Sharing our consultant's learning - March 2018

A couple of weeks ago we hosted a fascinating executive event where Simon Bennett presented on 'Why the Responsibility Process® is the key to succeeding with Agile'. He concluded that when organisations adopt Agile, either top down or bottom up, it often doesn't work because it is an 'outside in' approach of people trying to control other people. The alternative is 'inside out' where people change themselves. Simon positioned the Responsibility Process as an 'inside out' approach for achieving Agile with responsible individuals having responsible interactions.

See a summary of Simon's Responsibility Process presentation.

Sharing what our consultants are learning...

Fiona Blunsdon, Systems Analyst (see Fiona's profile)

This article struck a chord with me:

• 3 Things for Business Analysis Professionals to Focus on in 2018

Point two from the article mentions fast feedback loops. If this is not something you successfully implemented in 2017, then it should be a focus for 2018. Getting customers involved for feedback early and often is something we should all be focusing on. Check out this post by Kristof Kloeckner on blending DevOps and Design Thinking for faster feedback loops for more ideas:

• DevOps and Design Thinking Offer An Accelerated Feedback Loop For Service Delivery

Bill Ross, Principal Consultant (see Bill's profile)

The Auditor General recently released the report Infrastructure as a Service: Are the benefits being achieved? It is an interesting read for those who work in Government IT, examining if Government IaaS has delivered the anticipated benefits. A couple of interesting points from the report:

• 63 organisations are required to use Government IaaS (including the DHBs)
• Some of these organisations are not using Government IaaS because they believe it would not benefit them, it is not relevant or fit for their purpose, and it was not affordable
• The GCIO has not issued any exemptions.

Infrastructure as a Service: Are the benefits being achieved?

Carl Weller, Principal Consultant (see Carl's profile)

• How to get Management to Love Agile - Good article from Kai Gilb calling out the need for Agile to grow up. Very similar themes to what we see on Michael Sahota's Certified Agile Leadership course; Agile is a means not the end, don't force it, focus on value as your stakeholder defines it.
• Why Agile Should Be More Predictable Than Waterfall - A very thoughtful piece by Al Shalloway, dispelling some myths, and explaining the critical importance of feedback loops.
• How the Network Generation is Changing the Millennial Military - This article looks at generational changes with specific learnings from the US military. They are likely ahead of the pack when it comes to 'millennials' and the 'network generation' (the 'NetGens') due to the relative age of their workforce, but some good learnings for us all, particularly the confidence, attention span, and fragility of the 'NetGens'. Not only will we be working with this generation soon, we are already building systems for them.