Public Service Announcement for Change Managers:

YOU - YES YOU!

You are more agile than you think.

As a change manager, do you ever think to yourself you don’t know agile? You need to learn more? If only you were a SCRUM master or an agile coach, THEN you would know all of the agile things? What does a SCRUM master even do anyway? Is agile supposed to be capitalised? Are SCRUM and agile the same thing?

Put a stop to the merry go round of impostor syndrome and negative self talk, changies! I’m here to tell you, you are more agile than you think.

How many times have you written a comms plan and stuck to it - to the letter - for the entire duration of your project? We are always reflecting and evaluating how comms land - would the message be better if it was delivered by someone else? Should we use a different medium? That’s agile.

How many times have you begged your PM or project sponsor to start with a pilot and/or staggered rollout as opposed to a big bang go live? So any defects or issues uncovered can be ironed out and managed within a small group before the project has to support thousands of users? Also agile.

How often do you suggest involving end users or seeking customer insights early in a project (or at all, let’s be real) to be met with blank stares and the sound of tumbleweeds? Gone red in the face trying to explain the customer or end user’s point of view and experience? You guessed it, that’s agile.

So much of what we instinctively do as change practitioners is agile. You are a lot more experienced than you think in agile ways of working. So get out of your own way, get in there and show ‘em how it’s done!