Organizational culture is defined by how people in an organization behave and interact with one another, which values and experiences they share. Getting better results and an increased level of agility often requires a shift in culture, which is more than just beanbags, table football and free snacks. Which culture does an organization need to achieve its goals? And how can one shape an organizational culture which is coherent with the Scrum values? We are used to hearing the expression “Agile is a mindset” and research shows that this is actually true. The problem is that mindset or culture can’t be designed and can’t be changed, but the good news is that it can be measured and influenced. This means that we can’t define an “ideal culture” and implement it, but we can visualize the current culture across various dimensions and measure change continuously as we experiment with different ways of behaving and collaborating. In this talk, we will discuss the importance of a coherent culture and how to influence it by using data and examples from a case study. In this talk, I will explore the importance of visualizing the culture of an organization and making it coherent with the company goals and market conditions. I will introduce a model and a tool for visualizing culture and illustrate a few complexity management techniques to influence it for real. I will show which cultural elements can become catalysts for organizational change and how leadership influences the culture, by using data and examples from a real case study.

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Shaping Organizational Culture
(Beyond Wishful Thinking)
Regional Scrum Gathering™ Cape Town 2024
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2. What is culture? A true story
Paula (CEO)
Ken (CIO)
Beverly (CFO)
Antonio (COO)
Alex (CHO)

3. Photo: Another spritzer tries their luck at table football Source: Flickr

5. Conversation
● Think about something you can observe at
your workplace and that represents an
example of “how we really do things around
here”?
● Share with the person next to you

6. Why is culture important
Results Pyramid
Culture

7. There is no ideal culture
Crossing the Chasm

8. Designing culture is impossible
Cynefin

9. But you can influence it
Using complexity management techniques:
● Distributed cognition
● Distributed change agency
● Vector theory of change

10. Make your culture visible
Competing Values Framework

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Organizational Scan
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12. Distributed cognition

13. Distributed change agency
Our manager
keeps overruling
our decisions.
Why doesnʼt she
trust us?
My team was
given full
autonomy and
our results were
brilliant!
Leadership behavior Orientation to work Theory of effectiveness Value drivers and motivation
The new product
is a real game
changer, I canʼt
wait for it to go
live!
The strong
focus on KPIs is
driving me
nuts.

14. Experiment Canvas

15. Vector theory of change

16. Model the behaviours…
… you want to see

17. What did you learn?

18. Culture and leadership…
…are two sides of the same coin - Edgar Schein
Enjoy the journey!

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Questions

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Thank you!
Giuseppe De Simone
Leadership and agility coach
linkedin.com/in/giuseppedesimone
giuseppe.desimone@agile42.com
@giusdesimone