Fearless Change

As a developer, analyst, and designer I have seen the rise of patterns that recognize common behaviors and advance learning of the craft.  I was therefore curious about this book; Fearless Change, Patterns for Introducing New Ideas by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising.  Then after meeting Linda at a recent conference I was hooked and bought the book. 

The authors immediately begin talking about a pattern language that focuses on the Change Agent, the Culture and the People of the organization in which change in being introduced.  The pattern names themselves allow us to speak and be understood in this language. For instance:

As an Evangelist I want to introduce iterative development by proceeding Step By Step to Test the Waters while taking Take for Reflection and focusing on Small Successes.

Without knowing the particulars of these patterns we still have a good sense of what course we want to take. The actual pattern definitions then speak to the actions and motivations we should consider as we move forward.

Fearless Change is full of common sense information that can give us a great structure in which to shape our change initiatives.  I haven’t tried it yet, but I am pretty confident that as we become associated with new organizational change efforts, we can use the sequence of patterns that Mary Lynn and Linda suggest to assess where the organization is at and determine what our next steps should be.

This is a very insightful book I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to understand how to successfully introduce and adopt organizational changes.

 

Bridge to Agilty

In The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility, co-authors Michele Sliger and Stacia Broderick do a great job of making agility more accessible to traditionally trained project managers.  Both PMPs and CSTs, Michele and Stacia have solid roots in both the traditional and agile worlds that serve as the foundation of this work.  They ably provide great review of the nine PMBOK® knowledge areas and how they correlate to agile processes.  While some in the agile community might say “so what”, I think the effort to engage traditional project managers can only advance the adoption of agility.

 

Artful Making

I found this to be a particularly fascinating book that delivers on its premise that artists have something to say to business.  Although an unusual pairing of authors, Harvard Business School Professor Ron Austin and Theatre Professor Lee Devin collaborate very well to make their case.  This book is not about agility, nor project management but offers significant insight into the leadership model for agile teams.