Let’s think about change. The idea of welcoming change even (or especially) when it arrives late can be a tough sell.
If you’re closing in on a mission, whether that’s putting up a shelf at home or a major product launch in your company, something showing up at the 11th hour demanding attention is likely to meet some resistance.
That’s natural. You’ve invested energy, time and money to get this far. There’s a goal in sight and you’re willing it on to success, so a late requirement change can feel as unwelcome as any failure or setback.
But what if we chose to welcome change and genuinely appreciate the opportunity that having new information can bring?
Yes, its late arrival will bring some constraints and we’ll come back to that in a moment.
Also, watch out for an unhelpful reaction such as blame or frustration linked to the timing. Accept the events of the day for what they are.
For now let’s just consider that something new has shown up.
The shape of the shift
Broadly that’s going to be one of three types:
- A new customer requirement. Here’s a chance to increase customer satisfaction. Maybe this thing could have been mentioned earlier, but it wasn’t – the need was either unknown or didn’t exist before. The choice now is to either include it and please the customer, or not.
- An oversight of our own. See this as an opportunity to improve. It’s a chance to enhance the ways of working so similar issues are caught earlier next time. There’s a win right there – solving a long hidden problem; celebrate it – it doesn’t happen every day. Accept that things get overlooked. Instead of placing blame, positive handling will build confidence and safety.
- An external force requiring a change. By definition this can’t be controlled. However, if we practice the skill of handling external change well, over time we’ll get good at it, and it will cease to be as big a problem. That’s pretty useful in a fast changing world where reality always gets the final say.
Yes but the timing….
Let’s now consider the timing. Change isn’t free and late change can be unsafe, but that doesn’t stop it being welcomed.
Think of it being politely guided into a waiting room and offered a drink, rather than being allowed to barge in and disturb everyone.
For example, it would be risky and potentially damaging to add a new user role to an emergency response system that’s been tested, communicated and about to launch. In such a case, offer the client what works now, and treat the new user role as the first potential enhancement.
If the client insists it’s included, there’s still a positive aspect; this is your customer preventing the launch of a product that they are no longer comfortable with. To go ahead regardless would be in no-one’s interest. The customer has indicated the need is absolute, and the cost of the delay is simply the price of the change arriving when it did.
Welcoming, but not at any cost
Welcoming change means recognising its potential to improve the product.
Change isn’t always easy – it can disrupt the emotional investment in work done so far, and that needs acknowledgement.
It doesn’t mean incorporating every discovery and whim; making skilled economic trade-offs doesn’t stop when you have a welcoming attitude to change. Also, endless change is exhausting. All effort needs a stopping point, so balancing progress and adaptation with the human need for closure and respite is essential in the long term.
Ultimately this principle – which is another from the software industry’s adoption of ‘Agile’ – is about the opportunity to do something better than would otherwise have happened.
Accept that when this change arrived, it arrived as early as it could possibly have done. It will have had a long journey, so open the door and let it in.
About Martin Lambert
The business is Agiliqui Consulting. It rhymes with ‘agility’, which describes the core service offering: increasing the agility of how an enterprise achieves its outcomes.
Martin is a consultant-coach who helps solve the internal and potentially controllable problems that when attended to will improve ways of working and delivery effectiveness.
The USP – and complementary difference – to other business consultants, is expertise in adapting the principles of ‘agile’ as it was named in software to any context where something unique and emergent is being tackled.
In this fast changing and unpredictable world, responsiveness and adaptability means survival.
I partner with teams and leaders as needed to provide mentoring, training, advice and hands-on help tailoring the appropriate practices to increase this agility in your unique context.
The ideas, goals and strategies are yours; I partner in guidance on how to get there more effectively.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mclambert/
