Closing talk in Agile Israel 2016 by Daniel Mezick Describing the leadership art that is the key to move away from the Agile Theatre

1. Invitation as a Leadership Art
Moving towards Modern Agile: beyond the Agile Theater
Presenter: Daniel Mezick
+1 203 915 7248
dan@newtechusa.net
www.DanielMezick.com
www.TheCultureGame.com 1

2. Learning Objectives in 50 Minutes:
• Identify the concepts & facilities of
INVITATION
• Learn about “Invitation-Based Change”
• Apply invitation- in a leadership context-
immediately
• Locate and access resources, for further study
and application of these ideas
www.TheCultureGame.com 2

3. Who Am I?
• Agile Coach, 10 years
• Competent Agile Coach, 4 years
• Author, THE CULTURE GAME
• Co-Author, THE OPENSPACE AGILITY
HANDBOOK
• A heretic with respect to “Agile dogma”
• Reachable at DanielMezick.com
www.TheCultureGame.com 3

4. Who or What is Authorizing Me?
• The conference organizers have formally
authorized me to lead you through some
learning
– To FACILITATE your learning
• And now…a question.
www.TheCultureGame.com 4

5. Ground Rules
• We agree to end on time.
• We agree that, during exercises: I raise my
hand, you raise your hand also, and you stop
talking, and face the front.
• Fair?
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6. One More Thing
• For the next 50 minutes or so, you agree:
– To suspend your disbelief
– To act as if what I say is actually true
– To “pretend” that what I say actually works
– Does anyone want to opt-out? This is your
chance…..
www.TheCultureGame.com 6

7. One More Thing
– Everyone who is here at the VERY END receives a
COMPLIMENTARY copy of the Kindle version of
THE OPENSPACE AGILITY HANDBOOK
– Kindle readers for your Mac, PC, etc
www.TheCultureGame.com 7

8. “Invitation as a Leadership Art”
• What is Invitation?
• What is Leadership?
• What is Art?
• Let us first define our terms….
www.TheCultureGame.com 8

9. …Definitions Are…
Agreements
• With agreed-upon definitions, we can expect
MORE clarity in the sending and receiving of
communication
• And now …. Let us define our terms.
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10. “Invitation”
• The Definition For Today:
– “a written or verbal request that tests the
willingness of someone to go somewhere, or do
something, and respects any response similar to
NO, THANK YOU.”
www.TheCultureGame.com 10

11. “Leadership”
• Let’s skip this one for now, and shortly go to
AN EXERCISE….
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12. “Art”
• Our Definition for Today:
– “ The expression or application of human creative
skill and imagination.”
• Source: GOOGLE
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13. “Leadership:
What’s the Definition?”
• EXERCISE:
• Turn to a person next to you, and by
agreement, each take turns defining the term
LEADERSHIP. Each person, take about 90
seconds.
www.TheCultureGame.com 13

14. “Leadership: What Is It?”
• There are as many definitions of LEADERSHIP
as there are PEOPLE
• Our Definition, For Today:
– “The act of helping to shape, form and execute
the decisions that affect the group-as-a-whole.”
– Is leadership fundamentally about decisions?
• For today, we will suspend disbelief, and pretend, and
“act as if” the answer is YES
www.TheCultureGame.com 14

15. Invitation Basics
• INVITATION is fundamentally respectful of
personal boundaries.
• Respect is a core value of Lean, Agile & Scrum
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16. Invitation Basics
• INVITATION triggers decision-making
• Decision-making triggers engagement
• <SUSPEND DISBELIEF>
– There is no such thing as a successful (Agile)
change program without high levels of human
engagement
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17. Invitation Basics
• ENGAGEMENT is essential
• INVITATION triggers engagement by triggering
decision-making
www.TheCultureGame.com 17

18. Invitation Basics
• Enough talk: Let’s have an EXERCISE
• EXERCISE: You Decide
– Find a person nearby, and by agreement, each
express clearly what you prefer from this session:
More LECTURE or more EXERCISES?
– Each take 1 minute (2 minutes total for both.)
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19. Structure Invitations as Games.
Good Games Have:
• Clear GOAL(s)
• Clear RULES
• A Clear way to track PROGRESS
• Opt-in participation
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20. Sample Invitation
Structured as a GOOD GAME:
– “You are invited to dinner at my home. We will
have 6 courses and 8 different wines. We plan to
enjoy very fine food, finer wine, and even finer
conversation. We plan to start around 630PM and
end around 1030PM. Beforehand, I will send an
email listing everyone who is coming. I do need to
know not later than Thursday regarding your
intent to attend. I hope you can make it!”
www.TheCultureGame.com 20

21. Good-Game Invitation Exercise:
• Turn to someone close by. By agreement, each
issue an actual invitation (beer after the
conference, for example) or a practice-type
invitation (to breakfast for example.)
• Be sure to structure your invite as a GOOD
GAME: clearly specify the goals, rules, and
progress-tracking
• 90 seconds each (3 minutes total)
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22. Invitation Structure:
The Details
• Poorly-formed invitations are hard to respond
to
– (“…what is being asked of me here?”)
• The 4-part game format makes your invitation
well-formed
• Everyone likes a GOOD GAME. Make your
invite a real, good, game.
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23. Wider Implications
• Everyone needs and wants a:
– Sense of control
– Sense of belonging
– Sense of progress
• Invitations (structured as good games) deliver.
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24. Wider Implications
• The art of inviting may be the most important
leadership skill of the 21st century
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25. Leadership Implications
• It is hard to imagine any “psychological safety”
being present when respectful invitation is
absent or lacking.
• Safety aspect of Modern Agile? Is it possible in
typical companies without leadership
invitations?
• Exhibit A: Agile Adoptions
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26. Exercise: Agile Adoption Rating
• Find someone you do not know. By
agreement, in turn, disclose the following
information about your Agile adoption:
– Have any genuine invitations been issued by
leaders? (Y/N)
– One a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning “total
success” and 1 meaning “total failure”, rate your
Agile adoption.
www.TheCultureGame.com 26

27. Implementing Agile in an Agile Way
• Invitation is a pull-based technique.
• Is your organization using “push” to
implement “pull” systems like Scrum or
Kanban? If so, what does this mean?
• Is your organization encouraging experiment-
based learning? Or is your Agile a “forced
march” to delivering faster?
www.TheCultureGame.com 27

28. Advanced Invitation Technique
• When they say no, reduce the ask by HALF.
– Take care to structure every invite as a GAME
• Example: You want teams to use Scrum for 12
months. They resist. Your next move: frame
the experience as an experiment, and reduce
the time to 6 months, after which we inspect
the results.
www.TheCultureGame.com 28

29. Invitation-Based Change
• The hypothesis of invitation-based change is
that the people who resist the change might
support it if we invite them to be a character
in the story and even as an (co)author of the
emerging (not yet written) story.
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30. Invitation-Based Change
• You might be thinking…
– “…people who know NOTHING about Agility need
to be TOLD how to do it and SUBMIT to that
learning. They know NOTHING.”
– Shu – Ha – Ri. Right? They are in the Shu stage…
• But wait: is every beginning-student in the martial arts
FORCED to learn or are they CHOOSING to be there?
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31. Invitation-Based Change
• Leaders name direction and “guardrails”
• Example:
Direction=“continuous improvement”
Guardrails=“The 12 Agile principles”
• In IBC, leaders view themselves as people who
send important SIGNALS about direction and
“guardrails.”
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32. Invitation-Based Change
• Leadership Storytelling
• In IBC, leaders view themselves as people who
send important SIGNALS, and this includes the
telling of generative stories that support the
invited change.
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33. Optional Exercise
– Find another person, and by agreement, each (as
an executive leader) tell a positive story about 1 of
these scenarios: as if in the hallway or a meeting:
• Teams are doing a good job learning Agile in the 1st two
iterations, but deliveries are going to be late as a result
of all the intense learning about new processes
• Teams have identified the policy of annual, individual
performance reviews as a huge impediment to the
wider advance of agility in the org.
www.TheCultureGame.com 33

34. IBC Practice: OpenSpace Agility
www.TheCultureGame.com 34

35. IBC Practice: OpenSpace Agility
• Starts with an invitation to an Open Space
meeting
• End with an invitation to an Open Space
meeting
• In between, teams do experiments with
practices and formally authorized leaders
support these experiments
– With storytelling and more
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36. IBC Practice: OpenSpace Agility
• The entire process has a beginning, a middle
and an end
• The entire process engages as many people as
possible, inviting collective intelligence
• The entire process encourages massive
amounts of self-management…at scale
– Within clearly defined boundaries
www.TheCultureGame.com 36

37. IBC Practice: OpenSpace Agility
• Starts with an invitation to an Open Space
meeting
• Ends with an invitation to an Open Space
meeting
• In between, teams do experiments with
practices, which formally authorized leaders
completely support.
www.TheCultureGame.com 37

38. IBC Practice: OpenSpace Agility
www.TheCultureGame.com 38

39. Invitation-Based Change
• Any technique that leverages invitation is an
IBC technique
• Leadership Hack: Make your meetings
OPTIONAL to attend.
– Optional Exercise: Find another person, and
discuss what would happen to your meeting if you
made it OPTIONAL TO ATTEND.
www.TheCultureGame.com 39

40. Some Links
• The Agile Imposition by Martin Fowler
– http://martinfowler.com/bliki/AgileImposition.htm
l
• Push vs Pull by Daniel Mezick
– http://newtechusa.net/agile/push-vs-pull/
www.TheCultureGame.com 40

41. Some Links
• Agile Coaching Lessons by Daniel Mezick
– http://newtechusa.net/agile-coaching-lessons/
• Software is Saving Us by Michelle Holliday
– http://solarium.cambiumconsulting.com/content/
software-save-humanity-not-how-you-might-
expect
www.TheCultureGame.com 41

42. Some Links
• Authority Distribution in Open Space
– http://newtechusa.net/agile/authority-
distribution-in-open-space/
• Invitation-Based Change
– http://openspaceagility.com/invitation-based-
change/
www.TheCultureGame.com 42

43. Some Links
• Discovering What is Possible
– http://openspaceagility.com/discovering-what-is-
possible/
• OpenSpace Agility “About” and “Big Picture”
– http://openspaceagility.com/about/
– http://openspaceagility.com/big-picture/
www.TheCultureGame.com 43

44. Receiving THE BOOK
• Everyone here is invited to receive a
COMPLIMENTARY copy of the OSA
HANDBOOK Kindle edition!!
www.TheCultureGame.com 44

45. Receiving THE BOOK
• Steps:
– Go to www.DanielMezick.com
– Subscribe to my list BEFORE June 25 (by this Friday
at MIDNIGHT. Today is better…)
– You will then receive a link to access your
COMPLIMENTARY copy of this US$10 Kindle
www.TheCultureGame.com 45

46. Reaching Dan
• Thank you !
• Daniel Mezick
– dan@newtechusa.net
– www.danielmezick.com (register for the Kindle!)
– Phone: +1 203 915 7248
– www.OpenSpaceAgility.com/About
– www.TheCultureGame.com
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