SPCs Unleashed S2E6: Change Management and the Implementation Roadmap

“Shi(f)t happens: Either guided or becoming a loose cannon”

Stephan Neck.

This episode explores change management in the context of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), which refers to the process of planning, implementing, and managing changes within an organization as it adopts SAFe practices. It involves ensuring that individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole are prepared for and supported through the transformation.

Key Takeaways:

• What are the biggest change management challenges in transformations?
  • “Finding a way to activate the good change managers the organization already had with a smaller batch mentality“ –Mark Richards
  • “Impatient coaches may impede success and forgotten change management skills should be reactivated.” –Niko Kaintantzis
• What management strategies and/or techniques are applicable for successful transformations? 
  • Creating engagement & participation of top management and pilot "projects".
  • The “Switch” approach: 1) Direct the rider, 2) Motivate the elephant, 3) Shape the path.
• What's "missing" on the SAFe Implementation regarding change management?
  • Change happens in an existing system - the roadmap can "neglects" the cohabitation of the actual work system topology.
  • “The challenge for the roadmap is that it's easy to mistake it for a linear journey and a single change effort - it's cyclical.” –Mark Richards
• When is change not change?
  • "New names but old behaviour; teams don’t own the change” –Niko Kaintantzis.
    “It’s easy to find vanity metrics.” –Mark Richards