I was talking with a colleague of mine the other day about their experience beginning an agile transformation at a financial firm. Their executive team asked to be informed about agility and they gave him a 3-hour limit to their availability.
They considered this THE opportunity to get all of the leadership in’s and outs about agile so that they could lead the effort effectively.
To be honest, I’ve heard this all before. In fact, I’ve heard these sorts of things for ~20 years from senior leaders, stakeholder’s, and executives—
I need you to fill me in on everything there is to know about Lean, Agile, Scrum, etc. and I only have about an hour.
We’re locked and loaded on an Agile Transformation. Can you give me the executive overview? The executive team and I can only give you two hours.
The most we can give you for agile leadership training is 4-hours. And that’s a lot considering our priorities, so let’s just make the best of it.
I got into a debate with a coaching colleague the other day. Well, debate, disagreement, argument, and other terms could apply. We kept it respectful and, in the end, I believed we agreed to disagree.
I’ll call my colleague, Ken.
We used an analogy as part of our discussion that I’d like to share. Here’s the analogy—
Meniscus vs. TKR?
I’ve got a problem with my knee. I’ve done the web research and self-diagnosed that I have a partially torn meniscus and I want some simple surgery to clean-up my knee and fix the meniscus.
So, I start looking for the best surgeon I could find. The best “knee-person” out there. And I found her. She’s expert at all sorts of knee surgeries from the meniscus to total knee replacements. Having performed thousands of successful surgeries.
I scheduled a visit to explore the surgery. And she runs some tests (X-rays, MRI, etc.) on my knee in advance of our discussion.
I enter the discussion telling the doctor what I need. I even go so far as telling her when to schedule it. As, clearly, I’ve determined what wrong and what to do about it.
She listens patiently but tells me clearly and firmly that I need a total knee replacement. That my knee is irreparable with anything other than that sort of corrective procedure.
I argue with her. And I insist that I simply want the meniscus repaired. I’ve made up my mind AND I want her to do it…
Ask vs. Need
Clearly, in this example the doctor has a decision to make. And I don’t think it’s that hard. The options are:
