Embracing change

One thing that is always a constant at OpenView Venture Partners and in our expansion stage software companies is change.

After all, venture capital financing is all about investing in companies that cause change in the market.

OpenView’s operational support and strategic consulting services for our portfolio companies are all about creating positive organizational change.

And to keep up with the market and our companies, and in fact stay ahead of it all, OpenView must constantly change.

This is one of the main reasons why we have adopted the Agile methodology Scrum, and have encourage our portfolio companies to do the same.

That said, constant change is hard, and so I look for tools to make it easier for everyone involved.

While at a Deep Agile workshop at MIT, Jim Coplien, an Agile guru and author of Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development (great book!), introduced the audience to the Satir Change Model, to me a very useful model for embracing change, and it has been very valuable to me ever since.

Here is the model presented in two different ways:

This image is from http://www.stevenmsmith.com/ar-satir-change-model/, which also provides a great explanation of the model and its origins in family psychology, before being embraced by management and organizational gurus.

And,

 

This image is from: http://www.satirworkshops.com/files/satirchangemodel.pdf

I urge the reader to go to those sites and read about the model in detail, but in short, at the highest level, it says:

• Look, when a change element happens, that’s only the beginning of the process, not the end. Expect and embrace the messy chaos that follows. Don’t expect everything to be neat. It won’t be. 
• While in the chaos, work productively to solve all the problems that result from the change, without losing the positive impacts of it. Don’t shy away from the change. Don’t lose focus. 
• Eventually, you’ll find a set of answers that works, find the right balance, and things will even out and reach a higher level of performance.

What this model doesn’t show very well is that this is an ongoing cycle, especially in an Agile world.

It also doesn’t show the downward spiral resulting from not effectively embracing change, or managing it if the change is not positive.

Jim pointed out that this can happen on an hourly basis, a daily basis, on a sprint basis, on a quarterly basis…for an individual, for a team, for a department, or for the whole company.

For more on Virginia Satir:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir

For more on Jim Coplien:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Coplien

Jim’s book on patterns:
www.amazon.com/Organizational-Patterns-Agile-Software-Development/dp/0131467409