The research available today clearly shows that all too many Agile, DevOps and Digital attempts by organizations worldwide are either failing or flailing. The question begs to ask why this is occurring. The ADAPT Model believes much of this can be traced back to the Agile, DevOps and Digital communities themselves. Unfortunately, few if any will broach a subject that seems to be taboo by many in these communities. The subject is the lack of education or understanding by many in these communities about the comprehensive skill/knowledge set needed to bring about a transformation in an organization. If we look at the numerous Agile certifications on the market, we see few if any who teach about subjects such as organizational behavior, organizational development, behavior change or other subjects that are crucial to bringing about a transformation. Many of the practitioners who have achieved these certifications come from educational backgrounds such as engineering where they have never been introduced to any of these subjects.
On the DevOps side we use an example we once saw on LinkedIn. A gentleman posted on LinkedIn regarding his completion of an AWS certification and on his post, he commented that he couldn’t see how anyone could consider themselves a DevOps coach without basically being an engineer. Our comment back would be that we have no idea how he could possibly believe he could coach DevOps without most likely having any knowledge or education on the cultural aspects of DevOps required to actually bring about a transformation. This brings us to the subject of this blog, understanding the difference between change and transformation and why failing to understand the difference will most likely doom your Agile, DevOps or Digital efforts.
A basic difference to understand up front about change and transformations is that “change” uses external influences to modify actions (Agile methodologies, tools and outside consultants could be examples), while a transformation modifies beliefs (organizational beliefs/culture) so actions become instinctive and thus achieve the desired result. To gain an understanding of this one can look at how employees for example in a Lean Manufacturer view tools and concepts such as Kanban, Value Stream Mapping or Andon and then look at how employees in an organization attempting Agile or DevOps view these tools or concepts. The Lean Manufacturing employees view these tools as part of their everyday work, understand their benefit and simply see them as part of how they work, while the employees in the organizations attempting Agile or DevOps are asking what these tools and concepts are, why are they needed and unfortunately are often resisting using them.
Let’s take a look at the dictionary description of “change” and “transformation” to gain a clearer picture of the difference between the two before we continue. Change is described as “to substitute or replace something (moving from waterfall to scrum could be an example). A “transformation” is defined as “a complete change, usually into something with an improved appearance or usefulness (developing an Andon culture could be an example). Yes, there are definitely a lot of similarities and the results may look much alike to an someone unfamiliar with the subtle differences between change and transformation. There are however some critical differences that need to be understood in order for Agile, DevOps or Digital to have any chance to modify the organizations underlying beliefs/culture in order for Agile, DevOps or Digital to stick.
First, we need to understand that “change” can either be small and incremental, or it can be large and complex. A key is to understand that “change” is something that needs to be constantly monitored and maintained. A classic example of change is seen in most Agile, DevOps and Digital implementations. We often see an organization bring in an outside vendor/consultant to implement an Agile methodology inside the organization or install what is termed DevOps/Digital tooling inside the organization. All too often what we see is that once these outside vendors/consults leave the organization, the teams and employees slowly revert back to their old ways of doing things. A conscious external effort is needed to maintain the actions required to achieve the desired result. The problem is that the external vendor or consultant is no longer there to constantly monitor and maintain the change, this is because the organization and vendor/consultant did not understand that simply installing an Agile methodology or DevOps/Digital tooling did not result in a transformation.
A transformation on the other hand is almost always large and significant. A Transformation is an internal fundamental change in an organization’s beliefs/culture. A Transformation does not require any external influence to maintain. Because of the fundamental nature of transformations, they are more likely to become permanent. An example of this can be found at Amazon and how they have incorporated an Andon culture as part of their beliefs/culture. Andon has become part of the belief system at Amazon and does not need constant monitoring to be maintained. In other words, Amazon employees view Andon as part of their day to day work.
We need to understand and accept that Agile, DevOps and Digital as they are being taught, implemented and viewed today are “Change”. This view looks at using Agile, DevOps and Digital as external influences to modify actions to achieve desired results. Instead we need to flip this thinking and view Agile, DevOps and Digital as a transformation that modifies beliefs in the organization so that natural actions achieve the desired results.
So, how do we use Agile, DevOps and Digital to instead change the beliefs/culture inside an organization (cause a transformation)? We need the Agile, DevOps and Digital communities to start recognizing that simply focusing on changing processes, procedures, implementing an Agile methodology or installing tooling without first addressing the employees’ basic beliefs will only result in a change that needs constant monitoring and not the transformation that organization truly desire. For to long most organizations and Agile, DevOps and Digital practitioners have talked about “people, process and technology.” It is time that they start paying attention to the people and their culture.