The Age of Agile

7.

CHANGING THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game.

—LOUIS GERSTNER¹

For most organizations, the shift to Agile management and Strategic Agility means a change in organizational culture—perhaps the most difficult thing that any organization can attempt. An organization’s culture comprises an interlocking set of goals, roles, processes, values, communications practices, attitudes, and assumptions, many of them unspoken. The elements fit together as a mutually reinforcing system and combine to prevent any attempt to change it. That’s why single-fix changes, such as the introduction of lean practices or of Agile management, may appear to make progress for a while, but eventually the interlocking elements ...