[OSList] Agile culture - video (X-posted OS/GC-list)

[Michael Herman]

There are a few more interesting points along this curve, where I would
suggest that Agile has been growing up and beginning to learn that they've
been working in OS all along.  My own sense is that Agile, like OS, is a
naturally occurring human phenomenon, and we just have to get/keep out of
our own way.  I've found it an easy addition to my OS practice.

A few more bits of background.  And then an invitation.

After that first conference in 2002, the Agile Alliance has kept some form
of OS going at every conference since then, even as it's gotten maybe 10x
bigger than the original.  Then something called the Scrum Gathering,
another conference of 1000s also started using OS for a big chunk of one
day.  Those conferences are a long way from ongoing OS practice in
organization, but the 2007 one I facilitated stood out for me as the first
time I'd ever been walking around a conference, overhearing references to
"...open space..." where folks were talking about their organization/work
and not the conference event itself.

Along the way, Diana Larsen, as Alliance president, had Larry Peterson, and
later myself, facilitate Agile Alliance board retreats in a very OS sort of
way, sewing more seeds with active leaders in the community.  One of the
things that came out of that was the Agile Open program, where the Alliance
would advance seed money for regional OS Agile conferences.  Diana could
say more about how that worked.  What I've seen is that many agile practice
groups meet monthly and use an OS type of format sometimes, often or
always.  Many regional conferences have a big slice of OS as part of the
program, too.

I think Daniel and I first talked about Invitation and OS in 2010 or 2011,
and again maybe 2013 or 14.  Around that same time, Sandra Walsh was
working on a PhD in Ireland, studying the use of OS to initiate agile
projects.  She showed why OS was a better way to identify needs and vision
and distill them into technical requirements.  She called her approach
OpenXP (XP refers to one of the original bodies of agile practice called
Extreme Programming).

I was also part of Daniel's learning Agile group in 2015.  I found the
methods easy to learn, the local community easy to join, and by the end of
2016 I'd started doing some work as a Scrum Master and later Agile Coach.
I find when I stand in an organization, as an Agile Coach, my posture,
sensing, instincts, inclinations, challenges, approach, etc are exactly the
same as when I stand in the middle of an OS event.  The heart of both
practices is inviting!

In 2018 or so, Jutta Eckstein and John Buck wrote a book called BOSSA Nova,
which outlined their work to combine OS with some other methods for
company-wide agility (ready company-wide ongoing open space).  They
combined Beyond Budgeting, OS, Sociocracy, and Agile.
I was a contributor to that book and tried to help agilists understand the
difference(s) between "conference OS" and "organization OS."  One of the
stories shared was the story of what Walmart did with Daniel's OSA model,
in 30+ OS events.  A favorite I've posted previously to the OSLIST.

Which is all to say that Agile has been learning its way into OS for a long
time, almost as long as Agile has been "a thing" in itself.  And now it's
escaping IT into whole organizations and even work in communities.

If you've been facilitating OS, the Agile community is a vast network
people and body of practice where you'll likely find people who are
familiar, understand, and appreciate OS.  You might find skepticism too,
but not very much, I think.  I'd encourage anyone who's curious to check
MeetUp.com for public, monthly, agile groups/meetings near you.  They seem
to be almost everywhere.  Chicago must have at least five of them now, for
instance.

I'd be glad to help others get over any perceived "humps" or barriers to
learning more about Agile.  Ping me off list if you like.

Michael




--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)

MichaelHerman.com
OpenSpaceWorld.org




On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 4:13 PM Daniel Mezick via OSList <
oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> Greetings to All,
>
> This is an interesting thread to say the least. Agile culture...
>
>
> Regarding The Push or Infliction of Agile without Consent
>
> Imposed Agile is now a worldwide epidemic. An epidemic of...closed space.
>
>
> 2006
>
> Martin Fowler, an Agile Manifesto signatory, warned about the folly and
> harm of imposing "agile" on people
>
> The whole industry looks the other way, and still does to this day:
>
> "...Imposing an agile process from the outside strips the team of the
> self-determination which is at the heart of agile thinking.
>
> "....personally I'd rather have a team work in a non-agile manner they
> chose themselves than have my favorite agile practices imposed upon them.
>
> "So I hope I've made clear that imposing agile methods is a very red
> flag." -Martin Fowler, 2006
>
>
> 2012
>
> No one with a prominent voice except Martin Fowler (and maybe Ron Jeffries
> once in a while) wanted to talk about the folly and harm and horror of *imposed
> "agile" practices* back in 2012, or 2013, or 2014, or 2015. Too much
> money at stake !
>
>
> In 2011/2012 I started experimenting, in client engagements, with
> "before-and-after OST" with 90 days of enterprise-level experimentation in
> the middle. By 2012 I had something working pretty good! The results were
> very strong for the client, although it did tend to reduce how long I
> needed to be there at very high bill rates...
>
> ...I started Tweeting a leading questions, questions like "don't the folks
> have to be truly engaged for any of this agile stuff to work? Don't they
> have to want it, for it to work?"
>
>
> 2013
>
> As a result of those Tweets, in September of 2013 I received an invite to
> keynote the Global Scrum Gathering in Paris France, which I accepted. I
> delivered a speech called DARE TO INVITE which was description of OpenSpace
> Agility, aka "OSA".
>
> OSA creates 90 day waves of change punctuated by whole-group Open Space
> events that a) look back and inspect those results and b) look forward plan
> the next 90-wave. With the whole enterprise. Every 90 days.
>
> It has since spread throughout the world. There are over 1000 people who
> have been trained in OSA. Based on OST, it is being used worldwide for
> enterprise agility at scale.
>
> The good news is: almost anywhere that whole-group Open Space is used at
> the enterprise level in Agile adoptions, the results are much better. You
> can see video testimonials from executives, managers, developers and UX
> people, here: https://openspaceagility.com/testimonial-videos/
>
>
> 2015
>
> Around 2015 I taught some agile stuff online, for free, to people from
> OSLIST, under the auspices and authority of OSI-US. It was all by
> invitation to just a few people. I recall that Lisa Heft, Tricia and "a few
> others from around here" did attend those sessions. I taught the Agile
> fundamentals. Scrum. Kanban. Etc. At the time, the idea was to bring some
> OST people into the Agile space, to open it up a little bit. Eventually I
> even invited Tricia C. to help me out in some of my accounts, doing agile
> stuff with me here and there and even facilitating a big OSA-OST event at
> Intuit in Boston.
>
> Even with this progress, things started to get worse. The imposition of
> Agile became a kind of epidemic. Agile quickly became mostly all about
> transactions. Some folks were making millions per year on coercive,
> forced-march "trance formations." (Many still are.)
>
>
> 2016
>
> In 2016, I met Mike Beedle. Another Agile-Manifesto signatory. Unlike
> almost all the other prominent voices, Mike was 100% OK calling out all the
> imposed "agile" going around. Very few of the other prominent voices were
> saying anything. This is still the case today !
>
>
>
> NOW...
>
> Since 2016, there is widespread and growing acknowledgement that the agile
> world has actually degraded further. The good news is that there is a new
> generation, of new and open-minded leaders that are unapologetically ALWAYS
> using Open Space, usually inside OSA iterations, as a way to invite and
> engage everyone in the change, everyone, instead of "rolling it out" and
> inflicting Agile practices on teams and managers without their consent.
>
> OpenSpace Agility is not a Agile framework. It is an engagement model you
> ADD to your framework. And Open Space is the key and central element that
> makes it go.
>
>
>
> Open Source Licensing for Culture Tech:
>
> OSA is a freely available engagement model you can add to whatever you are
> using. It is published under an open source license. Feel free: anyone can
> derive from it and even commercialize that derivation. For an example of
> this kind of open-source spread of OST and OSA, take a look at
> OpenSpaceBeta.com from Niels Pflaeging which derives from and is based
> upon the the foundations of OSA and the open source license:
>
> https://www.openspacebeta.com/license/
>
> Open source licensing for culture technology is very important. You can
> learn more about that here, and affix your name to the Declaration On
> Progress:
>
> https://openleadershipnetwork.com/onprogress/
>
> In the future, real soon now, we will be able to look back on when Agile
> practices were routinely imposed on people, as a push, as a MANDATE, and
> ask:
>
> WHAT WERE WE THINKING ?!?
>
>
>
>
> *Daniel Mezick*Co-Founding Member, Open Leadership Network
> <https://openleadershipnetwork.com/>
>
> Learn how to *really* transform this time:
>
> Learn how to use Open Space Technology,
> and other Open leadership patterns,
> at the Open Leadership Symposium Feb 4-5-6 in Tampa Florida
> <https://openleadershipnetwork.com/events/2020-tampa>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 10, 2020, at 2:57 PM, Diana Larsen via OSList <
> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>
> I love your story, Michael. I’m another person who had the privilege of
> seeing Spotify close up a while back, been involved in events there with
> colleagues, and have enjoyed watching it grow over time.
>
> My connection with them began in 2012, and that came about because of
> another related idea, the Agile Fluency Model. The leaders were among the
> first to recognize the synergies of multiple good ideas.
>
> Thanks for starting this thread, Thomas!
> Diana
>
>
> ***********
> *Diana Larsen*
> Agile Fluency™ Project <http://agilefluency.org/>
> The Article: The Agile Fluency Model: A Brief Guide to Success with Agile
> <https://www.agilefluency.org/model.php> - Get the eBook!
> The Video: The Agile Fluency Model Explained
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvvMl1F_Tow>
> The Workshops: Workshops and Events
> <https://www.agilefluency.org/workshops.php>
>
> On Jan 10, 2020, at 11:09 AM, Michael Herman via OSList <
> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>
> When I first met the (fledgling, at that time) Agile community, Thomas, it
> was because they'd asked me to introduce OS as a track in their first
> annual conference (2002).  When I showed up, they explained to me what
> Agile was.  I just started laughing. "Guys," I said, "You do realize that
> you're making software in Open Space!"  My short explanation of that
> characterization is that in both Agile and OS, "We put all the most
> important stuff on the wall.  And then we get it done."
>
> Fast forward to 2017, Mike Beedle, one of the original co-authors of the
> Agile Manifesto (agilemanifesto.org), launched a framework for (whole)
> Business or Enterprise Agility.  The foundation of that is an adapted
> "Business Model Canvas."  Mike and I used to muse about whether the 9-15
> boxes on those canvases were so many small open spaces (on important
> dimensions of the work, or if it was really one big open space with a
> finite number of predictable tracks of work (e.g. purpose, customer,
> metrics, team practices, resources, governance, value delivery, and so
> on).  Either way, we always agreed that Mike's Enterprise Scrum
> canvas-based framework was surely a form of Ongoing Open Space.
>
> Since then, in practice, I've found that following an OS meeting with work
> in an Enterprise Scrum canvas, the canvas being a way to keep the
> marketplace open and loosely organized going forward, is a somewhat more
> rigorous but also natural enough way to support "keeping the work going"
> after the OS.
>
> Overall, what I like about the pairing of OS and Agile approaches is
> this:  The strong invitation, engagement, alignment that arises so quickly
> and easily in OS doesn't automatically lead into rigorous action, if the
> organization doesn't already have that rigor active in itself.  At the same
> time, Agile approaches bring an easy, natural rigor to work, but don't
> necessarily invite, engage and align.  Imposed, and Too Narrow (closed),
> understanding of Agile, Value and Transformation too often have Agile teams
> working very rigorously but not as smart and aligned as they really
> want/need to be.
>
> Some combination of open (space) invitation and operational (agile) rigor,
> however, in the same/shared spirit of self-organization, is my favorite way
> to play these days.
>
> Michael
>
> --
>
> Michael Herman
> Michael Herman Associates
> 312-280-7838 (mobile)
>
> MichaelHerman.com <http://michaelherman.com/>
> OpenSpaceWorld.org <http://openspaceworld.org/>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:48 AM Thomas Herrmann via OSList <
> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear friends in Open Space
>>
>> I had an interesting meeting today with a person in a large IT company
>> and I was reminded about this video, I think I shared it here before but
>> it’s worth watching again – I noticed! This link leads to the full 25 min
>> video, about the Agile Culture in Spotify company. There are shorter
>> versions too, but I recommend the full if you are really interested. Lots
>> of good stuff and interesting to understanding more about this approach and
>> how it can be used in a healthy way (as it sounds). I know it can also be
>> ”mis-used” just like OST.
>>
>>
>> https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=spotify+agile&&view=detail&mid=5DC370E7746AF98272625DC370E7746AF9827262&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dspotify%2Bagile%26FORM%3DVDVVXX
>>
>> We had some great conversations and areas of collaboration we will
>> explore bringing OST and GC into that company.
>>
>> Wishing you lots of open space for fun during the coming weekend
>>
>> Hugs
>>
>>
>>
>> Thomas Herrmann
>>
>> Open Space Consulting AB
>>
>> Pensévägen 4, 434 46 Kungsbacka, Sweden
>>
>> Telefon: +46 (0)709 98 97 81
>>
>> Email: thomas at openspaceconsulting.com
>>
>> Homepage: www.openspaceconsulting.com
>>
>> Profile on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/thomasherrmannopenspaceconsult
>>
>> Company page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/OpenSpaceConsulting
>>
>>
>>
>> Open Space Consulting frigör livskraft i människor, organisationer och
>> samhälle.
>>
>> We release lifepower in people, organizations and society.
>>
>>
>>
>> *Medskapande är hör för att stanna – dags att vässa er förmåga?*
>>
>> *Co-creation is here to stay – time to sharpen your skills?*
>>
>>
>>
>> *Trainings/workshops 2020*
>>
>> Febr 5-7 Organizational Health and Balance – Berlin, Germany
>>
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>>
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>>
>> June 7-11 Från vanespår till integration – den glömda kreativiteten. Öland,
>> Sweden
>>                   (From old habits to integration – the hidden creativity)
>>
>> Sept 1-3 Working with Open Space Technology - Netherlands
>>
>> Sept 4-5 Genuine Contact Mentoring circle, Amsterdam Netherlands
>>
>> Oct 25-27 Working with Whole Person Process Facilitation – Berlin, Germany
>>
>>
>>
>> *Trainings/workshops 2021*
>>
>> Febr 2-5 Genuine Contact Organization – Netherlands
>>
>> Apr 12-16 Genuine Contact Train the Trainer - Netherlands
>>
>>
>>
>> More info & registration: www.openspaceconsulting.com (Aktiviteter)
>>
>> Or get in touch via email thomas at openspaceconsulting.com
>>
>>
>>
>> <image001.png> <http://www.genuinecontact.net/>
>>
>>
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