Agile or not, every organization has some elements that are strongly related and dependent to each-other. I have been thinking about this and the more I condense my ideas the more I drew to this picture.
For an organization to be a leader in the market they operate, you need all these three to have a healthy relationship, where each of them challenges others for growth. We can no longer bring Change management projects and initiatives with only one in mind, because we will be ignoring the system and context where they operate.
Product: This is where Sales, Marketing and Leaders bring new ideas from customers and market. Growth here challenges the brand, the opportunities to have advantage in the market, the goal to make clients and keep them. This is where business strategy makes an organization work smart, rather than hard
Technology: The backbone of the products that our people create. Growth here challenges the usage of modern tools, modern deployment environments, modern technologies withing the office and for our customers. This is where you can benefit to get changes in the hands of customers with low cost and high speed.
Yes, you can say that People are the core of the Product and Technology. But if Product or Technology do not change and push to better and modern thinking/tools, People will not grow their skills and you are stuck with people that are looking forward to retirement. The others, will probably leave your organization and go somewhere else where they can have better opportunities.
Product can't go far without Technology and motivated People. When People are motivated, they bring ideas and make them happen. When Technology is strong and flexible, Product can afford to make small and frequent deployments for a low cost.
And technology will evolve to the point where manual solutions and patches/work around(s) are not acceptable by Product anymore and when People had enough of working outside of working hours to minimize customer interruptions.
So what is that thing in the middle that is connecting these three elements of an organization?
I have come to the conclusion that it is PRIDE.
Ask everyone on the organization, from the most senior to the most junior:
Are you proud of what we do? Would you put your name on our Product?
I have the feeling that the number of people that answer YES is lower than we would like it to be.
So I have decided to change my focus when working with individuals, teams or organizations. My goal would be to get a high number of people that answer Yes, that are proud of what they do. My goal would be for a Product to be proud to be advertised to any client in the market. My goal would be for the Technology to be proud of the potential it offers to people and to products.
When these three areas are continuously creating a healthy challenge, when everyone takes pride on what they do, you have an organization that learns from past and improves the future. A Learning organization.
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