Radical Management

Unofficial comparison of OpenAgile and Radical Management.

Steve Denning recently published a book called "The Leader's Guide to Radical Management" which gives advice to managers about how to apply Agile principles to a general business environment. This is an unofficial comparison of some Mr. Denning's Basic Principles and OpenAgile.

Seven Basic Principles of Radical Management
1) The goal of work is to delight clients.

Although "delighting clients" is not emphasized as much in OpenAgile as in Radical Management, the idea of getting feedback from Stakeholders at the end of each Cycle and the idea of fostering an orientation which is outward looking (towards the client or customer) rather than inward looking (towards the company & CEO) have similar intents. Also, the Agile Manifesto encourages people being Agile to value "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation".

2) Work is conducted in self-organizing teams.

OpenAgile advocates self-organizing teams where team members volunteer for tasks.

3) Teams operate in client-driven iterations.

In OpenAgile, this is called a Cycle of work.

4) Each iteration delivers value to clients.

Scrum encourages a potentially shippable product at the end of every Sprint and regular demonstrations of working software. Similarly, an OpenAgile practicioner's broad Goal is to deliver incremental value to Stakeholders during every Cycle of work.

5) Managers foster radical transparency.

Truthfulness is one of the Foundations of OpenAgile, and includes honesty, integrity, transparency, and self-awareness.

6) Managers nurture continuous self-improvement.

Similar to the growth facilitation path of service. Systematic application of the Learning Circle can also lead to self-improvement.

7) Managers communicating interactively through stories, questions and conversations.

Similar to Consultative Decision-Making and Engagement Meetings.

Source: http://www.stevedenning.com/Books/radical-management.aspx

Also, for discussion of organic change, which in some ways is similar to OpenAgile's concept of organic growth, see "TEN PRACTICES FOR GETTING CHANGE RIGHT" in second half of http://www.stevedenning.com/slides/GettingChangeRight-Mar29-2010.pdf

Personally, my first impression is that Radical Management as described on Mr. Denning's website, is an Agile framework (like Scrum) that businesspeople can use to start making their businesses more Agile, rather than a full blown methodology (like Extreme Programming or OpenAgile) which requires a change in mind-set but can be immediately implemented and start almost immediately delivering value.

--JoshW, 15 March 2011

Have you read the book? Feel free to add comments below or edit text above.