manager, if there’s an equivalent project manager then bond with that person, get to know them and you will find the whole process a lot easier when inevitable misunderstandings to arise.

3. Factor in extra time for learning and support

Provide some kind of ‘Agile immersion’ if you’re working with people who are completely new to Agile, even if it seems obvious to you I guarantee it will be useful for them. Get your clients or colleagues to visit other teams, see how they work, recommend books or talks they might be interested in.

Remember though, it goes both ways. Whenever you are working with a business who has a problem to solve they have tons to teach you so we are all learning together. Be wary of appearing to know it all.

Also set a realistic goal for how much you can deliver straight away, remind people that we are learning how to work together so we need to find our cadence as a team before we can really start delivering as a unit.

4. Transforming a business AND delivering software is exhausting…

Delivering + taking people on the journey is exhausting . As a Delivery Manager this is especially hard as not only do you have to get something done with a lot of people who aren’t on the same page, but need extra convincing and coaching as well. It can’t be underestimated.

4.1 …But so is delivering and being ‘transformed’

If you’re someone who is being ‘transformed’ you have a deadline from your manager, you’ve been thrust into a word of post-its and vague delivery dates and you’re expected to chill out about it and go with the flow — this isn’t easy. I’m always conscious of this when I work with new people.

5. Be humble, curious and empathetic — we are more than our role. It’s so easy to disconnect from others, blame other departments, e.g. IT,Procurement etc. In reality digital transformation is about people getting together to make a thing and generally muddling through as best they can together, learning, failing and getting on with it. It’s just not about snazzy processes or technology. Those things are nice, but if you aren’t talking to each other and spending lots of time in a grump you aren’t going to get the best out of your working life.

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