Agile leadership to address the challenges of the VUCA world

September 12th, 2018
Christian Mies
Agile Leadership to address the
challenges of the VUCA world

3© Elektrobit (EB) 2018
Agenda
Agile Leadership to address the challenges of the VUCA world
• What is the VUCA world?
• How VUCA challenges project exection
• Leadership implications
• How radical transparency can help
• Outlook and further reading

The VUCA world
Volatility
Uncertainty
Complexity
Ambiguity
Increasing rate of
change
Multiplicity of
decision factors
Less clarity about
the future
A term originated by a US
Military College to describe the
new challenges facing leaders
There may be no
“right answer”

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguity
The VUCA world
Volatility
Uncertainty
Complexity
Ambiguity
Increasing rate of
change
Multiplicity of
decision factors
Less clarity about
the future
There may be no
“right answer”
The lack of predictability, the prospects
for surprise, and the sense of awareness
and understanding of issues and events.
The haziness of reality, the potential for
misreads, and the mixed meanings of
conditions; cause-and-effect confusion.
The multiplex of forces, the confounding
of issues, no cause-and-effect chain and
confusion that surrounds organization.
The nature and dynamics of change, and
the nature and speed of change forces
and change catalysts

VUCA requires an adapted leadership focus
Volatility
Increasing rate of change
Uncertainty
Less clarity about the future
Complexity
Multiplicity of decision factors
Ambiguity
There may be no “right answer”
V
U
C
A
Vision
Purpose is more important than the plan
Understanding
Stop & observe before answering
Clarity
Bring meaning into the chaos
Agility
Collaborative approaches

Agenda

How to achieve a project goal in a VUCA world?
Intended
Project Goal
TODAY
FUTURE
Project
start

Partial result
Project
start
Iteration
If the project has a “moving target”
characteristic:
• Work with an agile approach
• Divide project runtime into iterations
• Create and review partial results and
project direction every iteration
• Adjust project to changed requirements,
assumptions, market situations

Partial result
Project
start
Iteration
Decision
Freedom
Reduction of
uncertainly
area

Final solution
end of the project
Partial result
Iteration
Decision
Freedom
Reduction of
uncertainly
area
Project
start

Agenda

 Highly specialized organizational units do not scale to the extend needed
 Centrally defined process methods and tools (PMT)
hardly solves organizational deficits
 Thriving for the task force mode burns other projects
Boiling up efficiency and control disables projects in the end

1) See Jeff Sutherland (2014): “Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time”
• Diverse load for organizational units lengthens lead
time
• Managing units by responsible roles provides an
imagination of control
• Local optimizations traps units in the happiness
bubble1)
• Multiplying highly specialized units distracts from
results
• Synchronization across hierarchy delays
projects even more
Highly specialized organizational units do not scale
Value stream

1) See Jeff Sutherland (2014): “Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time”
• Diverse load for organizational units lengthens lead
time
• Managing units by responsible roles provides an
imagination of control
• Local optimizations traps units in the happiness
bubble1)
• Multiplying highly specialized units distracts from
results
• Synchronization across hierarchy delays
projects even more
• New projects weaken existing projects
Highly specialized organizational units do not scale
Value streamValue stream

• Top-down rollout of processes and forced adherence
often demotivates mind-workers
• KPIs for process adherence demotivate even more
• Fixed methods hinder the required freedom to act
• Tools are often used to force employees in processes
rather than supporting them
• Specialists are just adhering to the process, leaving
all administrative work to the manager
Centrally defined PMT hardly solves organizational deficits

• Task force projects pull away experts from other
projects
• Task force conditions drive success per definition
 Everybody is fully assigned to the project
 Everybody is collocated in one place
 Progress is tracked on a daily basis
 Organizational constraints are eased
→ Why not use elements of the task force
mode for the daily business?
Thriving for task force burns other projects

1) See John P. Kotter (2008): “Sense of Urgency”
• Effectiveness: “Done” is only what is accepted by the
customer.
• Measuring the real status: “functionality delivered”
• Sense of urgency1): “Experience” the impact of bad
quality.
• Employee motivation: Seeing that my contribution
“makes a difference”.
• Scalability: “Delivering fast” also in a diverse project
setup.
→ Make success everybody’s task.
Success factors for projects are:
New success factors displace efficiency and control
Valuestream
Valuestream

Agenda

• Package the project scope in value-adding tasks and rank
• Foster feedback for better improvement activities
• Balance improvement activities and project work
• Leadership based on radical transparency
Involving everybody requires radical transparency
Adaptability
& Flexibility
Frequent
Feedback
Empowerment
Functionality
& Protoyping

1) Backlog: ranked list of tasks
• Makes the project scope tangible
• Shows status as amount of finished tasks
• Shows ranking valid for everybody
• Shows WiP as tasks to be worked on now
The project team is focused on results:A common backlog1) of value-adding tasks:
Split project scope into value-adding tasks and rank
• Selecting the top most task first
• Being aware of the real status
• Finishing the started work first
– Overcoming roles and responsibilities
– Overcoming queuing and deferral
• Done means delivered means value added
Adaptability
& Flexibility

• Avoids more work in progress
• Motivates contributors directly
• Leads to avoidance measures
• Eliminates queues
The project team reacts on feedback:Identifying failure immediately:
Foster feedback for better improvement activities
• Correcting failures first
• Finishing work before starting new task
• Feeling the sense of urgency
• Avoiding the happiness bubble
Frequent
Feedback

• Shows impediments project-wide
• Shows ranking of own impediments
• Enables influencing the ranking
The project team removes impediments:Planning improvement activities:
Balance improvement activities and project work
• Removing biggest impediments first
• Focusing on effective improvement
• Solving the impediments as a team
Empowerment

1) See Amy Edmondson (2012): “Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy: What Leaders Must Do to Foster Organizational Learning”
• Makes KPIs obsolete
• Removes commanding overhead
• Focuses on real success factors
• Shows need for leadership support
Leaders drive transparent data:Leading by transparent information:
Leadership based on radical transparency
• Having a single source of truth
• Leading by project objectives
• Performing real delegation
• Handling team escalations
• Supporting rather than blaming
• Valuing learning over efficiency1)
Functionality
& Protoyping

Volatility
Uncertainty
Complexity
Ambiguity
The Agile Manifesto corresponds to the VUCA challenges
Source: http://agilemanifesto.org/
© Elektrobit (EB) 2017 25
V
U
C
A
Responding to change over following a plan
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over
comprehensive
documentation
Adaptability
& Flexibility
Frequent
Feedback
Empowerment
Functionality
& Protoyping

Agenda

• The VUCA world implies additional challenges to project
management and leadership
• Top-down solutions often lead to task-force mode
• Agile approaches fit much better to the current challenges
• (Project-)Managers must adapt their leadership techniques
accordingly
• Radical transparency is a good guiding principle:
– Project scope transparent in one backlog
– Backlog raked according to value-add
– Short feedback loops along the value stream
– Impediments and improvement activities in the backlog
– Servant leaders support the teams
Call for action: implement and use radical transparency
Summary & Conclusion

• https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog: Mike Cohn blogging about Agile & Scrum. Good for beginners.
• https://www.frontrowagile.com/blog/posts: Good for beginners.
• https://www.scrum.org/Resources: Ken Schwaber’s page and a good starting point. You can download the original Scrum Guide.
• https://www.scruminc.com/scrum-blog: Jeff Sutherland's page.
• https://www.scrumalliance.org: A lot of postings belonging to Agile and Scrum.
• http://stoehr-hr.de: Good blog on modern leadership [German only]
A selection of good reading material
28

Picture: Christian Mies
© Elektrobit (EB) 2018 29
@christian_mies
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christian.mies@elektrobit.com
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Agile leadership to address the challenges of the VUCA world

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