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Helping technology leaders achieve their goals through publishing, events & research.

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VOICE: Applying an Agile Mindset to Organizational Agility

September 28, 2021 by Jonathan Smart 1 Comment

VOICE

This post is an excerpt from Sooner Safer Happier: Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer.  Taking a one-size-fits-all approach does not optimize outcomes for the infinite unique contexts in organized human endeavor. Instead, find your unique VOICE and use it. You Have a Unique VOICE: Use It The alternative to imposing one set of prescriptive practices across an organization without considering the many unique … [Read more...]

Filed Under: DevOps Community, Leadership, Organizational Change, Sooner Safer Happier, Workplace Culture Tagged With: business agility, Jonathan Smart, kata, Sooner Safer Happier, voice

ASREDS Learning Loop

September 14, 2021 by Jonathan Smart 2 Comments

ASREDS Learning Loop

Humans are tribal. We need to belong to groups. But this instinct to belong is also an instinct to exclude. Besides the positive benefits of these social structures, they all share some undesired antipatterns and bubble effects, including: Silo Mentality: people and teams within the bubble want to protect their information, not share it with others in the same company. Limited Discoverability: learnings, knowledge, and information outside the bubble cannot be reached and discovery is limited … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership, Metrics, Sooner Safer Happier, Workplace Culture Tagged With: asreds, learning

Lack of Psychological Safety at Boeing

January 28, 2021 by Jonathan Smart 6 Comments

This post is an excerpt from the book Sooner Safer Happier: Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility by Jonathan Smart, with Myles Ogilvie, Zsolt Berend, and Simon Rohrer. 787 Dreamliner Factory, North Charleston, South Carolina Cynthia Kitchens was a quality manager at the Boeing North Charleston factory, which makes the 787 Dreamliner. According to an investigation by the New York Times in 2019, Kitchens said that her superiors penalized her in performance reviews and berated her on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Case Studies, Leadership, Sooner Safer Happier, Workplace Culture Tagged With: boeing, Jonathan Smart, psychological safety, Sooner Safer Happier

Choosing a Narrator for Sooner Safer Happier

December 1, 2020 by Jonathan Smart Leave a Comment

“Would you narrate the book, Jon?” said Anna, Editorial Director at IT Revolution. “The intonation, the emphasis, is more natural when the author reads their own words,” Anna explained.  I was in a dilemma. I wanted to read it for that reason, the subconscious passion that comes across when reading out loud the words you’ve written and have viscerally lived. Likewise narrating the words of the co-authors, where we have shared journeys and learnings together. We discussed how long it would take, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: audiobook, Jonathan Smart, Sooner Safer Happier

Pattern 1.2: Start with Why; Empower the How

November 19, 2020 by Jonathan Smart Leave a Comment

This post is adapted from Chapter 1 of Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer. In Antipattern 1.2: Using Old Ways of Thinking to Apply New Ways of Working, we saw how a capital “A,” capital “T” Agile Transformation feels to an employee like involuntary, mandatory change being inflicted upon them, whether they like it or not. The capital “A” denotes how they are going to change and the capital “T” denotes that they have to change. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: Antipatterns and Patterns Series, better value sooner safer happier, business agility, Jonathan Smart, leadership, pattern, Sooner Safer Happier

Antipattern 1.2: Using Old Ways of Thinking to Apply New Ways of Working

November 17, 2020 by Jonathan Smart 1 Comment

This post is adapted from Chapter 1 of Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer. Focusing on “Agile,” “Lean,” or “DevOps” as the end rather than the means to an end is using old ways of thinking to apply new ways of working. A capital “A,” capital “T” Agile Transformation, from the perspective of employees, infers involuntary, mandatory change being done to them, whether they like it or not. The capital “A” denotes how they are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: antipattern, Antipatterns and Patterns Series, better value sooner safer happier, business agility, Jonathan Smart, Sooner Safer Happier

Pattern 1.1: Focus on Outcomes

November 13, 2020 by Jonathan Smart Leave a Comment

In our last post, we looked at Antipattern 1.1: Doing an Agile Transformation. Now we'll look at the corresponding pattern: Focus on Outcomes. Focus on the outcomes, on Better Value Sooner Safer Happier, as the goal, not on Agile, Lean, or DevOps as the goal in order to achieve true business agility. In his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations, sociologist Everett Rogers described how innovation tended to spread first to a small number of Innovators, then reached Early Adopters, was taken up by … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: Antipatterns and Patterns Series, better value sooner safer happier, business agility, focus on outcomes, Jonathan Smart, pattern, Sooner Safer Happier

Antipattern 1.1: Doing an Agile Transformation

November 11, 2020 by Jonathan Smart 1 Comment

This post on the Agile Transformation Antipattern is adapted from Chapter 1 of Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer. I’ve met with many organizations and leadership teams that want to undertake an “Agile Transformation.” The process usually begins in the same way. We sit with senior leaders and ask them why they want to change. The response is often silence. A couple of people will stare at the ceiling. Someone will stretch their … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: agile, agile transformation, antipattern, Antipatterns and Patterns Series, better value sooner safer happier, business agility, Jonathan Smart, Sooner Safer Happier

What is Better Value Sooner Safer Happier?

November 9, 2020 by Jonathan Smart 1 Comment

This post is adapted from Chapter 1 of Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer. Do you want to do or are you currently doing an Agile, Lean, or DevOps Transformation? If so, my best advice is: Don’t. Instead, focus on the outcomes you want to achieve. Then you will achieve agility. Focus on: Better Value Sooner Safer Happier. This is the number one lesson I’ve learned after almost thirty years as an agile and lean practitioner … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: better value sooner safer happier, business, business agility, bvssh, Jonathan Smart, leadership, Sooner Safer Happier

Surviving and Thriving in the Age of Digital: BVSSH

November 6, 2020 by Jonathan Smart Leave a Comment

This is the last in a series of posts adapted from the book Sooner Safer Happier addressing frameworks and domains of working. For those who choose to leverage the latest technological revolution and adopt ways of working that suit the nature of more of today’s work, the benefits are clear. The State of DevOps Report 2019 shows that elite performers compared to low performers deliver business value through technology 208 times more frequently, are 2,604 times faster to recover from incidents, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: age of digital, better value sooner safer happier, business agility, bvssh, Jonathan Smart, Sooner Safer Happier, WaysofWorkingSeries

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