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In a recent conversation with a friend and colleague, she mentioned that while many people leave a Certified ScrumMaster course energized and eager to implement Scrum they lack the tools to be effective in supporting change. As someone who teaches this course, I asked her what was lacking and she told me many CSM participants were lacking tools around change management. So this month, I am going to review one of the first books I read on change management by Linda Rising and Mary Lynn Manns, Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas.
The first chapter of this book identifies the three elements one should consider when fostering change or innovation – the change agent, the organizational culture and the people who will participate in the change. All successful change agents have three things in common: a passionate belief in the idea they are advocating, a drive to see that idea be successful in the organization and some strategies to share the idea with others. The change agent is the most powerful and important element of change because without an individual who has a vision that things can be better, the whole process of change does not even begin. Every great social movement – take your pick – began with one person saying, “We can do this better and I have an idea on how to do it.”
Culture is also an important consideration when introducing a new idea to an organization or a Team. If the culture of the organization supports new ideas and innovations, then the idea will spread more rapidly. If the organization is generally conservative to new ideas and innovations, or “too busy” to support new ideas, then one must set their expectations appropriately, have a great deal of patience and take a long view with respect to change. Change will happen, but will take much longer.
Finally, in order to sustain change we need to invite people to participate in the change and perhaps change something about themselves and\or they way they interact with others in the organization. Depending on the attractiveness of the new idea and a person’s allegiance to the idea you are trying to replace, encouraging people to participate in your new idea can be quite challenging. While Rising and Manns provide a brief overview of Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, etc. from E.M. Rogers’s Diffusion of Innovation*, the key point here is be flexible in your approach with people and tailor your responses to individuals based on where they are in supporting the new idea.
Chapter Two offers a description of the structure of the patterns (both women were early contributors and researchers supporting the development and application of software patterns in the late 1990’s). In addition, this chapter explains how to leverage pattern thinking to human interactions. Chapters Three to Twelve offer specific collections of patterns to use based upon where you are with introducing your new idea or innovation. This will bring you to the end of Part One of the book.
Part Two provides experience reports on how the change patterns were used to bring about a new idea, change or innovation in four different organizations. In Part Three, the authors list all forty-eight patterns they identified with detailed explanations of the patterns. Fearless Change closes with a useful Appendix that gives advice on when to use a pattern and a short summary of the pattern. On their website , they even have a PDF of all the patterns on index cards.
While the description of the patterns in Part Three are the heart of this book and contain over fifty percent of the content, I feel another important element of the book are Chapters Three to Twelve where the authors group the patterns based on the stepwise progression of how an idea normally progresses in an organization. In the description below, I will highlight the change patterns I have found most helpful in CAPITAL LETTERS, but I encourage you to review all the patterns contained within the book.
* For a more detailed and up-to-date explanation on Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, etc. as applied to technology, be sure to read Geoffrey Moore’s , Crossing the Chasm.