The Science of Organisational Change | Book Series

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Overview:

This book was originally published in 2015 in order to provide guidance on change grounded in the latest science for the leaders. The new edition is published in the year 2019 in which the author takes readers through change mythology involving new age change ideas and pop psychology up to the present. 

The author covers how to successfully manage change in the changing business environments – Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA). The major topics of the book are ‘Change Agility’, ‘Change Strategy’, ‘Change Tactics’, and ‘Change Leadership’. After reading the book, you will be left with igniting thoughts new ideas such as;

  • Framework for analysing change failure
  • The psychology of risk
  • Cognitive biases affecting change and its effect
  • Trusting guts vs trusting models
  • Change myths that most people still believe

Author:

Paul Gibbons

Published In:

2019 (2nd Edition)

Heartbeat Retrospective | Glossary

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Definition:

An interim retrospective meetings that happens regularly explicitly reflecting the most important events occurred in previous iterative development cycle is called Heartbeat Retrospective. In such meetings, significant decisions are made on further changes and improvements required to achieve the goal. It is a facilitated meeting, generally by Scrum Master and follows a set format. 

It is also called ‘Sprint Retrospective’, ‘Iteration Retrospective’, and has gained a favor in Agile community over the past few years.

Benefits:

  • Opportunity to identify the bottlenecks to achieve the iteration and overall goal
  • Gives direction to further improve
  • Encourages ownership and responsibility

Origin:

  • Alistair Cockburn has described ‘work in increments, focus after each’ in ‘Surviving Object-Oriented Projects’ in 1997, however he did not name it
  • In the year 2001, Alistair Cockburn mentioned ‘Reflection Workshop’ in the book ‘Agile Software Development’
  • ‘Agile Manifesto’ published in 2001 mentions significance of regular retrospectives in one of the principles
  • Norm Kerth introduced the term ‘Project Retrospectives’ in his book with the same name in 2001
  • Esther Derby and Diana Larsen’s book ‘Agile Retrospectives’ brought a closer description of Heartbeat Retrospective.

Further Reading:

  • Agile Manifesto
  • ‘Agile Retrospectives’ by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen
  • ‘Project Retrospectives by Norm Kerth