Scrum Day London is our second conference of the year, and we’re thrilled to bring you more exciting episodes from this renowned event!
As we continue our TalkInTen series, we have a special episode featuring Allen Jellas, a seasoned Agile coach and consultant, who explores the critical importance of culture in successful Agile transformations.
Imagine your company starts a transformation and hits a ceiling, unsure why. This common challenge often stems from not aligning organizational culture with Agile values.
In my session, I’ll share two stories and insights on why understanding culture is crucial before implementing processes and techniques. You'll learn the difference between the inside-out and outside-in approaches, how to identify your current and desired culture and the importance of considering the whole system in organizational transformation.
I’ll discuss my experiences with a scale-up FinTech company and a large French digital automation and energy management company, highlighting:
- Understanding organizational culture and the inside-out approach. - Identifying current and desired organizational culture. - Considering the whole system for successful transformation.
Attendees will explore these concepts, share challenges, and discuss questions like:
- What were we missing? - What happened? - How might we do differently next time?
Episode Highlights:
- Understanding Culture: Learn about the significance of aligning organizational culture with Agile values and the inside-out approach.
- Identifying Culture: Gain insights on how to identify your current organizational culture and set desired cultural goals.
- Holistic Transformation: Discover why considering the entire system is essential for successful organizational transformation and leadership.
If you enjoy the show, please leave a review!
Use code PRODUCTAGILITY24 for 15% off training courses at Sheev.
Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.
Scrum Day London is our second conference of the year, and we’re thrilled to bring you more exciting episodes from this renowned event!
As we continue our TalkInTen series, we have a special episode featuring Allen Jellas, a seasoned Agile coach and consultant, who explores the critical importance of culture in successful Agile transformations.
Imagine your company starts a transformation and hits a ceiling, unsure why. This common challenge often stems from not aligning organizational culture with Agile values.
In my session, I’ll share two stories and insights on why understanding culture is crucial before implementing processes and techniques. You'll learn the difference between the inside-out and outside-in approaches, how to identify your current and desired culture and the importance of considering the whole system in organizational transformation.
I’ll discuss my experiences with a scale-up FinTech company and a large French digital automation and energy management company, highlighting:
- Understanding organizational culture and the inside-out approach. - Identifying current and desired organizational culture. - Considering the whole system for successful transformation.
Attendees will explore these concepts, share challenges, and discuss questions like:
- What were we missing? - What happened? - How might we do differently next time?
Episode Highlights:
- Understanding Culture: Learn about the significance of aligning organizational culture with Agile values and the inside-out approach.
- Identifying Culture: Gain insights on how to identify your current organizational culture and set desired cultural goals.
- Holistic Transformation: Discover why considering the entire system is essential for successful organizational transformation and leadership.
If you enjoy the show, please leave a review!
Use code PRODUCTAGILITY24 for 15% off training courses at Sheev.
Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.
Hello and welcome to the Product Agility Podcast. I'm your host Ben Maynard and for the next few days, we have extra special episodes coming to you from Scrum Day London 2024. This event is a beacon for agile enthusiasts and professionals, and I'm thrilled to bring you insights and new ideas from some of the brightest minds in the agile and product community. For those of you who are new to the podcast, the Product Agility Podcast is your go -to resource for practical tips, strategies, and stories from world -class products and agile thought leaders. Our goal is to increase your knowledge and motivation to experiment, so together we can create ever more successful products. Before we dive in, I'd like to thank our sponsor for this episode, Sheave. Sheave is my company, and we specialize in helping organizations simplify, focus, and align. through embracing a product mindset and using Agile as a means to drive success. Whatever your product or Agile challenge, learn about how Sheave can help your organisation thrive or extend out your own Agile journey at www .sheave .co .uk. That's S -H -E -E -V. And to get a whopping 15 % off of all of our courses, use the code PRODUCTAGILITY24 at the checkout. Now we have an exciting line of speakers from Scrum Day London 2024 who will be sharing valuable insights and practical tips for you to experiment with. So grab a pen and paper, perhaps a hot drink, and let's dive into a Talk in 10. Yes, Talks in 10 here at Scrum Day London 2024 with somebody who I met this morning, but I have a feeling that I've met you on the internet. That sounds weird, doesn't it? You just seem very familiar to me. But your talk, sir. And I should probably say who you are as well. Your talk is going to be culture first and gradual. Your name is Alan Jealous or is it Yell-us? Yell -us. Alan Yell -us. There we go. And yeah, your talk is actually, do you know what? I can't remember a talk about culture specifically for a while. I think there was a big kind of boon around culture, particularly when Frederick Lalu's books came out, Reinventing Organizations, I think it was called, and people talk with different colors. I think maybe people soon realise that that wasn't really going to go that far perhaps, I don't know, but then it seemed to be a dip and so it's really nice to have people talk about culture again and I'm really intrigued to hear more about your talk. So sir, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself and giving our listeners a little bit of an overview into what your talk is, or your workshop even, is going to be about. Thank you very much, Ben, for having me today. So my name is Ellen Yelas and I live in Copenhagen, Denmark. Originally I'm coming from Croatia but living in Denmark for 28 years. After 15 years working in Agile space, I just live and breathe Agile and some of my friends call me Ellen Agile when they are referring to me. For today's session, as you said, culture it's so... big words lately and people are trying different things to do. Some people want to kind of change the culture, but actually it's not so easy, if not impossible. But what I am using as a term is how we can shape the culture in organization and understanding the culture in organization before we bring agility or any other change with an organization. Another thing about my workshop today is that we understand that organization shaped the culture and the leaders in organization, while in the same time, leaders also shaped the culture in the organization. So it's the same coins with a different size. And many organizations are not fully understand that part. During my workshop today, I'm going to present two real cases where I work with two organizations. One is a smaller one from Copenhagen, around 100 people, where they wanted to scale up. Another organization, it's a bigger French company, almost 150 years old company, where they would like also to shape their culture to enable agility in the organization. So, and feel free to dodge this question if you don't want to answer it, because as always, I haven't prepared any questions. But a culture is such an important thing. It's also a word which is really quite heavily used at times. I'm not sure if everyone has the same understanding of it. So could you share with the listeners your personal definition, explanation of what culture is? For me personally, culture is part of identity. Who are we? How we are working here? How can we identify and recognize ourselves in our culture? It could be an organizational culture where we have some basic consumption, then we have some artifacts like logo or buildings or dress code or something, and then we have also some... strategic schools where we can recognize ourselves. It could be a kind of personal culture. When I came to Denmark, I assumed some of these things. I thought I will just need to learn Danish and then I'm so much there. But then, with the time, I started discovering, okay, oops, oops. And then my key learning from that lesson was never assume. be curious and explore culture because it will help us all to navigate in environments where we are. You just reminded me when I was in Copenhagen, they never stopped doing this, which really frustrated my brother -in-law and sister -in -law, was that you return cans, recycle cans, but if they're dented, they complain. So my habit is to finish a can of drink and then... crush it a little bit so I know it's empty. And every time I would do it, I'd be like, my god, no. Like, the cans need to be perfect. And it sounds like a stupid thing, but I think you're right. Understanding some of those basic rules and the things that can help you fit in with those certain societies and those cultures, and as soon as it may sound, the denting of the can was a thing. And I think in organizations, we have analogous things that perhaps we do. without realizing which break rules which are really kind of fundamental in that culture and that society. So I really hear what you're saying here about you start with culture first and then going agile. And you used the word shaping culture. So how can one shape culture, if you know what I mean? Yes. First of all, we need to understand our current culture. You have a different organization. which are kind of because of industry they are maybe higher regulatory industry, a lot of compliance and so on. Then we need to understand that's kind of our culture. But then also by exploring together with the leaders in organization, then we are exploring how they would like to evolve in another part or shaping culture in a different way. And I'm using this competing value framework model, and there you have these four different cultures you can identify, like control, compete, create, and collaborate. And when I talk with the leaders, they are so much aware of, there is a lot of kind of control and competing, first market, delivery, earning money, but they're also realizing or discovering actually. that they are missing collaboration. They are missing a lot of initiatives regarding innovation, which is linked together with lack of collaboration and not giving time to their employees to think, to invent something, nothing revolutionary, but some small tweaks. And based on that, when they discover where we are now and where we would like to be in the long term, then... you identify different actions or coach them to define their actions, how they would like to shape another part of the culture. Adding something new, not changing, say, okay, we don't want to be controlled anymore, we want to be innovative. That will not happen. We need to shape it and add something new. And therefore, for example, I stopped using also word transformation, because we are not transforming actually. we are actually evolving in something new or adding something new. Just human nature as we are evolving, as we are aging and so on and getting wiser and so on. It's the same with organization. And if you are familiar also with the Fredly Clalhouw model, where you have these different circles and if you are on teal, which is very few companies there. But... He is, for example, not saying, yeah, you know, from this control to till you need to forget everything. No, you are evolving, adding something new, keeping your identity. And that's also helping to shape the culture, but also not stressing the whole organization too much. Because, okay, this is kind of next stage on our evolution. And then people inside the organization are much more willing to accept that. change or part of evolution. Evolution not revolution. Adding something rather than trying to see how you can fundamentally change it. There's some questions I'd love to ask you. But we run out of time. Life is cruel. You know, life's really cruel. I mean, I'd love to explore some of the ideas around structure and culture, which is something that Craig Larmann is a keen exponent of. But perhaps we can have a private chat over LinkedIn or something. We can pick that up and maybe... We can factor that into another episode on another day. Because sadly, our time is up. If people want to find out more information about you, I will include your LinkedIn link in the show notes. So they can click on that and they can connect with you. And are you happy to receive questions or challenges or anything else on what you've been saying via LinkedIn? First of all, thank you, Ben, for having me today. It has been really a pleasure. Yes, please reach out via LinkedIn and then we can connect. ask me questions, whatever you have in your mind, I will do my best to answer or help and support. Fantastic. Well, look, if you have enjoyed what's been said, then do keep an eye out on the LinkedIn page for the Product Agility podcast, because on there, when we are sharing this episode, you get an opportunity to share a comment, to give us a like, to let us know that you've enjoyed this episode, if you've enjoyed the information that we're sharing. So, listeners, thank you very much for hanging around and listening to this talk in turn. And thank you very much for coming on the podcast. and we'll be back again at some point in the foreseeable future. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ben.
