Podcasts about fin goulding

Series 3 of the One Zero One podcast continues our journey of exploring what tech leaders around the UK have been doing to manage and drive digital change and positive progress throughout a global pandemic.  Sooraj Shah, a technology-focused journalist (the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, Business Insider & more) speaks to Fin Goulding, CTO at Flow Academy in this episode to discuss all things Agile, DevOps and Digital Transformation – particularly in the context of the ‘digital-first’ remote-working environment organisations are operating in currently due to COVID-19. Year-on-year Fin Goulding has been listed as a Global Top 100 CIO/CTO and has extensive digital and agile expertise as a hands-on transformation practitioner. Today as the CTO at Flow Academy, Fin works with companies in any sector who need help either starting or repairing their transformation (be that business/digital or agile) and gets them back on track.  A co-author of multiple books including “Flow: A Handbook for Change-Makers, Mavericks, Innovation Activists and Leaders – Simplifying Digital Transformation” and “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility” – Fin is an active member of ‘The Agile Business Community’ and shares his deep level of expertise and insights with the One Zero One listeners throughout this episode. Tune into Fin Goulding’s episode to learn more about where Agile is today (twenty years on from the Agile Manifesto), what organisations are adopting Agile for and how organisations are seeking help from Agile practices during the global pandemic with the sudden roll-out of remote working.

„Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser“. Mit diesem Glaubenssatz sind wohl die meisten von uns sehr vertraut. Ist dem aber wirklich so? In vielen Unternehmen und Organisationen leben und arbeiten Menschen in einem Ambiente, das im Grunde von tiefem Misstrauen geprägt ist. Selten besteht eine persönliche Basis. Wie soll da Vertrauen entstehen und gelebt werden?   Dann macht man es so wie immer; man kontrolliert als Manager*in oder Vorgesetzte*r besser, ob auch wirklich alles so läuft, wie vorgegeben. Nun, dieser klassische Ansatz hat einen Haken und weist längst schwere Nachteile auf. In einer Welt … die immer komplexer wird … in Zeiten, in denen die altbekannten Arbeitsweisen und Strukturen von heute auf morgen aus den Ankern gerissen werden ... es ungewiss ist, ob die bestehenden Geschäftsmodelle in naher Zukunft überhaupt noch Bestand haben – in dieser Welt verspüren viele Manager und Führungskräfte, wie ihnen die vermeintliche Kontrolle zunehmend entgleitet. Die tägliche Runde durchs Büro, der Blick über die Schulter – all das ist durch Home-Office und Remote Work Regelungen und Transformationen nicht mehr möglich. Höchste Zeit, tiefer in die Wirren und Zwänge der Begrifflichkeiten rund um Kontrolle und Vertrauen im Detail einzutauchen. Dafür haben sich Andreas, Johanna und Daniel in einen ergebnisoffenen Diskurs begeben und die verschiedenen Formen von Kontrolle erörtert und zugeordnet. Fragen und Meinungen, die in dieser Episode beleuchtet wurden: Welche Formen und Ansätze der Kontrolle gibt es? Budgets in die Überwachung oder das Coaching von Mitarbeiter*innen fließen lassen, was ergibt mehr Sinn? Welches Menschenbild haben wir eigentlich als Vorgesetzte von unseren Kollegen*innen? Wie kann ein vertrauensvolles Arbeitsumfeld entstehen? Top-Down Kontrolle vs. Selbstkontrolle EXCERPTS YOU MIGHT WANT TO JUMP IN [09:33] Wie sieht das Menschenbild aus, das ich als Vorgesetzter oder allgemein im Unternehmen habe? [16:55] In welchem Umfeld finden Kontrollen statt? [19:51] Das ist der Kern der Agilität. [22:00] Arbeitsüberlastung an irgendeiner Stelle eines Produktions- oder Dienstleistungsprozesses – das ist der Normalzustand. [27:56] Dieser Plan muss einfach durchgezogen, erfüllt werden, und dann passt es. [33:52] Erfolg ist kalt, das Lachen des Kunden nicht. [34:42] Im Top / Mittel Management, aber auch auf Angestellten Ebene beschäftigt man sich viel zu wenig mit dem Thema der persönlichen Integrität, und Persönlichkeitsentwicklung. [36:17] Wie können wir ein Arbeitsumfeld schaffen, das dieses Vertrauen unterstützt, dass die Menschen sich öffnen, dass sie Bock haben, aufeinander und miteinander auch zusammenarbeiten wollen, wirklich zusammenarbeiten? [40:32] Die Offenheit, das auszusprechen, der Mut, der dazugehört, und auch der Respekt, den anderen zu akzeptieren, dass wir Menschen sind und nicht jeden Tag wie die Maschine ziemlich gleichbleibende Leistung bringen kann - das ist wichtig in der Zusammenarbeit. [44:29] Die Möglichkeit, etwas vorherzusagen, wird immer geringer. [47:10] Was will ich mit der Einhaltung von alten Prozessen? Ich brauche das nicht. Ich brauche die Phantasie, ich brauche die Kreativität und dieses Nachvornegehen, das Experimentieren. [49:30] Nur wenn ich an mir selber arbeite als Person, um mich weiter zu verbessern, als Führungskraft oder auch im zwischenmenschlichen Bereich, habe ich eben die Möglichkeit, auch grundlegende und drastische Veränderungen auf lange Sicht zu erzielen. Links & Hints zur Episode Hier geht es zum LinkedIn Profil von Andreas Wittler Auch auf Xing ist Andreas Wittler vertreten Hier geht es zu Webseite seiner Unternehmensberatung 6e® Lerne mehr zum Thema Agilität und was Andreas als Partner bei agendashift bewirkt Besuche den Blog von Fin Goulding welcher in der Episode genannt wurde. Hier geht es auch zu dem LinkedIN Profil von Fin Goulding ZEIT Artikel – Homeoffice und die Detektive Lerne mehr über Flash Hub und “Virtual Teams as a Service” - schau’ dazu gern auf Flashhub.io vorbei! Folge uns auf facebook und nimm' an unseren Diskussionen teil. Verbinde Dich mit uns auf LinkedIN. Schau' auf unserem YouTube Channel vorbei - dort erfährst du mehr über New Work, Remote Teams und virtuelle Kooperation. Gib’ uns Dein Feedback, stell’ uns Deine Fragen - wir freuen uns auf Deine Nachricht via events@brightsolutions.de! --- Click here for Andreas Wittler's LinkedIn profile Andreas Wittler is also represented on Xing Click here to visit the website of his management consultancy 6e® Learn more about agility and what Andreas does as a partner at agendashift Visit Fin Goulding's  blog, which was mentioned in the episode. Click here for Fin Goulding's LinkedIN profile You can learn more about Flash Hub and Virtual Teams as a service at Flashhub.io Follow us on facebook and engage on our daily discussions.  Connect with us on LinkedIN

Introduction: Covid-19 struck like a thunderbolt and has thrown the world upside down. Many are still reeling as we grapple to right side for a new order. All of us have been forced to wake to a new reality, to pause and immediately assume a virtual reality for most of the population. Teams have been beset too. Episode three is an invitation to look at how teams can use this big pause to disrupt our patterns of thinking & working, the use of time and space,  real-estate and technology to innovate and to build structures to support social cohesion through eco-systems. Podcast episode summary: I spoke with Sari Van Poelje, Jennifer Britton and Fin Goulding. We spoke about what it means to be virtual, how to adjust for a new “abnormal” and the mindset shifts required to remerge on a yet uncertain  other side. All of the speakers spoke about possibility and the opportunity this pause affords us. Many questions were posed and answered in a rich conversation that spoke to some meta concepts and some practical takeaways for teams. The question became how we can let go the old, grieve appropriately and embrace the new. This has ramifications for Leadership, how we live and work and how we connect across boundaries and how we think of work. This pause like many other conversations is reminding people of our humanity and of what is important.   Points made through the episode: In answer to the question “how are you feeling” the guests almost equivocally responded positively sharing that in their worlds they have been operating virtually and using agile for years. The physical threat of Covid-19 is for sure scary All have welcomed the time out to pause, reflect and to consider their purpose. The crisis has brought many people together in a knowing like none other Remote does not mean disconnected. Technology allows for us to be connected. Virtual is imperative. Hopefully people can continue to get comfortable in their home lives to rework how they work- we are living a paradigm shift. Covid-19 has asked us to acknowledge our interdependence. Need to remember to bring in the human dimension to our conversations on zoom etc. Sari shared her ideas on bringing Yoga and DJs to punctuate her trainings. Other ways of socially engaging were shared Curiously meeting online has some positive benefits. People are more pointed, judicious with their time and careful to listen. There is a skill to facilitating and convening online. Use the technology creatively and strike a balance between the visual, auditory and full meeting space to breakout rooms. Leaders are not coping well in this transition. An old model of leading is being imposed on a new platform. The Leader as coach is required. We as coaches have to support leaders to lean into this way of working Similarly, we need to support leaders to deal in the emotional realm & to understand the usefulness of emotional expression over technology. People are ready for agile. Much confusion abounds about Agile it is often seen as belonging to the world of tech. Sari explained that it is not a mindset but a way of structuring business. We are experiencing various shifts simultaneously, from the physical boundaries to the virtual unbounded, from the global to local, from hierarchical to the eco-system. Leadership is needed with Agile. Leadership needs to embrace interdependence and accept the accountability for stuff is often deeper in the organisation. Businesses need to invest to reconsider the Leadership imperative, to strategize ,maybe not for the long term but for the immediate term and to learn how to pivot. Leaders need to comfortable being disruptors. Collaboration is a word that is easy to say much less easy to practice. We as coaches have a role to play to help leaders and teams collaborate, thinking differently and accepting trade -offs. The work/home dynamic needs to be re-evaluated and supported. Time and the use of space will be re-imagined. Perhaps things have to be conceived of much more simply and equitably. We have to be able to cope on an individua/family/community level as we share our humanity and our new landscape Conversations around Brexit for example have stopped. How will Europe look when we re-emerge? The panel shared some practical tips to close the podcast. Leverage the tools available to allow relations as well as focus Practice and get practiced having efficient meetings this is a learnt skill Take time to pause, reset and consider what is working and what can be let go Honesty, integrity and a degree of psychological safety will be needed to speak up and voice what is not working Learn new skills online A team is a musical instrument, it needs to be played and tuned. The need for retrospectives is even more pronounced People need to establish new routines -and be allowed to do so Every crisis brings opportunity -use this one to go for new possibility Consider this new reality and ask yourself the question -what can I offer Focus on what is important and how you can contribute to mankind Have the varying and various conversations the path will reveal itself. Be willing to reinvent yourself.          Quotable Quote: “There is the past and there is the future we have only two choices, Vanilla or Chocolate- the future, as chocolate holds possibility” Sari Van Poelje “A team is like a musical instrument; it has to be played and tuned” Fin Goulding “rapid experimentation and learning needed right now”Jennifer Britton   Resources: the following include the resources I alluded to in this episode. Jennifer Britton: Effective Virtual Conversations Jennifer Britton: Remote Pathways Podcast Jennifer Britton: potentialsrealized.com Fin Goulding: Flow, 12 steps to Flow Fin Goulding: flow-academy.org Sari Van Poelje: Back to basics Executive Coaching Series- Soon to be published: Agile Innovation Business & Design Sari Van Poelje: www.intactacademy.com

The New Normal talking Business Agility and Transformation with Fin GouldingFin Goulding has consistently been named as one of the top global CTO/CIO's year-on-year, who in the past five years, has transformed into a business agility expert having worked for organisations like Visa, RBS, NatWest, HSBC, Aviva and digital startups such as lastminute.com, travelocity.com and paddypower.com. As well as being a popular keynote speaker and panellist, Fin also coaches executives through the challenges of transformation and is the co-author of Flow: A Handbook for Changemakers and 12 Steps to Flowwww.linkedin.com/in/fgoulding

This podcast covers Chapter 12, “Small Steps To An Agile Strategy” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. The authors start the chapter by stating a good Flow workplace is one that challenges the idea of big strategy and grand plans. The new method is to build strategy from small steps. How to achieve that will be covered in this chapter. The first problem pointed out is that the core elements that people focus on in strategy and planning are necessary but nowhere near sufficient for success. This necessary-but-not-sufficient problem is typical of the digital world. Many intangible factors, often intangible, have a significant influence but are difficult for traditional strategist to grasp. An old style of marketing is used, e.g., "Build the platform and market the hell out of it." The key problem is the platform is seen as a technology stack rather than a relationship nexus. So why are the issues associated with platforms so interesting to the Flow frame-of-mind? First, platforms invented modern agility, providing the ability to roam into any space choosen with a lot of activity taking place on the network along with having the ability to update with high-frequency and low-cost. Also, products are digital, which means there is no conventional supply chain to manage. Second platforms are almost impossible to plan and this is really critical because execution needs a huge amount of iteration and a commitment to real-time executive direction. For example nobody can say what it will cost to be successful at developing the ecosystem of third-party actors. Consequently, platforms force designers to take small steps. These hundreds of incremental steps requires Flow. Business often gives the impression that there is one big solution, e.g., a new platform, or a single answer to complex problems. This is just wrong. Success in High-Performance Teams In delivery terms, the economy is shifting towards small. Good leaders recognize this and see the critical gains lie in the margins, in the detail. That's why in Flow, work units are only ever a maximum of two days long. These are the micro-units where you can get 1% gains to scale up into something significant. Interestingly enough, incremental changes that scale can apply to strategy as well as to delivery. The short cycle times of two days or less force people to interact more which is good for both productivity and quality. The authors feel this is superior to long planning cycles which can drift away from providing the value required to meet the customer's needs. Small Steps to a Big Platform One problem with setting digital strategy is that many people get the core ideas of agility and scale wrong. With the digital transformation the dominates the agile world companies seek network effects where there is little disruption caused by the platform. The stability or lack of disruption by the platforms is supposedly created through: - open APIs - two-sided or multisided markets - network effects - cloud infrastructure The authors view this is flawed because: 1. Great platforms exist without having an open API 2. The idea of two-sided and multisided markets feel superfluous 3. Network effects are powerful but rare, e.g., Facebook 4. There's nothing special about Cloud services, all companies have access to Cloud infrastructure The real power of platforms lies in the ecosystems that grow around the successful ones. This is a real nightmare for traditional strategists because success lies at the other end of intangible investments in relationships, promotion, content, and likability. Services with no allegiance to the platform can exist on that platform thrive and do well and benefit the platform service at the same time, for example book arbitrage on Amazon services. Customers may pay more after successful in finding what they need. The successful companies are an essential part of the Amazon ecosystem yet Amazon does not prompt, support, or invest in any of them. In fact, they exist because of Amazon's shortcomings. The Very Basic Model for Highly Skilled Business The platform model is deceptively simple having only a few basic components but it would be a big mistake to assume that the basic structure is sufficient. For example there is the App Store for the iPhone. Essentially it is an ordering platform. As a catalog with the transaction engine and fulfillment service. The simplicity, however, is misleading. What's needed are the critical nonessentials in order to be successful in other words, there is all the work required to develop highly skilled relationships, many giveaway tools, wonderful content, and huge advocacy. Without that ecosystem the platform can't survive. It's all about having real relationships. Many companies create platforms without realizing the content and advocacy are key aspects of the project. This means human factors are quite important, a truth that platform designers overlook. To compound things, the human factors are difficult to represent in an ROI plan. Also, with the traditional approach there is a risk of viewing everything in terms of cost savings rather than value. This can easily lead to cutting those critical human factor components. Again, relationships are important. To compound the situation the activities that actually go with building relationships recruiting and nurturing, etc., are not easily planned. They require warmth, trust, care, excitement, and adaptability. Their cost/return is always going to be uncertain. Because businesses have been taught to expect network effects, they underinvest in advocacy, the very thing they need that could bring the benefits of being on a network. Being on a network is only powerful if you know how to acquire great content and generate superb advocacy. People must love what you are doing madly enough to create content around it, build new services to exploiter, recommend features of your service that they will attach their reputations to, and spend their own cash on being part of your ecosystem. The Importance of the Ecosystem because of the challenges associated with attracting and orchestrating multiple parties for your passionate endeavor a Flow approach strategy aims at creating the dozens of small steps that allow entrepreneurs or executives to figure out where value might lie in to accelerate business activity in precisely those directions. Simply put, to do Flow strategy, you have to accept that you cannot know. Instead, you can hypothesize frequently across many actions and be ready to capitalize on the basics truths you discover and can build upon along the way. This is far from the MVP (minimum viable product) frame of mind. Instead, what is needed is a minimum sustainable delivery matrix (discussed in previous chapter) the comprises: - a broad set of features and hypotheses to push through to the customer - structured feedback loops to capture knowledge - capturing and formatting that knowledge in a way that easily translates into discussions that lead to new feature in hypotheses matrices which is where the asset discovery process described in chapter 2 comes into play. This comprises: - customer segmentation - asset discovery - targeted ideation - the ecosystem - stating goals Customer segmentation. In the book they use an example comprising based on a segment that the platform advocate knows to be underserved or in need of reorganization. Asset discovery. Their assets intrinsic to the platform, however, it is important to consider other third-party assets that are critical to success, e.g., content, data, and other assets that can brought it onto the platform by negotiating with partners in the ecosystem or non-partner third parties. It is essential to take into consideration critical nonessentials such as content which are essential for success. Also, it is important to inventory any missing assets which need to be developed somewhere along the line. Targeted ideation. With targeted ideation new services are created by repurposing assets in addressing previously-underserved customer segments. The key is building trust with customers you have and determine how the assets can be repurposed. The approach is freeform, will Wall-based, in iterative with how you see your potential ecosystem along with your goals. The ecosystem. Essentially this is about finding missing assets which are needed to satisfy unmet customer needs. The key is providing sufficient tools for those third-party providers that encourages them to work on your platform. Stating goals. Use an analysis of assets to provide a few goals that comprise the first small steps to a big strategy. This includes: - identifying new customer segments to discover hidden opportunity - identify internal assets that are relevant to those new segments - call out the missing assets and the dark pool - identify an ecosystem that can deliver assets that are missing from your skill set - the eight new tools and content to support an even broader ecosystem, beyond a simple supplier base - learn how to combine these assets in a way that is really appropriate for modern markets, using a Go to Market strategy that builds share-ability and advocacy into the product or service - explore content and advocacy issues, e.g., social strategy, designed to share, effects of the network. Proceed to break the work down based on the stated goals. Once done this is the beginning of an ecosystem strategy for your agile business. Does not have to be written as a strategy. Rather it gets built from the discovery of assets, the iteration of goals, areas of work in units of work, and experience and feedback. Strategy Building from Incremental Steps Keep in mind these key points when building a strategy: - the critical non-essentials necessary for high performance - efficiencies gained by optimizing across hundreds of small steps - optimizing many marginal gains if you apply these thoughts to digital projects than you have the ultimate modern paradox, i.e., highly skilled businesses built out of many small units of activity. To achieve the success work by: - customer segmentation - asset discovery - a Customer Innovation Wall that fleshes out the segmentation. Have an inventory of assets (known, hidden, unknown-but-needed next to that wall). Also, have a chart comprising targeted ideation suggesting tools and tricks needed to engage customers third parties in the ecosystem. This approach is meant to be conversational an interactive without any big planning periods. It is an exercise in value-seeking behavior. Conversations around these walls leads to the emergence of baseline activities. These are referred to as the best next actions for achieving the stated goals. Consequently, the strategy actually emerges from the generation of these best-next activities. This is a classic characteristic the complex situation where the solutions emerge based on the actions of self-organizing teams. CONCLUSION One of the main takeaways from this book should be the awareness that work at all levels of an organization is becoming less about excellence in execution more about adaptability in the face of changing circumstances. When you can accept that order is best created by allowing people to codesign multiple strands of work, and that the big plan needs to be hundreds of small units of work, then you have the capacity to adapt infinitely. You need a passion for change to follow everything that's been stated in this book. You need to believe in a movement built on small steps. Here are the link for previous chapter reviews: episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work episode 0045 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 4, Taking Advantage of Visible Work episode 0046 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 5, Anti-Project Thinking and Business Agility episode 0047 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 6, Creating Value-Seeking Behavior episode 0049 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 7, The Agile C-Suite episode 0050 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 8 216, Value, The Anti-Plan and Testing episode 0051 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 9, Reinventing Roles episode 0053 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 10, The Customer Wall episode 0054 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 11, Broadening Your Personal Development Goals For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.” In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges. Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: • place a review in iTunes, • click on “leave a comment” below, • send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 11, “Broadening Your Personal Development Goals” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. I would have to say if I had a favorite chapter so far this might be it! To quote from the authors, "Flow stands for empowerment. Real empowerment puts responsibilities onto your shoulders. It gives you more liberty, more uncertainty and more need to challenge yourself to grow. You are in charge of more than you realized." The authors feel that Flow is in stark contrast to collaborative platforms that they feel distort people's views of assets and values, e.g., Atlassian's Jira and Confluence. They tend to respectively be perfect fits for obsessive project managers who want to keep order or want to bury information so nobody has to look at it again. Essentially they are document silos. A better approach is the use of Walls with Post-Its so Flow can flourish with Kanban. They promote personal development and real growth for three reasons: 1. The development of strong, personal boundaries in emergent situations because while it's important to be open one must know their limits; 2. The developments of emotional resilience in uncertain environments, a trait critical for shaping boundaries; 3. Mastering the ability to be a quick study, learning new rules fast along with people's strengths and weaknesses in doing all this while maintaining a compassionate frame of mind. This is far more important than learning how to do brain dumps of documents. In order to improve value you need to focus on the personal development goals of the people whose role is to create it. As Fin and Hayden discussed the importance of personal goals they are talking essentially about how to thrive in a complex environment that's bordering on chaos. This essentially means learning how to seek and implement value when in the state of some level of uncertainty and incomplete information. Doubt becomes important because it promotes inquiry. Simply put, Flow is caught not taught. It's all about capturing what you can from social interaction in a good workplace. With everyone having personal growth goals in behaving this way collective intelligence grows and becomes more powerful. The remainder of the chapter the authors relate the above-mentioned principles to five issues: 1. How your organization, wrongly, expects you to learn; 2. How to develop your personal learning objectives: 3. Thinking about your learning style; 4. How roles are changing in work; 5. Developing a personal learning journal. Let's flesh these out in a little more detail. 1. Against Traditional Organizational Learning The authors talk about an organizational contradiction that is best captured in a statement made by one of their colleagues, Dan Pontefract, "All your school-life you are taught the value of thinking freely. Then you go to work!" Some conformity is essential but over regulating behavior is counterproductive. The key to learning is always having a focus on increasing value in order to increase Flow. Organizations hurt themselves by focusing on placing people within functions having process-driven frameworks. This fits with a Agile approach where there is a focus on process objectives and their metrics. 2. Developing Your Personal Learning Objectives The goal here is the development of emotional resilience so that healthy, flexible boundaries can be established when in the state of uncertainty. This is critical if one is to keep the focus on adding customer-centric value. In complex environments there is a constant learning -related pressure because one never knows everything, and never will. Consequently, it's important to develop learning objectives centered around putting the uncertainty to work in terms of growth, inventiveness, and being smarter. This is where doubts can really help by provoking thinking in terms of seeking out patterns that can help direct work flow. Disruption is ever-present. The authors go on to talk about their personal learning objectives which, I believe, is a good read. 3. Thinking about Your Learning Style While everyone can be dedicated to learning goals that help promote value the techniques used may differ from person to person. The authors share their techniques. Fin has a more social style mixing it up with various groups and individuals. Hayden tends to take a bit more of a contemplative approach, not that he's a wallflower, and works to sketch out problems and solutions every day, literally, every day he always has a stack of blank A4 paper on his desk. Both provide very good examples of their learning styles on pages 237 through 242. In reading this I'm reminded of the book "Back of the Napkin,” By Dan Roam. 4. 10 Evolving Roles in Work This part I found rather intriguing. 10 roles are listed: 1. The Initiator. These people get projects underway; 2. The Wrangler. These are people and never let go of a problem and work to get it under control; 3. The Connector. This individual has political skills and is capable of managing other people's objectives; 4. The Coach. These coaches know that work needs the change and they are hungry for new ideas, breaking down rigid processes and replacing them with invention and interaction. 5. The Product or Project Guy. The individual capable of laying out ideas and loosely connecting them in a plan sufficient for others to take off with an flesh out. 6. The Mediator. This person does just that, i.e., works to confront behaviors to get in the way of delivering value and helps the team get back on track. 7. The Tester. This person cannot only test to see if metrics are met engaging whether or not what's been delivered is what the customer needs. 8. The Detective. These are individuals with forensic capability who can look through the morass of complex systems and see where simple changes can be effective. 9. The Tech Guru. This is the individual who is expert in a particular area. 10. The Emotional Leader. This person is willing to learn while also taking care of people's emotional needs. "Humility" is the watchword. 5. A Personal Learning Wall Developing a personal learning wall is a great way to establish a focus in progress in growing on a day by day basis. The key point here is that your personal development will propel your professional development. It also works to divide goals into "long-term and "short-term." The key element is to have your plan span the breath of your life rather than focusing only on one area. Also, it is important to track your progress, that is why the Personal Learning Wall is important in order to ensure your moving forward and objectively seeing how you are progressing in terms of increasing strengths and addressing weaknesses. You Are the Value It is important to be inventive during this process because you are the value. Also, one of your responsibilities is to bring the growth that you've created to the team to help with the collective thinking and to encourage other team members to work on their personal growth. Here are the link for previous chapter reviews: episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work episode 0045 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 4, Taking Advantage of Visible Work episode 0046 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 5, Anti-Project Thinking and Business Agility episode 0047 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 6, Creating Value-Seeking Behavior episode 0049 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 7, The Agile C-Suite episode 0050 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 8 216, Value, The Anti-Plan and Testing episode 0051 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 9, Reinventing Roles episode 0053 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 10, The Customer Wall For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.” In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges. Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: • place a review in iTunes, • click on “leave a comment” below, • send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 10, “The Customer Feedback Wall” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. The Flow Customer Feedback Wall is an additional powerful tool for bringing different parts of the business together in search of customer success. It is a venue for everybody to observe customer opinions and to participate in discussions about what has value for them. That helps focus on the personalized approach of "market-of-one." THREE ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS OF CUSTOMER-CENTRICITY authenticity is critical inappropriately representing the customer voice. This can be achieved through the use of: - Customer labs; - The Hack Box (for internal entrepreneurs); - Awareness of SaaS (Software as a Service) developments, especially their metrics. Customer labs literary comprise an area where customers can work and experiment with the design team to generate new products, features, and product ideas. The Hack Box is all about inviting individuals and teams to experiment on how best to bring a new product idea forward and test in iterate demonstrably value-adding features for customers. The SaaS metrics are founded on the basic proposition that any customer-centric platform will improve the potential of the customer to succeed in some way. It turns pain points into strengths. One area in which there is a heavy focus is "churn.Turnover metrics are monitored to look for red flags. An example is measuring the growth of inbound inquiries. THE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK WALL the big advantage of the customer feedback wall is it brings customers closer to the business. It can be used to direct customer feelings to any department or team and/or to unite teams around life customer concerns. An example is given on page 222. There are nine columns comprising the following: 1. Identifying the pain points; 2. Prioritizing the backlog of work; 3. Sizing, evaluation and valuation; 4. No change required; 5. Assigned to digital team; 6. Assigned to core team; 7. Assigned to process change; 8. Back to the portfolio wall; 9. Informing customers. The way this works is the team would first identify customer pain points and then prioritize the backlog of work based on the intensity of that pain and the frequency with which it occurs. The sizing, evaluation and valuation wall serves two purposes. The first is evaluating the impact of the customer pain point while the second is, if possible assign a valuation for that pain point. The no change required column addresses pain points about which the team cannot handled in it needs to be sent to senior management for evaluation. The assigned to digital team refers to pain points that can be fixed by the team managing the company's online presence and sales channels. When there needs to be a change to the platform in order to address a particular pain point this is where it is assigned to the core team. When the pain point highlights the fundamental flaw in the work processes then that pain point is the sign to whomever is responsible for process changes. The back to the portfolio wall addresses issues that erroneously have been made in strategic thinking and that particular pain point needs to go back to executives. The informing customers column addresses just that, i.e., keeping the customer informed of any and all progress being made and doing that on a frequent, routine basis. Here are the link for previous chapter reviews: episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work episode 0045 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 4, Taking Advantage of Visible Work episode 0046 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 5, Anti-Project Thinking and Business Agility episode 0047 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 6, Creating Value-Seeking Behavior episode 0049 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 7, The Agile C-Suite episode 0050 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter, Value, The Anti-Plan and Testing episode 0051 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 9, Reinventing Roles For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.” In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges. Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: • place a review in iTunes, • click on “leave a comment” below, • send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 9, “Reinventing Roles” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. Flow is based on a belief in multidisciplinary people, not just multidisciplinary teams. This is critical when practicing business agility in order to avoid the confusion associated with the approach of one person-one discipline. By having multidisciplinary people the boundaries (maybe the walls) that exist within an organization can be dissolved to some degree. Critical to the process of developing multidisciplinary people is removal of the gap between product managers (market-oriented) and product owners (IT-based). This is critical because if a digital transformation is to be effective people need to transform how they see themselves at work and how they performed. A good example of what I am trying to say comprises people that work in social media. Those individuals need to be effective across many disciplines. Limiting them to only social media effectively is under using their capabilities. Simply put, role rigidity and refusing to let people develop fungibility decreases value-seeking behavior. The authors walk through the traditional waterfall approach for the creation of a product, starting with requirements being generated under the product manager, movement through business analysis, and then the creation of an IT project. This leads to poor integration because each group tends to have its own frame of mind which is not coordinated with the other frames of mind. Also, there's the issue of rigidity in terms of how each department sees its function. What is really needed in an enterprise is for business goals to be adaptive and iterative so that IT can deliver products consistent with the previous chapters we've seen in this book. The key to accomplishing this is working in small units as mentioned in chapter 8. Essentially there is constant iterative experimentation with development-testing, development-testing, rolling out many deliverables on an almost continual basis. An example is provided of creating a customer survey to understand customer needs and specific segments to help shape feature design. Gamification with the social media tools such as Twitter can speed up the process of developing the survey in a rapid, iterative manner that stimulates insights and innovation. Working this way and releasing updates frequently shifts the goal from "understanding customer needs and specific segments" to "a snapshot of customer commentary to key product design fresh." This behavior requires a balancing act weighing the benefits of speed against comprehensiveness and depth. So, the question is would you prefer to secure value after a few days or week and build on that through multiple iterations or would you rather wait a long period of time before releasing the finished survey. The allowance for the development of adaptive business goals the flex throughout the creation process is superior to holding off the release of value for weeks if not months. The key to all this is having a product owner who champions flexibility which is substantially different than traditional product management roles. The traditional approach may be difficult for the product owners to have a clear idea as to exactly what value is needed. This is true in Scrum as well as in Waterfall approaches. Traditionally the product owner sits at the IT-Business divide and focuses on the generation of personas while having very little insight into marketing in the customer. So, while the use of Scrum may unblock some of the old Waterfall methods problems are still present. In going to the other extreme and using MVPs (minimum viable product) can create more suspicion because it can encourage minimal commitment to deliver a minimum viable product. The goal is to have developers who understand the business and can work with the changing matrix of future priorities as well as having an understanding of the user and value creation. There is a need to understand eco-system and associated activities that can be nurtured as well as micro trends that offer immediate opportunities. In other words, this new product owner should be a value-discovery agent. Another world it needs redefined is product owner. Typically, this role is so tightly bound to the IT culture that it fails to perform well across the entire business. What would be better is to morph that role into one of a value manager. This individual would move just as comfortably with the business unit as they would with the IT department. They can move well from assessing customer needs to creating the work breakdown elements while ensuring these are consistent with the business goals. The value manager would then be in a good position for determining when business goals need to change. The individual filling this new product owner position which would be better addressed as the Flow Value Manager would be able to find a balance between the following eight aspects that need to be addressed in order to successfully deliver value: 1. Relationship management 2. Market insight 3. Customer segmentation 4. Developer process insight 5. Requirements setting and goals management 6. Workload management 7. Customer feedback management 8. Acceptance testing This activity would be supported by the following real-time management of feedback loops comprising: 1. Real-time analytics 2. Real-time web analytics 3. Real-time usage analytics 4. Real-time social media analytics 5. Sharing behavior of products and key information between the team members and stakeholders involved This is all grounded in a frame of mind comprising the following seven components: 1. No projects - moving away from the project frame of mind with defined beginning middle and end and subsequent deliverable 2. No estimates and no budget- -using the Flow approach with consistent cycle times one just counts the key Post-Its on a project or Kanban Wall to arrive at estimates and forecasts 3. Very small units of work - 1-2 day units of work encouraging people to come back to the Wall and interacting socially to move the project forward 4. Co-creating processes - wisdom of the crowd is used to define priorities and determine how objective should be reached including processes and tools to be used 5. Informality - frequent informal acceptance agreement so that work can be kept moving 6. Value-seeking behavior - multiple strategies and constant questioning are used to ensure the value is increasing 7. Experimentation - using a range of hypotheses, a matrix of features is created and pushed through to the customer for feedback before committing to full development of any one of those features So with the Flow approach instead of having a Scrum Master it's everyone's job to ensure that value is delivered. It's the new Flow Value Manager (Product Owner) who leads the charge. Here are the link for previous chapter reviews: episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work episode 0045 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 4, Taking Advantage of Visible Work episode 0046 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 5, Anti-Project Thinking and Business Agility episode 0047 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 6, Creating Value-Seeking Behavior episode 0049 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 7, The Agile C-Suite episode 0050 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 8, Value, The Anti-Plan and Testing For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.” In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges. Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: • place a review in iTunes, • click on “leave a comment” below, • send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 8, “Value, The Anti-Plan and Testing” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. The chapter opens with obstacles to the creation of value: 1. Searching to save costs rather than creating value; 2. Failing to truly understand value until we fully understand what customers will buy, enjoy, and share; 3. Planning too much and not testing enough. The authors turned their focus to the issues associated with planning, where planning is inappropriately used as a quality control tool. In the end this can create too much rigidity and planning can be viewed as taking too much time. Testing is then used to take up the slack which, consequently, puts testing in a poor light is a compensation for value-based activities. What works better is the socialization of the whole process where a iteration and testing culture can keep the work flowing in a very public way. This is a basic underpinning of business agility. Something is needed beyond the waste reduction associated with Lean and Agile. Those approaches focus on efficiency rather than value. With Lean it's the straight out reduction of cost and waste while with Agile situation is vague because there are no clear directions as to how to actually increase value. The important point here is that efficiency should not be confused with value creation. Said differently, throughput is not the same as value. Value-seeking behaviors based solely on the creation of features and functions that create a better customer experience. Visualization of processes fosters social interaction which increases the probability of success. In order to be flexible, and move quickly unit testing is a key component of Flow. This pushes the approach of constantly testing at as low-level as possible in order to increase the frequency with which features are delivered. This is in contrast to having a big plan with big tests at the end of development. What is critical is for the entire organization to understand their state in the creation of quality product rather than viewing it as some activity left for the IT department. The shorter the timeframe between testing events the better, e.g., being able to test product every 12 hours in response to micro trends. The authors propose taking this frame of mind to other areas of the company such as marketing and distribution. A good example of this is same-day delivery for products ordered online. Some costs associated with this are incurred because of the speed with which changes being implemented, e.g., friction between team members and stakeholders as they redefine their roles and personal boundaries as well as the IT department working with other areas of the organization. This could be applied marketing by furthering the process of segmentation which would, for example, allow for faster, more specific A/B testing. Also, there is the need for interdisciplinary training for the team members. One aspect of workflow that can inhibit this process is the use of traditional waterfall project management where projects are planned for and approved many months or years prior to implementation. This frustrates the approach of using small unit testing to quickly adjust the teams approach in order to meet the customer's needs. The authors provide a 12 point summary of their conversation with Alan Murphy regarding quality, testing, and value: 1. Traditional testing suites bite off more than they can chew; 2. Code often gets put into production too early; 3. Difficulties associated with the word "done;” 4. Small unit testing brings IT closer to other areas of the business to the benefit of the customer; 5. Unit testing can be coupled to just-in-time acceptance tests; 6. Unit testing is really what makes DevOps work; 7. Units of work should always be the smallest breakdown possible; 8. Good practice involves a broad coverage of unit testing; 9. Unit testing is applicable across all work in all departments; 10. Developers should always challenge product owners about the value of any increment of work; 11. Everyone should be focused on value; 12. There should always be a continuous reevaluation of key roles like product owner, product manager, and project manager. With the trending towards being small the authors see testing and its relationship with Flow as something that can be applied across the entire organization in order to quickly shift with market demands and provide customers the value they need. This gets past the problem of the big projects which push value too far into the future. This is probably best exemplified in the management of drone fleets, a behavior based on real-time interactive activity rather than long-range planning. Trial and error or test-and-see are very common approaches drone fleet management. This rolls back to the need for team members and stakeholders to have a multi-disciplined approach individually as well as within teams as well as across the organization. Here are the link for: episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work episode 0045 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 4, Taking Advantage of Visible Work episode 0046 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 5, Anti-Project Thinking and Business Agility episode 0047 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 6, Creating Value-Seeking Behavior episode 0049 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 7, The Agile C-Suite For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.” In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges. Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: • place a review in iTunes, • click on “leave a comment” below, • send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 7, “The Agile C-Suite” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. If you follow my podcast you'll know this is one of my favorite chapters because I'm all about whether or not senior management aligns with what it takes for the team to get the work done by practicing servant-leadership with the team, turning power and resources over to the team so they can get the job done. This is critical because in complex situations, which essentially is what Flow is about, the typical organizational pyramid gets turned on its head because it's the people in the trenches that are actually executing. They are the ones closest to the customer and closest to the work. So in terms of solving problems as effectively and efficiently as possible power needs to be turned over to the team so that they can make on the spot decisions and keep on moving forward with the solution. The authors referenced a recent study showing that lack of executive accountability was one of the big corporate risk factors. Specifically they list four awful consequences of bad executive decisions: 1. Wasted resources; 2. More pressure on people to perform under constraint because resources are being wasted; 3. People disengaging because they know their work has no value, and; 4. Trouble innovating because there are too few resources and the feeling that, “Well, we tried new things in the past and they never went anywhere.” A way to remedy these problems is to have an Executive Portfolio Wall. It’s a wall where the executives use Post-It notes to show their frame of mind, what they are thinking, how they want to move forward, etc. This has three benefits associated with it: 1. The team can compare what executives are putting up on the Executive Portfolio Wall with the other walls associated with Flow. They can see how many resources are getting wasted and they can change course. They can put things right and specifically this leads into; 2. Seeing the imbalance of resource allocation. They can course correct the organization ensuring that work flows into the right goals, and; 3. As they get close to the teams they get to see emerging areas of activity that are covered by their goals. They can see areas where mavericks have introduced innovation in an attempt to create change. This is referred to as gold dust. I would tend to agree although I would say you have to be careful because you can get cowboys and cowgirls who just want to do things only because they're different, which could end up being a distraction. Frankly, there has to be a commitment to some experimentation if innovation is going to occur. The next section in Chapter 7 is titled Unfreezing Middle-Management, which is a really good term. In my change management, and program and project management experience middle-management has one of the most difficult positions because they can just get frozen in a position where those above are not releasing sufficient resources and power as well as not listening while those below can take advantage of the disorientation their middle managers are experiencing. By having the Executive Portfolio Wall middle managers get a chance to comment on the relative importance of the executive goals as well as the adequacy of what they're willing to allocate in order to achieve those goals. In other words, it allows for a shift in dialogue that makes the conversation between executives and middle managers more robust. Senior managers also get to see how what they put on the Executive Portfolio Wall is the fountainhead for the beginning of Flow. The entire hierarchy can see the connectivity between what the executive portfolios comprise and how that rolls down to the specific goals that they are addressing. By having the Executive Portfolio Wall there are five benefits: 1. Listing the executives’ main enterprise goals; 2. Listing currently funded projects; 3. Indication of the the size of the projects; 4. By showing the backlog they can indicate work that's waiting to get started. What's really good about that is by indicating that a project or piece of project is in backlog senior management is implicitly saying, “Okay, we don't not have resources yet.” 5. With a “Bury” listing they indicate work that has to be canceled. If you've worked in organizations long enough you know that you get what I like to call the zombie projects they just keep on going when they should be canceled. They're not and they just kind of take on a life of their own. So with the Executive Portfolio Wall situations like this are looked at very squarely and decisions are made. Again, this high level of visibility and not writing extensive papers with 30 people on a massive email distribution. Just having this information up on the wall has a massive benefit. Anybody can walk by it on break or when they're doing their work and see how their senior management has shifted its frame of mind as we work to move forward. It promotes healthy interaction across the entire hierarchy. And the better those interactions and the more frequent good decisions are made the better for the organization. Now the big problem with this (and this is actually one of the things that led me to found center for managing change) is whether or not executives are willing to expose their flaws and let go of the gamesmanship around trying to hide flaws and not really being honest about the situation and mistakes that are made, etc. That's what really screws with the team and also in the end screws with the customer. Buying in is needed with regards to senior managers being vulnerable and willing to admit to the consequences of changing their mind, the consequences of making mistakes, etc. in order to move forward. Okay, so why is this important? Well, if an executive is willing to be honest about their flaws then they are giving up their ability to shake their finger be punitive or bossy. Now they're committing to collaborate with the team which means are going to make connections with the team. Sometimes people protect themselves by trying to put as much distance as they can between themselves and other people especially subordinates. By risking being vulnerable there's a chance for better, faster, higher quality communications since there is a willingness to own the consequences associated with taking on the risk. This is why I have an executive coaching course because this can be very difficult to do. It’s this willingness to be vulnerable that's really the linchpin that makes Flow possible. To the extent senior managers are willing to do it and are disciplined and take on the responsibilities then that's the extent to which Flow can be successful. Now another benefit associated with senior managers willing to be vulnerable is they can confront, and I want to use that word neutrally. In other words they can talk directly to the good, the bad, and the ugly that is occurring on the project because if they are honest about their own behaviors then they can be straight up with subordinates regarding the subordinates behaviors. There can be a sustained focus on what it takes to solve the customer's problem. Now in the book on page 184 they give a sample Executive Portfolio Wall to start with. It addresses issues associated with IT and how that compares to C-Suite projects. It's driven by technical debt, work on regulatory and mandatory projects, and projects and propositions that have a direct impact on customer satisfaction.I think it's worth the time it takes to review since it is a good starting point. Remember the goal here is to get a Flow started and that means we have to have an open discussion. By hitting the high points and how they're going to be addressed at the executive level will stimulate conversation where team members can roll in with more detail as is needed. It's a very natural way to work. Finn and Hayden point out this typically is the missing link with Agility. the authors believe the reason why is the vulnerability and exposure associated with owning the consequences. But when vulnerabilities and responsibilities are owned things get better because three simple things occur: 1. Insight can develop across the organization. Remember we have different walls for different themes, beliefs, and components of the project. We get insight by seeing all the information being displayed in different ways. 2. Conversation. Risking having an Executive Portfolio Wall promotes a conversation. 3. Common Language. Conversation leads to a common language across the organization with regards to the customers, the customer's problems, and how those problems are being solved, this is pretty cool! That's it for chapter 7. In chapter 8 the authors talk about value, the anti-plan and testing. Here are the link for: episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work episode 0045 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 4, Taking Advantage of Visible Work episode 0046 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 5, Anti-Project Thinking and Business Agility episode 0047 of Wrestling With Chaos, For Chapter 6, Creating Value-Seeking Behavior For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.” In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges. Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: • place a review in iTunes, • click on “leave a comment” below, • send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 3, “Disrupting The Cadence of Work” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. Chapter 3 deviates markedly from the traditional Waterfall approach. A visual approach is used with Post-Its on the wall and no extensive, traditional documentation. All functionalities, including Finance, etc., are included. Communication is brief via Tweets, use of the phone, etc., to create energy in the team and avoid the stodginess of traditional approaches. Work is divided into 2 day chunks by apply CATE from Chapter 2:   C = (dynamic) Customer segmentation A = Asset discovery T = Targeted ideation E = Ecosystem   It’s all about reducing the cycle time to get product out. Move forward with successes and make changes as needed based on feedback.   To make this all happen a big part of senior management’s job is making sure the team feels safe and able to work iterations and apply lessons-learned.   By working interactively in short cycles work can be transferred to a Kanban board which supports continuous innovation because trust is present. This is superior to continuous improvements.   The “soft” skills senior management must practice can be quite hard. Working with human nature is not necessarily a straightforward task. It requires senior management to work as servant-leaders both supporting the team and watching that the team is going in the right direction.   Methodologies now come into play for continuous innovation. What is critical is methodologies are used in a flexible manner, picking the tool that works best in a situation.   The Minimal Sustainable  Delivery Matrix (MSD) is introduced, which solves the problem incrementally with constant feedback from the customer. This is a method superior to MVP (minimal viable product). MSD requires critical non-essentials and marginal gains (see Chapter 1).   Kanban is preferred over Scrum because the team only takes on the work they can do. Those in Business Analysis can work on improving the backlog.   Also, by having the short intervals decreases the occurrence of context switching where team members are constantly switching back and forth between tasks.   The chapter concludes with a 12 step approach to reduce cycle time: smaller work units increased team interaction multidisciplines environment allowance for new tools, techniques, and workarounds shorter cycle times improves accuracy of budgeting visible work ( Post-Its on wall) shows dependencies visible work allows for better resource allocation collaborative thinking work breakdowns performed groups the value of work is visible cycle time for feedback is shortened faster pivots on short notice     Here are the link for:    episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.” In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges.   Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: place a review in iTunes, click on “leave a comment” below, send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com   Listen to future episodes for our reply.

Rich Thiel, Business Agility consultant and CEO of The Noble Foundry, discusses the importance of emotions, relationships, trust, and vulnerability in order to successfully provide solutions to customers problems when leading an Agile transformation. We met at the Flow Academy workshop conducted by Fin Goulding and Haydn Shaughnessy at the Business Agility Conference Midwest that past Nov 4-7, 2019. The workshop is based on their book 12 Steps To Flow. The discussion is quite rich since Business Agility is based on key concepts from complex adaptive systems and complexity science and describes a frame of mind used when the rules fall apart or there simply are no rules. The discussion points are as follows: Agile is a culture and a mindset rather than a specific methodology. Agility is about team empowerment in contrast to leaders dropping end dates on teams and leaving them with no support or sense of how to proceed. With an Agile Transformation teams can behave as owners of the project and be fully engaged. Senior managers work with the team. Achieving the above is what led Rich to Business Agility. Rich discusses the erroneous belief that somehow managers have the answers which always come from above. He references “Innovation Happens Elsewhere,” based on the belief the best ideas emerge from the team, collectively managing the brainpower of the group. A really good manager focuses on the team being successful. With a good Agile leader the team is in an environment where they can risk being vulnerable, increasing the collective capability which increases the odds of the team self-organizing. Gary references the challenge with a quote, “We raise children to be dolphins but in business we reward sharks.” Also, Six Sigma situations occur very rarely. Rules either fall apart or are absent. Business Agility is a much. Rich talks about the importance of relationships as reflected in the “I promise” approach a leader used to show both his commitment and the expected commitment of team members. The above leads to the importance of emotional honesty between team members…a challenging but rewarding activity. What makes this a challenging activity is team members need to stop self-protecting and be honest about strengths and weaknesses. Technique is important but it is not the core. The core is changing the way people choose to relate. People over process - a foundation principle in Business Agility. This was reflected in Fin Goulding referring to constructive work as being fun! It gets down to an old function from Project Management…being an egoless team. Rather than a collection of individuals the team works as a unit. A dramatic change Business Agility creates is: work is brought to the team, which remains constant as a unit, rather than matrixing people across multiple projects. Rich and Gary joke about the word “vision” and how it can be distorted to encourage greed vs staying on track with the principles and being honest about what can be done with the resources available to solve the client’s problem. Agility helps create a more realistic use of the word “vision.”   You can reach Rich at The Noble Foundry or contact him on LinkedIn. Gary is available on LInkedIn as well as at Center for Managing Change.   If you need help in gaining clarity when dealing with complex situations similar to our podcast discussion, download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges.   Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: place a review in iTunes, click on “leave a comment” below, or send any comments along with your name and the show number to contact at Center for Managing Change.   Listen to future episodes for our reply.

Today’s podcast covers Chapter 2, “The Customer in the Agile Business” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. From my perspective, this chapter is all about the need for complex adaptive systems pulling in information and responding in a real-time manner to customer needs. See what you think.   Key points from chapter 1 are brought forward: matrix innovation critical non-essentials and marginal gains value-seeking culture Flow Value Stack For more on the Introduction and Chapter 1 go to episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. The concept CATE is introduced here, in Chapter 2 C = (dynamic) Customer segmentation A = Asset discovery T = Targeted ideation E = Ecosystem   Customer segmentation reveals potential new markets, especially out at the long-tail where new trends are emerging. This requires the ability to innovate and adapt to the new trends on the fly — matrix innovation. Things can keep on changing out on that long tail. A fascinating example given is creating financial markets for the poor (people outside established banking norms) in Africa via working with NGOs. Asset discovery addresses what all is needed to satisfy demands in those newly-discovered markets. Do you use existing internal assets? Develop new assets? Utilize customers existing assets? Bring in partners? This is a very rich phase which requires a very direct discovery conversation within the team as well as bringing in the customers (more on that later) and/or potential partners. A conversation flow is established and maintained. Targeted ideation essential flows from the asset discovery in terms of defining the products generated during customer segmentation. Ecosystem comprises the context, the “geography,” so to speak of how and where the product(s) fit in the stakeholder landscape.   Economies of scope are discussed which is all about understanding directly customers needs. Rather than abstractions via big data or avatars it is better to gather information directly from, say, social media analysis. This allows for simultaneous differentiation of multiple products/services customer segments may need. The recommend using social media tools such as StatSocial, Sprinklr, and Crimson Hexagon. An example is given of a car dealership finding out a high percentage of purchasers were interested in biking. Consequently, they aligned the dealership with adjacent biking products.   An example of the Asset discovery, Targeted ideation, and Ecosystem coming together via the NGOs is a large, global retailer providing the transportation chain needed for land-rich, cash-poor, transportation-deprived farmers in Africa to get their product to richer markets.   Essentially, this is about developing complex adaptive systems that morph with discovers in and changes to the business environment.   In terms of methodologies the authors focus on visual processes…building “walls with post-its.” In other words, no lengthy documents. The team is vital and works as a unit real-time, face-to-face, generating the minimal amount of documentation needed, i.e., organized post-its. The process is very immediate. No lag time. evolving and innovating as they work to stay connected to customers and create solutions for customer needs. For more on the various “Walls” refer to their excellent book, “Flow.”   In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges.   Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: place a review in iTunes, click on “leave a comment” below, send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com   Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 4, “Taking Advantage of Visible Work” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. This chapter deals with introducing visible, observable, work. This is the cornerstone for new organizational culture. It provides a framework for collective intelligence and matrix innovation which requires many granular decisions which everyone can see. By having a wall with Post-Its everyone can see the decision points and play a key role based on their know-how.   A key component of Flow is social interactions shape knowledge and support decisions. Doing the work visually supports these interactions and addresses the complexity of projects in a threefold manner: - first off, likes complex anyway and there is no way of getting around - complexity is more easily managed when an approach is used that allows for collective intelligence rather than hierarchies and plans - this can be accomplished using walls and Post-It’s.   An example is provided as to how Samsung one about creating the Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) screen. Two major goals of no backlight and better color saturation were broken down into 50 major problem areas. In turn, these problem areas were broken down into hundreds of problem statements which ended up producing thousands of smaller problems which were essentially viewed as goals which needed to be achieved.   This example was used as an analogy for how Flow works, i.e., instead of problem statements goal statements are used to direct the construction of areas of work and units of work. Addressing these problems visually is superior to creating a grand plan. Visualization and social interaction helps keep everyone on board. Visualization and smaller units of work are effective tools for mastering complexity. The team is free to develop its own culture and interactions that are appropriate for solving the problems.   An interesting point that is made is that many people have emotional intelligence but they lack emotional resilience. Emotional resilience is the ability to stand up for ideas one believes in. Visualization helps people develop emotional resilience. The reason is people can actually see how the work is progressing, or not, which helps them look at the situation in a straightforward manner and develop a collective intelligence. The Walls with the Post-It's create venues where discussions can occur that promote the resilience.   With this approach risk and issues receive greater exposure.   These walls essentially become a visual documentation of the organizations learning.   The authors point out that by having visual manifestation of work it's easy for everyone to observe the work-in-progress to get an idea of how well the project is moving forward. This is especially important when a lot of the work is being performed is brand-new.   It is important to have a wall for the various frames-of-mind appropriate for the project, e.g., the customer innovation wall, and appreciation wall, an executive portfolio, the customer feedback wall, etc. This is referred to as extreme visualization.   The chapter concludes with the steps required to implement extreme visualization are: 1. Sufficient wall space. The corridor that everyone uses is a great space. 2. Anticipate resistance. Coaxing executives to participate can be one of the most difficult aspects of the work. Regardless, it is good start with a customer wall and an executive portfolio wall. 3. Adaptation. See if you can find a pressing project that can serve as a focal point to begin practicing extreme visualization. This will encourage maximum involvement. 4. Research. Customer walls, for example, may require social media research or examination of existing files in order to populate the wall. Likewise, for an executive portfolio wall data from all projects needs to be gathered and displayed. 5. The first draft. It may be difficult and/or uncomfortable to get a particular wall started. This is where a facilitator for the first day or two can be beneficial. Sometimes there may be a team member who happens to be good at facilitation. Use that person but don't let them become too prominent. This is meant to be a team effort. 6. Reporting. Resist the urge to create write ups from the walls. Use photos, not reports. 7. Tools to have on hand: - a learning wall where people can document the learning process - the go to market plan. This provides a valid and disciplined way to think about the market when you're creating products or services. - plenty of Post-It's and markers - a camera. Smartphone may be sufficient. The goal is to routinely take pictures on a daily basis to avoid the temptation of writing things up.   Here are the link for:    episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work   For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.”   In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges.   Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: place a review in iTunes, click on “leave a comment” below, send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com   Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 5, “Anti-Project Thinking and Business Agility” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. This chapter argues that Agile techniques could be improved by moving away from Epics and User stories to Flexible Business Goals, Areas of Work, and Units of Work.   The reason for this is workplaces change with regards to technology and market dynamics. The situation is highly complex with multiple intangible assets such as relationships with customers. There also is the vast array of digital assets that come into play along with multiple interfaces presenting different messages or incentives. This means a vast amounts of data come from various sources.   To compound the situation companies are faced with the prospect of doing multiple new things all the time which the authors refer to as "atomization", which fragments old value chains into hundreds of interrelated units of work that make up matrix innovation. Traditional and agile ways of work cannot cope with this level of novelty because they are built on replicability, i.e., doing the same task multiple times.   This is where Flow comes into play. An example is provided using Patty Power Betfair, a gambling institution in Dublin, Ireland. The deals with more than 3.5 billion API requests every day and handles up to 30 million transactions daily. This is a circumstance where the flow philosophy is superior to project management. For success, it is critical to prioritize goals over Epics and User Stories. Goals are defined as flexible statements of what a good outcome of work should look like. These goals are broken down into areas of work and then units of work each of which have their own specific goals. Working in this manner and monitoring performance allows for quick adjustments early in order to continue producing value.   This approach epitomizes the Business Agile mindset. By atomizing the work the mystery is removed from dealing with such monolithic endeavors as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. The atomization of work into small work packages allows for maximum flexibility in terms of necessary changes based on immediate performance feedback.   Working in this manner is the antithesis of traditional project management with its work breakdown structure (WBS). This essentially is the Waterfall method. The Agile approach provided some improvement with the Epics and Stories, but these Epics and Stories are delivered in Sprints that come together in periodic Scrums which are supervised by Scrum Master.   Sprints have their own problems because work progresses for a period of time before determining whether or not it integrates with the work that other individuals are doing. Reworked and delays occur which encourages people to go off and work on other tasks causing a subsequent collapse of the culture which leads to more problems. Epics and Stories have their own problem, i.e., the product owner becomes a stand-in for the customers. Flow goes beyond this by having a different cultural perspective centered on interaction and collective intelligence. The authors do note the formal project management techniques are appropriate when physical materials and multiple parties are involved, e.g., construction. With intangible products the situation is different because a consistent flow of innovations may be required to provide services and products that are unique to various customers. Because the work is not constrained is in a physical situation, e.g., construction, codesign of work is possible. Value seeking behavior is prioritized in an environment where goals and work codesign rule.   A key aspect of Flow is keeping work fluid so that battles do not break out, the kind of battles that occur when a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is being defined in a large organization. With Flow there is a focus on fluidity rather than rules, processes, and boundaries. Value is the goal. Innovation is continuous.   The key is: - focus on business goals with real value - training people to adapt to shifting goals is more knowledge of customer needs his acquired - perform units of work in short bursts in order to check in frequently with customers and colleagues - be ready for multiple, micro-pivots as you create a matrix of features to put in front of the customer   An appropriate work breakdown it is visualized on a wall is required for successful Flow. Because of the newness of the work and the lack of repetition team members will be asked to invent new methods of working along with features and products or services that have value for the customer. This is why the social interaction is so important because the work may change as new information is gathered. This is why visual techniques are so important in order to provide maximum value in the shortest period of time. Constructing the work breakdown and laying out significant independent deliverables to achieve the business outcome is critical. It should be done in an area where all stakeholders can observe and comment. The closer the work is to today more detail is required. Is the workflows out into the future it can be left to be more free-form and become more detailed as the team approaches it. It's all about connecting the work breakdown to identified value. It's also about shorter cycle times.   The work breakdown process comprises 11 steps: 1. There is a pressing business objective 2.  A series of goals (business outcomes) are defined 3.  Which goals will deliver value first is the first significant social interaction 4.  Goals are broken down in terms of a user journey or workflow steps 5.  Is workers describe the stories in terms of the value users can acquire from the features of the product or service 6.  Later goals are left on the wall to be assessed and commented on his people think about them and domain experts share their knowledge 7.  The work breakdowns become story cards for developers and testers 8.  Story cards are intended to be completed within 1 to 2 days the output bundled into a Minimum Sustainable Delivery Matrix (MSD) the customer will engage with 9.  Minimum viable features can be created to test value and overall fit with the project 10. The aforementioned features may lead to more enhanced features or they may lead to features being dropped based on feedback 11. Along the Walls many dependencies become apparent to people over time. This is where the used of Post-It's is superior to a planning document   An example of high-level goals is provided. The example shows the importance of bringing in all areas across the business which are affected by or can contribute to the project in addition to the IT shop. This is one of the key benefits of Flow.   The authors then describe the benefit of Flow over Agile. Flow is based on direct user experience and feedback rather than the development of User stories and Avatars and the associated "Agile prison" that can be created the removes the developers from contact with client. The very short cycle times of Flow give immediate user/customer feedback which the team can use directly.   One of the keys and Flow is to have work codesigned by IT and business unit. Which critical when doing work this way is to think beyond one's own selfish culture and the focus on the customer and how they feel when we are successful in addressing their needs. Working this way is referred to as a holistic team.   The chapter closes out with a good example of how this multidisciplinary work is performed with regards to a car dealership.   Here are the link for:    episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work episode 0045 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 4, Taking Advantage of Visible Work   For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.”   In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges.   Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: place a review in iTunes, click on “leave a comment” below, send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com   Listen to future episodes for our reply.

This podcast covers Chapter 6, “Creating Value-Seeking Behaviour” of “12 Steps to Flow: The New Framework for Business Agility,” by Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding, developers of the internationally acclaimed workshop, Flow Academy. This chapter answers the question, "How do we seek value is continuous activity without a spreadsheet, value proposition or a conventional ROI?" This is done by going deeper into the Flow Value Stack introduced in the Introduction. The key is weaving value into everyday activities rather than being a separate event.   The importance of how a customer is viewed along with the corresponding segmentation is critical for success. Innovation alone is insufficient. The authors provide as an example the TV industry in the United States and its disappearance, losing dominance to the Japanese, who eventually lost dominance to the Koreans. This loss of dominance occurred for two reasons: 1. The Japanese were better at focusing on continuous learning in semiconductor manufacturing while the Americans focused on innovation; 2. The Americans drove for excellence in image quality which led to a high degree of breakdown while the Japanese focused on optimizing the technology they had, leaving fewer breakdowns. The lesson here is to look for optimization across a matrix of all the activities rather than driving one component to perfection. In Flow one looks to see how the matrix of all the activity involved in bringing the product to market and servicing customers can be best optimized.   The approach of Value Optimization Analysis is introduced. This is a level above traditional value stream analysis. In value stream analysis the reduction of waste in a given process is assumed to increase value while in value optimization analysis one questions, “Why are we doing this process? Is this the best way to create value in a balanced way?"   The authors go on to refer to tools that we introduced in Chapter 10, e.g., The Customer Feedback Wall, but for now they give a list of 16 questions that can be used over a three month period to conduct a value review by the team to see whether or not the right processes are being used in order to add value for the customer. Questions range from, "How many customer feedback issues have been dealt with and how can we classify them?" To, "Are enough of our products and features contributing to customer success?" The results from discussing questions such as these and others are placed on a Flow Value Wall where trends can be observed as to whether or not value is increasing, staying the same, or decreasing. While observing these trends can chose the value of performance in the long run what is key is to learn how to use this information to optimize value on a day-to-day basis. Remember, the goal is to maintain a continuous flow of innovation that can be tested with the customer.   The authors take to task the traditional use of the phrase "value proposition." Rather than something that can be stated in one sentence or a single statement they see it as something that is much more complex and encompassing the ranges across the entire customer experience. It is open-ended and continuous. This leads asking two key questions: 1. How can I be sure that my work-in-progress and project investment are adding value to customers in a balanced or optimized way? 2. What initiatives can we develop to expand our markets as new technologies arise in new needs become evident? This chapter focuses on the first question.   SEEKING VALUE WITHOUT WRITING VALUE PROPOSITIONS As mentioned in previous chapters, is not only inventing new products but also adapting to system changes necessary to innovate in a timely manner. Consequently it is quite important that collective intelligence is used to stay on target for achieving goals through a continuous flow of activities in the work units. All work is interrelated which is essential for Flow to be effective in that one is taking business objectives and working them into value for the customer.   Two examples are provided, one is with regards to changing the business cycle in insurance and the other addresses creating value in the automobile industry.   The second example addresses aftermarket issues associated with car sales with one of the focal points of being how women are addressed with regards to After-Sales customers. The break the situation down into five phases: phase 1. The statement of proposed value phase 2. Articulating flexible business goals phase 3. Understanding customer success factors phase 4. Creating new units of work phase 5. Delivery, test and iteration   They summarize the overall problem as comprising: - many enterprises do not have problems that can be solved with a startup approach such as MVP - they struggle to balance complex psychological and financial pressures - After-Sales is where the profit lies - carmakers have little idea how this market segments other than data on the types of cars that get serviced most - carmakers think they can solve this problem with the big data solution, or "market of one."   A key component that stands out is in Phase 4, creating new units of work. It discusses the need for integration across research, marketing, and production in order to be successful. In other words, the Post-Its associated with work breakdown appear on the same wall representing marketing, business delivery, and IT. This integration is critical for success. The forces work out into the open where team members can see if everyone truly understands what everyone else is doing along with whether or not the work is being truly integrated. This rolls into phase 5, delivery, testing, and iteration. The units of work all need to come together through minimum sustainable delivery matrices (MSD) that can be pushed to the customers in a manner that satisfies their needs as well as generate sufficient profit.   The chapter concludes with statements regarding Flow and how it focuses on value seeking rather than value propositions. That value can be sought in a number of ways: 1. In a Statement of Proposed Value 2. By creating flexible business goals to which people can adapt via spot decisions 3. Breaking work down into tasks where the value can be more easily identified especially through short cycles of work which helps get rid of anything that lacks value 4. Engineering continuous feedback loops that creates information for both the strategist and the kanban teams 5. Conduct Flow Value Optimization Analysis to check whether systems, routines, or services are creating continual added value 6. Constantly engaged in helping people broaden theres skill sets so that they can put value ahead of roles 7. Use the Executive Portfolio Wall to make sure that only work of value passes down to the executive teams   Here are the link for:    episode 0037 of Wrestling with Chaos. the Introduction, The Value Seeking Enterprise, and Chapter 1, Talking About Business Agility: episode 0042 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 2, The Customer In The Agile Business. episode 0043 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 3, Disrupting The Cadence of Work episode 0045 of Wrestling With Chaos. For Chapter 4, Taking Advantage of Visible Work episode 0046 pf Wrestling With Chaos, for Chapter 5, Creating Value-Seeking Behavior   For more on the various “Walls” using Post-Its refer to their excellent book, “Flow.”   In line with Business Agility and dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges.   Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: place a review in iTunes, click on “leave a comment” below, send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com   Listen to future episodes for our reply.

Flow in Business Agility is discussed with Fin Goulding and Haydn Shaughnessy of  Flow Academy. The discussion is quite rich since Business Agility is based on key concepts from complex adaptive systems and complexity science and describes a frame of mind used when the rules fall apart or there simply are no rules. The discussion points are as follows: Haydn started by stating his work with new technologies and their business applications. This includes disruption. Fin is a technologist having worked with financial institutions and then switched to the dot com world. Together they’ve created a unique perspective on Business Agility. This uniqueness is reflected in how they avoid distinguishing between the Business Unit and Information and Technology. They have a strong record in uniting the two into a seamless entity. The conversation turned to the need for a high level of trust in order to be effective and get “Action and Traction.” This trust allows for criticism which helps get to the heart of the matter and solve the client’s problem. Business Agility allows for providing many small releases maybe on a daily basis faster than waiting for quarterly releases based on a waterfall method. It’s important, though, to have sufficient up-front analysis to make sure what is delivered has value. Flow discovers value up front and makes sure it’s delivered through the entire organization and the traditional blockers are removed. Leadership qualities and behaviors are critical — help the team do the work! Be part of the team! Stay focused on the principles involved. This is grounded in putting emotions, mutual respect, and relationships first. This is based on the principle of collective intelligence which says there is too much information and we need to put our heads together to figure out just what is essential. A real challenge with Flow is the absence of rules. It’s about harnessing the power fo the team rather than promoting a specific methodology. This harnessing is done by use of visual methods typically using post-its and walls in order to work outside the box. People will engage more with visual approaches over extensive white papers. This includes having emotion walls where “thank you” post-its can be placed. Because emergence is such a key part of Flow and Business Agility there is much more flexibility with Post-its and Walls vs constant editing of long papers. This helps avoid information overload caused by excessive e-mails, etc. It also keeps people working face-to-face around the Post-Its which supports honest communications and moving the project forward at an optimal speed. Social interaction improves. Emotional honesty drives the work forward. Flow Value Optimization Analysis was discussed which simultaneously looks at the flow of a specific process while simultaneously questioning the value of the process and determining if it can be improved or even eliminated. Flow helps respond to new market dynamics quickly along with long-tail product dynamics. Additionally it helps with scaling, lowering prices and doing this with micro-developoment. Flow fits well with a start-up frame of mind…even in a large organization where micro development occurs. This is critical because of the ecosystem of markets and the frequent, small shifts. Flow becomes a guideline for gauging how best to shift behaviors to be effective.   Again, their website is with Flow Academy and they can be reached on LinkedIn at Fin Goulding and Haydn Shaughnessy.   If you need help in gaining clarity when dealing with complex situations, you can download CMC’s free e-book  MINDSET – 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO LOOK AT COMPLEX PROBLEMS and learn how to find a simple vantage point from which you can resolve challenges.   Your feedback is important. Choose from the following options: place a review in iTunes, click on “leave a comment” below, or send any comments along with your name and the show number to support@ctrchg.com   Listen to future episodes for our reply.

The concept of Financial Independence Retire Early means different things to different people. Friend of the show, Fin Goulding has no shortage of experience when it comes to the investment and insurance industry, and joins us on the show to share his own take on FIRE, and how people can achieve Financial Independence. Be sure to stay till the end where Fin shares his take on how to manage and achieve long term investment success. Paddy Delaney Fin's Twitter  

Introduction: This episode showcases some practices & principles that support teams be agile and adopt Flow principles in the digital world.  Fin Goulding is an expert in business and technical agility having worked as a CIO or CTO in some major organisations like Aviva, PaddyPowerBetfair, Lastminute.com, HSBC and Travelocity. Fin is the co-founder of Flow Academy with Haydn Shaughnessy and has co-authored two books, Flow and 12 steps to Flow. Flow is a book for changemakers, mavericks and innovators. It demystifies the business of digital transformation. Fin is a prolific blogger, public speaker and social media enthusiast. He is also a keen marathoner.  Podcast episode summary: This conversation spoke to the work Fin now does in helping teams and organisations navigate digital transformation.  Fin described the essence of his book, Flow, which is really a metaphor for work and how it should be, frictionless.  Fin shared how people can be with change through visualisation techniques, stand-ups and the like where meaningful work and outcomes are discussed rather than problems. He admitted to stumbling across Agile and how it now informs so much of his thinking regarding Leadership, Teams and the business of providing value for clients.    Fin is not just an IT geek but a cultural expert in terms of business and technical agility, he is also a keen motivator and communicator  His work concerns people and how they could work together and collaborate better across teams-its all about improving the way people work together to get at better outcomes for clients.  Leadership can be a misnomer especially when teams are self-managing, Leaders need to find their purpose and place with teams  The best teams forget hierarchies and find ways to work together to get the work done  Toxic members can sabotage team performance and the Leader can support the person or individual do their best work elsewhere.  Get good at working outside of your job description, think broad as well as deep Respect diversity and look to hire for diversity  Often getting at team performance means unlearning  and learning to be open to new ideas and ways of working  A leader needs to create the conditions for psychological safety which for Fin is about being genuine, humble and about telling stories He encourages team members to continually learn, to listen to things like podcasts to widen their perspectives. It is important to continuously learn Don't be a Vampire, the kind of leader who sucks the energy out of a team Finally, Fin shared some nuggets for listeners to consider –Employ visualisation techniques, find your purpose and work to identify your values and strengths to be best deployed on a team   Quotable Quotes: “helping people do their best work elsewhere” “As a Leader don't be a Vampire, sucking the energy out of a team”   Resources: the following includes the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation Flow, by Fin Goulding and Hayden Shaughnessy  Designing your life; how to build a well-lived joyful life which applies design thinking to the most pernicious of life's problems by Bill Burnet and Dave Evans  Lean Enterprise by Barry O Reilly  Teaming by Amy Edmonson  FGoulding on Linkedin and Twitter  Goulding.io for Fin's blog

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/After the popularity our episode #30 with Fin Goulding, we invite Flow co-author Haydn Shaughnessy into the conversation. We talk:- Why flow in organisations is all about the quality of interactions- How the Asian business culture differs and how it helps them compete- The power of (don't' say it!) nationalism in building a business- The importance of visualisation to bring light to our shadows- How to avoid periodic 'slash-and-burn' headcount culls- The folly of 'core competency' thinking and why 'ecosystems' matter- How being human is all about the conversationLinks- The Flow Academy - https://www.flow-academy.org/- The Flow book: https://amzn.to/2RM1cqZ- The 12 Steps to Flow book: https://amzn.to/2qaBZK8

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/After the popularity our episode #30 with Fin Goulding, we invite Flow co-author Haydn Shaughnessy into the conversation. We talk:- Why flow in organisations is all about the quality of interactions- How the Asian business culture differs and how it helps them compete- The power of (don't' say it!) nationalism in building a business- The importance of visualisation to bring light to our shadows- How to avoid periodic 'slash-and-burn' headcount culls- The folly of 'core competency' thinking and why 'ecosystems' matter- How being human is all about the conversationLinks- The Flow Academy - https://www.flow-academy.org/- The Flow book: https://amzn.to/2RM1cqZ- The 12 Steps to Flow book: https://amzn.to/2qaBZK8

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/After the popularity our episode #30 with Fin Goulding, we invite Flow co-author Haydn Shaughnessy into the conversation. We talk:- Why flow in organisations is all about the quality of interactions- How the Asian business culture differs and how it helps them compete- The power of (don't' say it!) nationalism in building a business- The importance of visualisation to bring light to our shadows- How to avoid periodic 'slash-and-burn' headcount culls- The folly of 'core competency' thinking and why 'ecosystems' matter- How being human is all about the conversationLinks- The Flow Academy - https://www.flow-academy.org/- The Flow book: https://amzn.to/2RM1cqZ- The 12 Steps to Flow book: https://amzn.to/2qaBZK8

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/A conversation with Aviva's International CIO and author Fin Goulding. We talk:- Taking Agile out of technology teams and into the wider business- The genesis of his book Flow whilst working at the major European bookmaker Paddy Power- Having his suit "surgically removed" when moving from banking to tech culture- The hardcore economic benefits of visualising work- Why physical architecture matters- How to make Agile work with remote teams- How leaders have to change to enable FlowLinks- Fin's personal site: https://goulding.io/- The Flow Academy - https://www.flow-academy.org/- The Flow book: https://amzn.to/2RM1cqZBeing Human is brought to you by coaching and consulting practice FirstHuman. For more FirstHuman's offerings, head to firsthuman.com.

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/A conversation with Aviva's International CIO and author Fin Goulding. We talk:- Taking Agile out of technology teams and into the wider business- The genesis of his book Flow whilst working at the major European bookmaker Paddy Power- Having his suit "surgically removed" when moving from banking to tech culture- The hardcore economic benefits of visualising work- Why physical architecture matters- How to make Agile work with remote teams- How leaders have to change to enable FlowLinks- Fin's personal site: https://goulding.io/- The Flow Academy - https://www.flow-academy.org/- The Flow book: https://amzn.to/2RM1cqZBeing Human is brought to you by coaching and consulting practice FirstHuman. For more FirstHuman's offerings, head to firsthuman.com.

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/A conversation with Aviva's International CIO and author Fin Goulding. We talk:- Taking Agile out of technology teams and into the wider business- The genesis of his book Flow whilst working at the major European bookmaker Paddy Power- Having his suit "surgically removed" when moving from banking to tech culture- The hardcore economic benefits of visualising work- Why physical architecture matters- How to make Agile work with remote teams- How leaders have to change to enable FlowLinks- Fin's personal site: https://goulding.io/- The Flow Academy - https://www.flow-academy.org/- The Flow book: https://amzn.to/2RM1cqZBeing Human is brought to you by coaching and consulting practice FirstHuman. For more FirstHuman's offerings, head to firsthuman.com.

The modern CIO mandate includes maintaining operational stability while driving change through innovation. Industry analyst and CXOTalk host, Michael Krigsman, speaks with CIO and author, Fin Goulding, about leading successful transformation in established organizations.

The modern CIO mandate includes maintaining operational stability while driving change through innovation. Industry analyst and CXOTalk host, Michael Krigsman, speaks with CIO and author, Fin Goulding, about leading successful transformation in established organizations.

On episode 3 we hear from Richard Spence of Beutifi from last year's cohort, we have a clip of Fin Goulding from our event with Aviva as part of our InsurTech initiative and we also chat to Lucinda Kelly, founder of Popertee. For more info please see www.ndrc.ie