#108: Adaptive Organizations with Ken Rickard

Join Brian and Ken Rickard as they delve into why agile transformations get stuck and uncover strategies for creating adaptive, resilient organizations and people. Overview In this episode, Brian sits down with coach, author, and Lean Change agent, Ken Rickard to explore the common pitfalls of agile transformations and the commodification of agile practices. Ken emphasizes the need to focus on people rather than processes and introduces the art of change, which includes self-awareness and adaptability. And shares the six big ideas of adaptive organizations, such as sense-making strategies and leadership agility. Tune in to learn how to navigate transformation challenges and create an environment that fosters resilience and adaptability. References and resources mentioned in the show: Ken Rickard Insight The Six Big Ideas of Adaptive Organizations: From Frameworks to Sensemaking by Ken Rickard and Jason Little Agile Manifesto For Software Development Lean Change Mountain Goat Software’s Agile for Leaders Training Join the Agile Mentors Community Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Ken Rickard is a spark for transformative good — a change alchemist, deep thinker, and a catalyst for personal growth and organizational evolution. With over 15 years in the agile community, he's honed the art of navigating change and embracing adaptation as the true essence of agility. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a really special guest with us. I have Mr. Ken Ricard with us. Welcome in, Ken. Ken Rickard (00:12) Thank you. Nice to be here. Brian (00:14) Glad to have Ken here with us. Ken recently spoke at the the global Scrum Gathering, in New Orleans that I was at as well and had a really interesting, actually had a workshop slot there for a workshop titled Humans Agile and Change, How to Get Your Transformation Unstuck. And wanted to have Ken on to kind of talk through that a little bit. But before we do, for those people who aren't familiar with Ken, let me give you a little bit of an introduction here. Ken is an enterprise coach and change alchemist. I love that. At a company called Insight, he co -authored a book called The Six Big Ideas of Adaptive Organizations, which I know we're going to get into here in this conversation. He's a licensed facilitator of Lean Change. He's an IC Agile authorized instructor. So he's got just a load of credentials and a load of experience to bring to the table here with this. So Ken, let's get into this. Let's talk about humans agile and change and how to get transformations unstuck. What do you think is the main cause of transformations getting stuck? Ken Rickard (01:31) Yeah. So I think, you know, we're all feeling the effects of the high of agile. And I think now we're, we're starting to come down a little bit in the industry. I think everyone's feeling that effect. I mean, I see so many agile coaches on LinkedIn that are still looking for roles and whatnot, scrum masters, you know, a good bit of that, though, I think it's a blowback from the industry and just companies in general who, when they need to tight