Month: January 2011

Implementation, Leading change2 Comments

Assessing a team’s readiness to adopt agile practices over coffee

James King

I just finished an article on assessing the likelihood that a team will successfully adopt a change, such as a new process.  So this arrtice provides an example of how the approach I discussed might work in practice.

Lets say that my client, Jenny, wants to implement “Agile practices” in her organisation.  So she buys offers me a cup of coffee in return for a 20 minute consultation.

Continue reading “Assessing a team’s readiness to adopt agile practices over coffee”

Implementation, Leading changeLeave a comment

Rating a team’s readiness for change

James King

I have just written a couple of articles about understanding a team’s existing world. But how does that relate to the likelihood of a new initiative being adopted?

How do we actually know if a particular group will accept, adopt and sustain a new way of working? And what can we do to increase the likelihood of successfully implementing the change?

Continue reading “Rating a team’s readiness for change”

Consulting, Investigation, Leading change, Techniques3 Comments

The 7-S framework (+2) for evaluating change readiness

James King

I recently explained the “Arenas of Change”  approach that I often use to understand a team and its environment. So I thought it might be a good time to discuss another approach that I often use – the 7-S framework developed by McKinsey Consulting.

Continue reading “The 7-S framework (+2) for evaluating change readiness”

Idea management, Implementation, Investigation, Leading change1 Comment

The Arenas of Change for assessing change readiness

James King

To communicate effectively, you should align your message to your audience. And to drive effective change, you should align your change to the drivers and constraints faced by those you are planning to impact.

But, as I discuss in a long-winded recent article, that is easier said than done. And unfortunately my solution here is just as long-winded as the last article.

Continue reading “The Arenas of Change for assessing change readiness”

Idea management, Implementation1 Comment

Is change hard because people are stupid?

James King

When I first got involved in projects, I used to get frustrated that people so often did the opposite of what was needed. We would roll out a new tool, and they would go back to manual processing; we would roll out a new process, and they would go back to making errors and causing themselves problems.

Continue reading “Is change hard because people are stupid?”

Arguing, ReflectionLeave a comment

It may be logical, but does it make sense?

James King

If you have been reading my blog, you have probably heard just about all you want to hear about logic for a while. But I suffer from the opposite problem – Logic-o-philia (not a real word).

But a comment on a recent article reminded me that I can be completely logical, and still not get my message across, if what I am saying is inconsistent with what people already think.

Continue reading “It may be logical, but does it make sense?”

Arguing, Investigation3 Comments

Bad logic. Some common fallacies

James King

I was talking about assessing documents (and statements) to see whether they are “logical”.

Critics of “logical communication” will quite rightly make the point that a document can be logical, but boring, irrelevant and completely un-compelling. This is true and I should get to talking about it soon.

But before I do I wanted to talk about “Bad logic”.

Continue reading “Bad logic. Some common fallacies”

Arguing, Investigation, Techniques1 Comment

Assessing the logic of a whole document

James King

In my last article (“Is that logical?”) I discussed a way to test the logic of a statement. But a document filled with logical statements can still be gobbledegook if the statements are not linked together logically.

So how can we assess the overall logic of a document?

Continue reading “Assessing the logic of a whole document”