Mapping the Change Battlefield

As the number of organizations piloting and adopting Agile projects rapidly increases, most initiatives focus solely on delivery and execution while ignoring the impact that such a radical change may have on an organization – and how that impact may affect the project and product itself.  Most projects view organizational change as a distraction or are likely to simply disregard it.  Furthermore, by definition, it is the responsibility of the project manager or ScrumMaster to shield the team from such distractions rather than leverage them as enablement tools.  Human nature tends to reject and resist against change – as a way to avoid the associated discomfort.  In Agile Enablement terms, this resistance takes the form of individuals who are either do not buy into the Agile value proposition, or simply view it as a threat that needs to be opposed.  By leveraging the military metaphor, it is possible to make use of a simple, light-weight technique of mapping direct and indirect forces and influences acting on a project.  Participants will be introduced to this battle-mapping technique as a way to better analyze the organizational environment to identify potential project hazards and risks as well as learn how and where to respond.  Spending just minutes a day using this simple technique can be the difference between the beginning of an Agile transition or the end of an Agile project.

Bio

Giora Morein is a Principal Agile Coach and co-founder of BigVisible Solutions. He is also a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST).  He specializes in rapidly ramping up new Agile and Scrum teams through practical training coupled with hands-on mentoring and coaching. He has been highly successful in helping organizations scale their Scrum initiatives both in size and distributed location. Over the past five years Giora has focused exclusively on helping large organizations with their enterprise Agile transition efforts.  He has extensive experience coaching, training and guiding large, multi-team projects.  Giora has had extensive experience consulting in large, Fortune-class companies, including: Aetna, Fidelity, Harvard Pilgrim, John Hancock, State Street, Cessna Aircraft, Bell Helicopter, McKesson and GE Healthcare.   He is also Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP) and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).