Bottom-Up Strategy for Implementing Changes in an Organization
I am definitely not the first who faced obstacles when introducing changes in the organization from the bottom up, and not the last. I want to share some observations, conclusions and mistakes that I made on this way. Perhaps someone was in a similar situation, faced similar obstacles and managed to overcome them. It would be interesting to hear their experience.
Simplified story looks like this. There is a need for Data Science specialists. There is some vision of top management about how it should be and it ignores people who are interested in this area and are already employees of the company. Some of them learn DS on their own. To speed up training in this direction and make it more relevant for the needs of the company, I decided to organize a group and enlist the support of architects and heads of departments. Here begins the most interesting in this story. Under the cut strategy and my conclusions.
Everything looks much easier if the idea of ​​creating a certain group arises in the heads of top managers. A group will always be created and there will be people in it. But if this idea arises at the level of developers, the prospect of its implementation becomes more complex at times. But perhaps this is just my experience, from a grocery company and in outsourcing otherwise. Western company. Against this background, the following understanding of the strategy emerged, which can be described by the following steps as follows:
After this, the initiative will be understood and supported by everyone. Ideally. Of course, this plan is not unidirectional: steps can be taken several times, if necessary. Their meaning is to make the result and activity within the framework of this initiative the most relevant and safe for the company. The mistake here is that there are too many people involved. In itself, this is necessary, but the sequence, in my opinion, should have been different for it to work. Now everything is stuck at the discussion stage and the vision of the strategy has changed a bit. I will return to it a little lower, but for now I want to clarify some steps.
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Here it is necessary to find out not only the number of people, but also their level of interest in the initiative. Roughly speaking, one must understand how many people support the initiative, and how many are willing to spend their time on it. In consequence, the initiative will live at the expense of the second type of people. But even they should be interested in some exhaust from this activity. Therefore, even before this step, it is necessary to understand the relevance of the initiative for the company. It's simple: talk to the CEO over a cup of coffee, if possible.
Architects are needed to adjust the activity in the group regarding technology plans. Perhaps there is no vision at all. there are no projects in this area yet. However, the activity of the group may contribute to their appearance soon. Best of all, the architects know about the group and understand what it does in order to use the result in a timely manner. Or, on the contrary, to give an idea for the activity. In the second case, they can support the group when requesting investment in a training project.
In this step, final provisions and a plan for the group's activities should be discussed with interested people. How to work, on what, where to communicate, whom to attract, and other issues need to be discussed, to understand who is the backbone of the group at the initial stage. This step is necessary in order to reach the heads of departments. And, most importantly, this is all brought to the attention of architects, so that there is no misunderstanding.
In another way they are also called “Head of ....”. In some companies there is only one, in some more. In my two, in directions. So, in order to provide them with information, it is necessary to operate with facts, not considerations. At this step you tell them that there are so many people, the architects agree with the vision of the group and are, in a way, mentors. The group itself builds a plan and functions outside working hours. This is the main point: the main activity of the company should not suffer. People involved in the initiative spend their personal time on it until the company approves the activity at a higher level.
Enlisting the support of "Head of ...", you can already tell project managers that there is such activity and how it does not affect the daily duties of people involved in it. This is necessary to remove the level of tension that always arises when something happens without the knowledge of the managers. If this is not done, then friction and questions on their part will arise very quickly. During this discussion, there may be points that need to be taken into account in the activities of the group.
The main mistake of the strategy above, in my opinion, is a large number of conversations and involved people. Involuntarily, this initiative is perceived as something global, as a separate project. Although, in fact, we are talking only about a club of interests. The idea is to unite people who are already studying the same thing in their free time and find synergy with a company that is only considering the possibility of moving in this direction without having a clear idea. Now I think that a more working strategy would be as follows:
As the knowledge, experience of people in the group grows and as the company develops the vision of Data Science, other steps from the plan above will be relevant.
PS It seems to me that this is a bit like a startup startup, but within the framework of one company. The experience of people who have implemented something similar in similar conditions is very interesting. If you need to add something or clarify in the article, write, I will try to do.
Simplified story looks like this. There is a need for Data Science specialists. There is some vision of top management about how it should be and it ignores people who are interested in this area and are already employees of the company. Some of them learn DS on their own. To speed up training in this direction and make it more relevant for the needs of the company, I decided to organize a group and enlist the support of architects and heads of departments. Here begins the most interesting in this story. Under the cut strategy and my conclusions.
Strategy: from erroneous to working
Everything looks much easier if the idea of ​​creating a certain group arises in the heads of top managers. A group will always be created and there will be people in it. But if this idea arises at the level of developers, the prospect of its implementation becomes more complex at times. But perhaps this is just my experience, from a grocery company and in outsourcing otherwise. Western company. Against this background, the following understanding of the strategy emerged, which can be described by the following steps as follows:
- Clarify the relevance of the initiative
- Enlist the support of architects
- Group formation (unofficial launch)
- Discuss activity with department heads
- Bring information to project managers
- Official launch
After this, the initiative will be understood and supported by everyone. Ideally. Of course, this plan is not unidirectional: steps can be taken several times, if necessary. Their meaning is to make the result and activity within the framework of this initiative the most relevant and safe for the company. The mistake here is that there are too many people involved. In itself, this is necessary, but the sequence, in my opinion, should have been different for it to work. Now everything is stuck at the discussion stage and the vision of the strategy has changed a bit. I will return to it a little lower, but for now I want to clarify some steps.
')
1. Find out the relevance of the initiative.
Here it is necessary to find out not only the number of people, but also their level of interest in the initiative. Roughly speaking, one must understand how many people support the initiative, and how many are willing to spend their time on it. In consequence, the initiative will live at the expense of the second type of people. But even they should be interested in some exhaust from this activity. Therefore, even before this step, it is necessary to understand the relevance of the initiative for the company. It's simple: talk to the CEO over a cup of coffee, if possible.
2. Enlist the support of architects
Architects are needed to adjust the activity in the group regarding technology plans. Perhaps there is no vision at all. there are no projects in this area yet. However, the activity of the group may contribute to their appearance soon. Best of all, the architects know about the group and understand what it does in order to use the result in a timely manner. Or, on the contrary, to give an idea for the activity. In the second case, they can support the group when requesting investment in a training project.
3. Group formation
In this step, final provisions and a plan for the group's activities should be discussed with interested people. How to work, on what, where to communicate, whom to attract, and other issues need to be discussed, to understand who is the backbone of the group at the initial stage. This step is necessary in order to reach the heads of departments. And, most importantly, this is all brought to the attention of architects, so that there is no misunderstanding.
4. Discuss activity with department heads.
In another way they are also called “Head of ....”. In some companies there is only one, in some more. In my two, in directions. So, in order to provide them with information, it is necessary to operate with facts, not considerations. At this step you tell them that there are so many people, the architects agree with the vision of the group and are, in a way, mentors. The group itself builds a plan and functions outside working hours. This is the main point: the main activity of the company should not suffer. People involved in the initiative spend their personal time on it until the company approves the activity at a higher level.
5. Bring information to project managers
Enlisting the support of "Head of ...", you can already tell project managers that there is such activity and how it does not affect the daily duties of people involved in it. This is necessary to remove the level of tension that always arises when something happens without the knowledge of the managers. If this is not done, then friction and questions on their part will arise very quickly. During this discussion, there may be points that need to be taken into account in the activities of the group.
Working strategy
The main mistake of the strategy above, in my opinion, is a large number of conversations and involved people. Involuntarily, this initiative is perceived as something global, as a separate project. Although, in fact, we are talking only about a club of interests. The idea is to unite people who are already studying the same thing in their free time and find synergy with a company that is only considering the possibility of moving in this direction without having a clear idea. Now I think that a more working strategy would be as follows:
- Find out the relevance of the activity
- Formation of an informal group
- Inform your own managers
As the knowledge, experience of people in the group grows and as the company develops the vision of Data Science, other steps from the plan above will be relevant.
Conclusions for the future
- KISS KISS'u discord. What seems simple to you may be difficult for another. The difference in representation is greater, the greater the difference in the roles of two people. Even after it would seem there is no place to simplify further, there remain various questions and superfluous points that can be thrown out and clarified.
- We must begin very quickly and in the most very simple form. I emphasize the "very simple" form. This means you have to sacrifice and throw out almost everything that seemed necessary in a seemingly minimal way. If the topic is relevant, people will exist and the activity will be conducted.
- The number of discussions is directly proportional to the apparent size of the activity. Even if the activity is small, because of the number of people involved, it can swell to a huge project, which will be an obstacle to its implementation.
PS It seems to me that this is a bit like a startup startup, but within the framework of one company. The experience of people who have implemented something similar in similar conditions is very interesting. If you need to add something or clarify in the article, write, I will try to do.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/351288/
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