Post Sisyphus

Another analogy worth thinking about here is that of a rock (a really large one) rolling down hill. If that rock is our agile transformation, its momentum is what we are most interested in. At the beginning, it was standing still, stuck in the dirt on the top of the hill. It took a considerable force to get it unstuck and moving (in the right direction); however, once it was, common wisdom suggests that it is not easily stopped. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that it actually takes fairly little to derail the change. Imagine, as our rock is rolling down, picking up more and more speed (and therefore momentum), it hits a little pebble. Depending upon the momentum we have at the time, the three possibilities are:

1. Our rock stops, lodged on the pebble
2. We roll right over it as if it was not there
   
3. We hit the pebble and go bounding off course
   

What happens in each individual case is completely dependent upon the momentum the transformation has achieved at the time hit hits the bump – too little and we stop altogether; more than enough (the process is well institutionalized) and we pay no notice to it; everywhere in between and the unpredictable (and unpleasant) happens.

Most organizations undertake transformation as result of unacceptable performance. Rarely can you justify perturbing a machine that is adequately delivering ‘stuff’, so it follows that for anyone undertaking a transformation there are enough issues that arise so that their rocks appear to be rolling through a bed of gravel. My strenuous recommendation at this point is to first push for organizational alignment between the layers as that tends to reduce or eliminate most of the immediate irritants and will allow us to purge the resentment and re-establish trust from individuals and create teams. From there, regaining momentum on the transformation will be much simpler and indeed internalization of the agile methods at both the operational and the organizational levels will dramatically increase throughput of the teams and collaboration between the teams in all of your ‘current flows’