Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

Change agents of the status quo

Context: The organisation is struggling with its agile transformation. Teams are frustrated, delivery is slow, and the gap between the agile principles on the wall and the daily reality is hard to ignore. Leadership responds by bringing in agile coaches. Sometimes it is an external consultant. Sometimes it is a team lead who rebrands as a servant leader or agile enabler, sensing that the old role needs a new name to survive. The coaches run workshops, facilitate retros, introduce new ceremonies, and work hard to make things better. The teams appreciate the attention. Things improve slightly at the edges. The fundamental structure does not change. A year later, the same problems are present in slightly different forms. New coaches are brought in.

OST explains: Agile coaches are hired by management, which means the coaches who survive in the role are those comfortable operating within DP1. Those who challenge the structure too directly lose the engagement. Over time, the role selects for people skilled at making DP1 more bearable, not at replacing it. The coach becomes a buffer: absorbing frustration from the teams, translating it into something leadership can accept, and returning something that resembles a response. The energy that might have driven structural change is consumed in the process. For team leads and managers who sense that DP2 threatens their position, coaching offers a way to remain relevant, embracing the language of empowerment and self-management while preserving the hierarchy that sustains their career. When they cannot do it themselves, they hire consultants who can do it for them. The result in both cases is the same: a DP1 organisation with a DP2 vocabulary, which is laissez-faire. The coaches are not the villains here. They are the rational product of a system that needs the appearance of change more than it needs change itself. As Gerald Weinberg observed, organisations are perfectly designed to get the results they get.

#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #agile

Thoroughly loved what you shared @tdpauw. It introduced me to a few authors I was not familiar with (and will explore more) and felt very similar to the research @testobsessed and I did for our upcoming book.

Plus - I also am a huge Alexander fan😀

Very excited to see @tdpauw's post -- so good to see the various threads informing org design tracked down, with useful coverage of some of the important ideas and their history.

(Kind words for me, though we're all just figuring stuff out. Plenty of failures and missteps along the way.)

And thank you @joeltosi -- very kind.

And more exciting days ahead for all of us as "Signals and Levers" gets into hands and heads soon now (Sept 22, for those who are counting).
https://bookshop.org/p/books/signals-levers-systems-thinking-tools-to-unblock-software-delivery-elisabeth-hendrickson/bf2d9d17012f909f