People by their nature gravitate toward pleasurable things and away from painful things. Change in general is scary and change on the scale of an Agile transformation generates a lot of fear. There are many different types of fear, some good and some bad and they all tend to have varied effects on the success or failure of a transformation.
I’ve been deeply engaged in agile transformations for almost a decade and in this presentation I will share with you some of my experiences with healthy fear--prudence--and what can happen when that fear turns unhealthy. To understand fear, we will look at ways that fear is developed in a workplace, how diversity and nationality play a role in our reactions and ability to combat fear. How process and bureaucracy can, over time, cause a culture of fear.
You will come away with some things to look for in yourself and ways of seeing the fears that, when healthy, can have a positive impact, and those, when unhealthy, hold us back, make us hesitate and can cause issues that can derail entire transformations.