Case study: How a team designed, planned & agreed their own reorganisation in 5 days using agile and organisational design sprint methodology
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Every cloud has a silver lining, so they say. But sometimes it can be difficult to see it. Until you change your perspective.
As we get busier and busier in our roles, it seems that everything has to be done quicker and quicker. And I, for one, have been doing all I can to push back against this. Like most of us, I have seen the consequences in bad decisions, poor preparation, stress, and inefficiency.
The organisational design sprint perspective
However, recently I have been involved in an experience that has turned this upside down, in one regard at least. Earlier this year,I applied the principles of Jake Knapp’s Design Sprint process (illustrated above) to one of my normal Organisational Design workshops.
The client, an international process control company, is an adopter of Agile approaches. Thus, with their agreement, it seemed the right fit. As a result, I discovered that ‘too little time’ can have an amazing catalytic effect on engagement, creativity, commitment, ownership and even the quality of the outcome.
time constraints can have a catalytic effect
That said, this wasn’t just a matter of halving the time to achieve the same outcome. It definitely wasn’t about doing more with less. And it is here that the shifts in perspective come in.
The first shift in perspective is that the outcome of a Design Sprint is not actually the design. It is a team of people who can readily deliver the design many times faster than would otherwise be possible.
the people are the product
The second shift in perspective is to deliberately not take things too seriously. This is in order that the discussion doesn’t get bogged down in debate. This was reflected in two key principles: “80% right is good enough” and “We are ‘tourists’ into a range of potential futures”
These shifts in perspective meant that timeboxing the activities (e.g. “Off the bus, you have 3 hours to do Florence – go!”) forced strategies which prioritised and covered a lot of ground quickly.We used a lot of timers (like the one on the right) and the process actually felt Agile.
Utilising our collective unconscious
From this it will probably be obvious that the early decisions were not taken as a result of rational analysis and detailed evaluation. ‘Gut feel’ and intuition played a big part in the selections being made.
Therefore, there is an act of faith implicit in this approach: That people’s collective unconscious knows more of the situation than they realise. This is particularly true given the design team included the customers of the design. This close subconscious understanding (in the right mix, and with the right tools) will naturally develop alignment to viable answers.
the unconscious knows more than we realise
To many reading this, this will be an anathema, even heresy. And yet, much of recent management wisdom is recognising the importance of our unconscious and emotions in dealing with the emergent complexity and uncertainty of the future.
Furthermore, the result is not totally dependent on ‘feeling’. There are checks and balances applied within the later stages of the process. The resulting conclusions are thoroughly tested and evaluated through more-obviously-rational processes.
And the surprise is, they pass!
Creativity not conflict
In addition, we notice that by proceeding at pace, had other Agile advantages. Debates that would have cost a lot of time in the early stages are often rendered moot by insights from later work.
By ‘touring’ into possible futures, we can suspend early decisions. We can hold them open to a point where we have the data and insight to resolve them. And by holding solutions lightly, we can maintain our options, and our speed.This tends to highlight the irony in the idea that our
normal, protracted debates are somehow more rational than the Design Sprint process. The fact is, as everything becomes more complex, we rarely have all of the facts. As a result, the entrenched debates we find ourselves in often owe more to opinion and emotion than we may be willing to admit.
normal, protracted debates are somehow more rational than the Design Sprint process. The fact is, as everything becomes more complex, we rarely have all of the facts. As a result, the entrenched debates we find ourselves in often owe more to opinion and emotion than we may be willing to admit.
The power of paradigms
To be fair, adopting this approach was actually not as big a step for me as it might at first appear. I was already more than half-way there on the ‘people are the product’ thing. As past articles on the purpose of meetings, and their role in developing potential will attest.
However, the interesting thing about paradigms is that the roots can go far deeper than we realise. I thought I truly believed in the product being the people. And yet I now realise that I still clung on to the safety blanket of securing proven tangible outcomes.
when we release paradigms we release potential
Once I had let go of that safety blanket, amazing things were released alongside it. And in this I have to commend my clients, whom I have found to be astonishingly open, forgiving, and enthusiastic in embracing the possibilities of things. Agile by nature. Without that, my fear of the potential consequences of failure would not have allowed me to fully let go of a sense of responsibility for the tangible.
Transformational impact
The Organisational Design workshop was conducted with a fairly junior team. Many of these were opposed to change at the start of the workshop. But by working in the ways described above, they:
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defined cleaner slicker processes and committed to a major reorganisation of reporting structures to achieve it
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designed multiple practical changes to support this, and developed the skills to replicate this approach
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tested the ideas with their colleagues, included their feedback, and gained their approval and support
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shocked the MD with how much their attitudes and understanding had changed from Monday to Friday
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felt empowered, confident, trusted, successful and proud of what they had achieved and who they had become
As a consequence, we did get ‘proven tangible outcomes’. Actually, more of them than I would expect from my normal workshops. But these outcomes arose naturally out of people’s growth and development. Which, I guess, is sort of inevitable in hindsight.
However, I do feel obliged to repeat that this was not driven by seeking to do more with less. This was about seeing time constraints as a tool, as a catalyst, with the requisite thinking to make it so. It was not driven by seeing time as a cost to be minimised.
Efficient design-thinking processes
In reality, the team actually spent more time on thinking, but they did not dwell on things, or get entrenched on isolated details. Each ‘too little time’ episode was part of a greater thinking strategy. A strategy which ensured a more systemic and efficient consideration of the whole issue and its context.
This was rooted in proven thinking tools. Without such tools it is all too easy for the mind to revert to its hidden biases. And for teams to disappear down rabbit-holes of debate.
In fact, most of the activity and discussion took place within or around visual thinking tools of one type or another. These enabled people to better see the details within the context of the wider picture. And thereby to regulate their own input. Furthermore, the visual element enabled people to see their own ideas within the flow of the overall process, and their part in the conclusion. And it created a permanent structured pictorial record of the journey to get there. A record that can be used as a digital twin of the organisational changes.as humans our short term memory is not all that good but our spatial memory is awesome – Jake Knapp
The picture above illustrates the overall process and the wide range of thinking tools used. However, for reasons of client confidentiality it conceals the detail. It may look complex, but it is worth noting that many of the people who took part in this workshop held junior administrative roles. And yet they used the layout to win their colleagues over to the proposed solutions.
A creative environment
The five days were help in a state of the art conference facility. It consisted of a central room with a U-shaped table, enabling easy facilitation. This was surrounded by four comfortable breakout rooms, each with their own screen. The facility was light and airy, with a lot of glass and white uncluttered walls. Ideal for putting up flipcharts and templates for teams to work on. And yet the walls remained largely unused until the last day.
Instead, all of the group work, plenary sessions, sticky-note generation, and moving things around, took place on a virtual whiteboard. Every member of the team was equipped with their own laptop. These they took with them into breakouts, and brought back into plenary. All of their ideas and exploration was conducted through the laptop, empowering everyone to contribute at once. Discussions took place face to face, but input was captured and assimilated via the whiteboard.the best of virtual and physical combined
Everyone could see all aspects of what was emerging for themselves. But to aid discussions, breakout leaders could project their view onto a large screen, as could the facilitator in the main room. The overall result was the best of both worlds. Easy activity and engagement with templates and visual content. But with physical proximity and human contact.
Agile self-reorganisation
The conclusions arrived at by the team in just one week have been quickly accepted and implemented. This illustrates the speed and power of the design sprint process. And it also demonstrates a number of Agile principles applied to self-reorganisation. In particular: Delivery in 5 days; close daily co-operation; motivation and trust; co-location; energising pace; good design; prioritisation and focus; daily reflection; and (quite literally given it was the intended outcome) self-organisation.
Furthermore, the process and the designed outcome are a living electronic document (whiteboard). This enables the process and the outcomes to be easily reviewed and repeated. See insight landscaping.
tools are key to constructive thought in a complex context
The tools and the layout have been key to ensuring that everybody was able to contribute constructively and efficiently.
But all this still required that act of faith. So, perhaps I should leave the final words to the wisdom of St Augustine, who said: “The act of faith is to believe what you cannot see. The reward of faith is to see what you believe.” I have a sense that this idea is going to become increasingly important to all of us as our collective future unfolds.
Author: Mike Clargo | Culturistics
Helpful Resources: Virtual Flipcharts | Timers | Participation Hacks
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