Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas


Mary Lynn Manns, University of North Carolina at Asheville
manns@unca.edu

Linda Rising, Independent Consultant
linda@lindarising.org


Have you ever tried to introduce a new idea into your organization?

Even though change is difficult, leaders can't avoid it. So wouldn't it be wonderful if people who have successfully introduced a new idea into an organization could share their stories with you? Our book, Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas is the next best thing.

We have gathered proven strategies for leading a change initiative. To do this, we heard numerous experiences from people leading change in a variety of sizes and types of organizations throughout the world. While doing this, we documented our observations, read publications on the topics of change and influence, studied how change agents throughout history have tackled the problems they faced, and exposed our work for comment and feedback.

Change is hard. Leaders will struggle and so will the people they are trying to convince. But the stories of success we have heard show that there is hope. You need three things to introduce your idea: your belief in it, the determination to act on your belief, and some information on how to bring the idea into your organization. You supply the first two; the patterns in Fearless Change provide the third.

The book is available from:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
amazon.com

The book includes a complete version of the patterns, a framework for using them, and experience reports that describe how the patterns can help you introduce new ideas into your organization!



More information can be found at:

Best Book of the Year for 2004 in the Journal of Object Technology

Books that changed my career. 12 books to read this year.
David Bock says: "Instant classic. Here is how you can be a mover and shaker in your workplace."

Average customer review on amazon.com is 5 (out of 5) stars!

Review from Michael Feathers
Extremely well written guide to the people side of the business. The first thing a consultant learns is that our work isn't technical, it's people work. Sure, we teach technical things and solve technical problems, but unless we help people change, the technical knowledge falls on the floor and lies there. This book is written for people who are charged with changing their organizations. It contains a lot of distilled wisdom.

IBM Rational Edge, 15 Dec 2004

Ivan Moore: Putting the Tea into Team

informit.com

Michael Swaine discusses Fearless Change in his "Loners and Guerrillas" article in Dr. Dobbs Journal, February 2005

Brief review from William Wake

Agile Alliance website

George Dinwiddie's blog
... a wonderfully helpful book

Don Gray's blog
My thoughts about the book ... If you don't have the book, get it. If you have the book and haven't read it, do so now. This books takes information you may already know at some level, and provides a standard framework for the 48 patterns. The authors present the patterns in a "scenario sequence", but encourage you to add the patterns to your change agent repertoire and use what fits at the opportune time.





The spark for a new idea in an organization most often begins with one or more individuals who has heard about or used the innovation and is intrigued over the potential. It then becomes their task to enlighten the rest of the organization. This can be an easier undertaking if one has an understanding of the problems that may be encountered along the way and what can be done to address these problems. This book captures recurring problems and the corresponding successful solutions for introducing new ideas into organizations -- we document these in a form of knowledge management known as patterns.




Pattern Summaries
These files are formatted for easy printing on index cards (as described in the book).

Expanded version in [MS-WORD] (formatted to print on Avery 5388 card stock)
Thanks to Don Gray!

Shorter version in [PDF]



Events leading to the patterns:

  • Pattern Languages of Programming (PLoP'99) conference (August 1999, Illinois)
  • Introducing & Sustaining Interest in Patterns in an Organization, OT'2000 conference (March 2000, Oxford, England)
  • Introducing & Sustaining Interest in Patterns in an Organization, ChiliPLoP'2000 conference (March 2000, Arizona)
  • Evolving a Patterns Culture, EuroPLoP'2000 conference (July 2000, Germany)
  • Introducing Patterns (or any new idea) into Organizations, OOPSLA'2000 conference (October 2000, Minnesota)
  • Introducing Patterns (or any new idea) into an Organization: A Simulation, OT'2001 (April 2000, Oxford, England)
  • Introducing Patterns (or any new idea) into Organizations, shepherded for PLoP'01 (September 2001, Illinois)
  • Introducing Patterns (or any new idea) into Organizations, tutorial at OOPSLA'01 (October 2001, Florida)
A Few Papers

Some Presentations