Publikováno: 12. 6. 2022
Paul Wilkinson, a well-known, highly respected and acclaimed professional, decided to end his rich and very successful career and retire.
He summarized the main experiences, knowledge and impressions from his 40-year career and the subsequent process of leaving in an extensive blog, which he made available to us. Given its scope, we will publish it in 4 consecutive sections.
The ABC Iceberg
We wrote the ABC of ICT (Attitude, Behavior, Culture) ‘back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth’ (Mainframes) and we Technoids lived in Caves (Computer rooms)’ – This was a line from my recent article about ‘The Shiny New Thing that Really Helps’.
The original book with ABC related cartoons was written in 1998, 5 years later it morphed into ‘ITSM from Hell’, 5 years later it morphed into the serious ‘ABC of ICT An Introduction’ book, with a corresponding set of cards (assessment instrument).
“Since its beginning in 1998 the same ABC worst practice cards are chosen year-in, year-out in global workshops.”
ABC is like an Iceberg, much of it is hidden, we don’t see it we don’t talk about it and we HOPE it won’t damage our (‘Shiny New Thing) implementation effort – It will, and it does.
This is another reason for my Groundhog Day feelings (see also reference to OBM (Organizational Behavior management) above. Here is an article (‘Don’t let the ABC Earthquake Destroy your Organizations Digital Transformation’) which shows how after 10 years the same cards were chosen.
‘Which cards would get chosen in your organization? Do you KNOW or are you assuming? Go and find out!’
Mindsets & Culture…What’s missing?
Now we keep hearing about ‘Mindsets and ‘Culture’, but too little focus on ‘Behaviors’. Hoping that changing mindsets will automatically bring about new sustainable behaviors which will morph into a new culture or starting culture change initiatives and putting posters of new ‘cultural values’ on the wall hoping that these will inspire new behaviors. Management by HOPING has been another core capability we have built over 40 years.
The ‘Them & Us Culture’ is between business and IT (see point 1 above) and also between SILOes – Dev and Ops being the prime example. Different SILOes have different cultures, different values and often different and conflicting goals. Although this is improving, especially with one of the positive trends mentioned above ‘The shift to value streams’ we still struggle to understand what collaboration all is about. We still struggle with desirable behaviors around ‘Communication & Collaboration’. We don’t listen to understand, we listen to give an answer, we often apply ‘assumicide’. Assuming that we know best. Partly fostered and sustained by our ‘them and us’ attitudes. I once called this our ‘territorial imperative’ in this article. As I mentioned above in response to Question 1. ‘Principles’ can be used as the glue to align the different framework SILOes, if we can translate them into sustainable behaviors. I documented this in an article aimed at CIO’s titled ‘Sim-Sala-Bim’ – The magic wand approach to hoping that culture will change.
Why the continual gulf between business & IT?
Ever since I started in IT it has been a ‘thing’. It used to be that IT was just a supporting function, then IT became increasingly important, now IT is a strategic differentiator. From our starting position we were never seen as part of the board, but now it is becoming necessary. IT as a ‘Trusted advisor’ or ‘Strategic partner’. Yet we do not have the trust or credibility and we have not developed the right set of business understanding and business skills. So long as we continue to display these ABC worst practices it is understandable that the business doesn’t trust us!!
This brings me back to an earlier TIP. Send everybody into business – look at VOCR? Present what you find, use this as input to CSI (see point 5).
Has COVID Increased level of trust? Yes. It shows our ability to respond to crises and adopt tech that was already being talked about. Not necessarily our ability to be an innovate partner.
TIP7: Get a set of ABC cards and use to assess YOUR undesirable ABC!, Explore real examples of VOCR lost, Prioritize improvements. Practice, Coach, Feedback
TIP8: Develop & practice active listening skills, Define & agree 7 behaviors for collaboration, get together to map out e-2-e flow & identify improvements, identify conflicts in goals!
TIP9: Send this link to your CIO and management team.
- It is not about ‘Implementation’! Continual learning and improving are core capabilities
A consistent top scoring ABC card, once again 15 years in a row: ‘Plan, Do, Stop…no real Continual Improvement Culture’.
Fact: Nobody has ever implemented a single ITIL process from 0 to optimized maturity in one go, it is not possible.
Fact: Nobody has ever implemented ALL of the ITIL processes in one go.
CSI – a core capability!
Therefor ITIL is simply a ‘Continual Improvement’ approach. The same with any framework. Continual Improvement NEEDS to be a core capability, even more so in a World characterized by relentless, fast paced change. The ability to ‘Pivot’ (another new Industry buzzword) is vital to support the ambitions of agility. After all, that is why we are doing all these ‘agile transformations’.
When I ask at conferences ‘How many are doing CSI (Continual Service Improvement)?’’ about 50% of the hands go up, when I add ‘what I mean is top-down (strategic to Operational) and left-to-right (end-to-end through the value chain)’ about 5% of the hands go up.
This was also highlighted in one of the recent Industry reports. A key misstep ’Not infusing experimentation and iteration into the DNA’ (Culture)’
Making the time
We continue to believe we can ‘Implement’ these frameworks and that transformation is a journey from A to B, rather than embrace continual learning and improving as possibly the most important organizational capability. And when we do ‘say’ it is important, management commitment in making it a reality – Reserving time for learning & improving – takes a backseat to the relentless demand for ‘more features’, faster change. Not realizing that it requires a metamorphosis to transform from where we are today to where we need to be through continual learning and change.
“You don’t find the time for learning and improving, you make the time”
This was one of my final articles, looking at how we spend or waste time.
TIP10: Make Progress iteratively with feedback a CORE capability, Visualize improvements and progress.
10 suggestions
At the end of my ‘State of the Union’ article I gave 10 tips, related primarily around number 3 above. 10 suggestions to review your training approach. (not including recruitment and hiring practices).
There is a clear need to extend training to include:
- Both business & IT Leadership – to create an understanding and foster commitment to the effort and iterative approach needed.
- Governance of Enterprise IT within an agile context – to ensure a strategic fit and effective devolved decision making.
- Organization Change Management – to effectively manage change and use resistance as an enabler.
- Organizational Behavior Management – translating ‘mindsets’ and ‘cultural values’ into sustained, desirable behaviors.
- Leadership development to develop the right skills, behaviors and leadership styles lead an agile transformation, to manage in an agile organization, and to sustain and grow agile cultural values.
- Coaching at all levels – to help transfer and embed learning and to embed an iterative cycle of practice, feedback, improve.
- Ensuring end-to-end representation in training – To help break down SILOes and foster collaborative learning. (e.g., participation in a business simulation).
- Ways to translate theory into practice – include ‘Learning-by-doing’, supported by coaching.
- An approach such as the 8-Field model – to ensure learning interventions fit with strategic intentions, the transfer of learning into the organization, and the ability to measure behavior change and impact (Value).
- Linking the outcomes from training to continual improvement initiatives – recognize and embed the need for continual learning and improving and commit to enabling this as a CORE capability.
That was the end of my 40 year exit interview, hopefully the 10 post-it tips will help you increase the chance of transformation success. As we have said since 1998. ABC (Attitude, Behavior, Culture) is the number 1 success or fail factor! Now that you have read this and recognize the need to change, what will YOU do about it. Another top scoring ABC card chosen every year is ‘Not my responsibility’. If not yours then who? Who do YOU need to make aware? As Gandhi once said, ‘You must be the change you want to see in the World’!
Autor:: Jaroslav Rokyta