INSPIRED, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 59Pilot Team Technique

Earlier in this book, we discussed the technology adoption curve and how this theory describes how different people will accept change. It turns out this theory also applies to our own organization and especially to how we make changes to how that organization works.

Some people in your organization love change, some want to see someone else use it successfully first, some need more time to digest changes, and a few hate change and will only change if they're forced to do it.

If you get too excited and roll out a significant change to everyone in the organization at once, then the laggards (those that hate change) may resist or even sabotage your efforts.

Rather than fight this reality, we can embrace it. One of the simplest techniques for facilitating moving to new ways of working is the use of pilot teams. Pilot teams allow the roll out of change to a limited part of the organization before implementing it more broadly. The idea is that you look for a product team to volunteer to try out some new techniques. You let them run for a while (usually a quarter or two) with this new way of working and see how this goes.

Some people in your organization love change, some want to see someone else use it successfully first, some need more time to digest changes, and a few hate change and will only change if they're forced to do it.

Your specific success measures will depend on your goals, but ultimately, you're looking to compare the team's effectiveness ...