A few days ago Theresa Moulton of Change Management Review had me speak about Agile and Change Management at her 2nd Virtual Change Summit. As I was preparing my presentation, I thought it would be interesting to see how buzzwordy ‘agile’ has become and discovered that 37 out of roughly 1300 words in my Linked In feed was the word ‘agile’.

Eye-balling the feed showed that every post, status update, or shared linked had the word agile in it.

I remember my first foray into the agile world over 10 years ago when the word agile meant something. The early adopters of agile found 4 simple values and 12 timeless principles that reinforced their beliefs with a call to action for how they could improve their organizations.

It’s no secret that the goldrush is on to capitalize on agile marketing, agile change management, agile bathroom tissue replacement, and business agility, but I imagine it’s quite confusing for people new to agile to figure out how to sift through all the noise, marketing, and fluff to understand what the heck it means.

When I started learning about agile, there were 6 books, a manifesto, and the same 9 people at every meetup. It was simple. Today, there are 72 frameworks, and tens of thousands of pundits claiming expertise in agile so it’s no surprise that if you want to learn about what agile is, it’s confusing as hell.

I’ve had thousands of people through my change workshop, and there’s an exercise that instructs people to create an agile change manifesto that captures the spirit of the agile manifesto. The point of this post is to share a few examples for those that believe the future of agile change management has nothing to do with standards, frameworks, and process models. Sure, these things will emerge, that’s the beauty of a capitalist world, but they’re all missing the point.

The reason why I say that it because my change workshop generally attracts agile coaches, employees who’ve been tapped on the shoulder to make a change work, or leading edge ‘traditional’ change practitioners who’ve already worked in an agile way their whole careers without realizing it, but want to fill in a few missing pieces.

First, here’s the agile manifesto

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Now here’s a few examples of how people in my workshops have adapted that towards change:

From a group in Belgium:

Embracing Uncertainty over reducing risk

Facilitating Insights over telling people what to do

Overall collaboration makes complex problem solving possible

Co-creation over hierarchical decisions

Overall collaboration over local optimization

From a group in Finland:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Everyday action over comprehensive documentation

Transparency and self-management over strict coordination and micromanagement

Responding to change over following a plan

From another group in Finland:

Understanding over techniques and tools

Collaboration over informing

Empowering people over managing people

From a group in Vancouver:

Results over structures and process

Team empowerment over hierarchy

Regular two-way communications over proclamations

Commitment to on-going educations/learning over one-time training

From a group in the US:

Pull over push

Touch over technology

Organic over scripted

Growth over perfection

One group even made their change manifesto out of Lego:





What I love about this exercise, is that it gets people to think in their own context. We underestimate the power of personal meaning when it comes to change. We think that a set of standards and new certifications are going to help. They won’t.

If you’re curious, and serious enough, about wanting to learn about agile change management, don’t limit yourself to what your professional association says you should learn, go explore!

Where to Learn About Agile and Change Management

The first step is to learn about the history of why agile came to be by reading this and this. The next step is to find an agile meetup and talk to agile practitioners who’ve been doing this for over a decade.

Even better, attend an agile coach camp (the site isn't maintained as much as it used to be, but that'll lead you to a coach camp in your area) or an agile open space. Coach camps and open spaces are where the conversations are the deepest, and people attend because they’re passionate about agile, not because they’re trying to sell you something.

We live in the age of the expert. Google has made everyone a theoretical expert of all the things which is why there were 3 new frameworks invented according to my Linked In feed this morning.

The best way you can make the most of agile in <insert your functional area here> is to start with the history of agile, the manifesto, and how and why it's important to your organization.

That is only going to become a reality through meaningful conversations, and once that's done, you can build your own approach to change that based on substance.