Identifying the challenge, planning a solution, and then rallying your team and company to make it happen is hard enough. But what happens when you realize halfway through that you’re not actually tackling the right problem? Implementing agile change management practices ensures teams can adapt quickly to shifting priorities while maintaining alignment with overarching goals.
In an ideal world, things would be re-evaluated, a pivot would be made, and the team would jump into action. But in reality, the reaction is just as likely to look like resistance to this change. This may stem from an aversion to losing completed work, a cognitive bias for things staying the same, or a perceived slight to our self-efficacy, among other culprits.
But whatever the cause, ignoring a clear need to change approaches during product development leads to real-world deficits for users, increased uninstalls and user drop-off, and significant financial losses.
So what’s the best way forward? By fully embracing the agile value of responding to change over following a plan, or what I call ‘the sand over stone philosophy’. This philosophy frees teams from unchangeable plans set in stone (so to speak). Instead, we set our plans in sand, where they are firm enough to move forward, but flexible enough to allow us to try, fail fast, learn quickly, and get closer to solving our problem. In this scenario, solutions can be tested and discarded without breaking down any walls. (That sounds more fun, right?)
This shift to a sand over stone philosophy begins at the top, with leaders who embrace transparent and shared decision-making. This creates a culture of psychological safety, and practicing what they preach.
Helping Scrum Teams Face The Truth
I know that terrible sinking feeling of realizing your sprint goal is obsolete, and needing to replan.
I had been working alongside my development team to build an account dashboard for a major eCommerce platform for months. We’d been fine-tuning the details, making sure that all the features from links to load speeds were exactly where we wanted. But when it finally came time to run A/B testing, the results weren’t what we expected (or hoped for): users weren’t engaging with the new dashboard and the results were miles away from our goals.
The prospect of letting my team know that things weren’t resonating with the customer and now we needed to tweak our feature again, after countless hours of work, was gutwrenching. But I also knew that they needed to understand the data behind why we found ourselves at this unexpected crossroads.
After gathering the team together on Zoom, I carefully laid out the data gathered from our user testing, figures that clearly pointed to the need for a change. But instead of telling them we had to switch directions, I asked for their thoughts on the best way forward.
As I watched their faces on my screen, I observed a palpable shift in their reactions.
They moved from initial frustration to understanding, then agreement and ownership for the need to try something else. With transparency in mind and while sharing the data at hand, I also reminded the team of our commitment to a sand over stone mindset. Then, I gave the team the space to decide the outcome for themselves. In the end, what could have been a terrible meeting became a productive one.
Transparency and individual autonomy are two key ways to facilitate a sand over stone mindset, and this is backed by research. A 2022 study found that pursuing goals because of personal motivation and a ‘want to’ outlook had better outcomes than motivation driven by external or ‘have to’ pressure. This environment of workplace motivation can take either form — it all comes down to leadership.
The Human Side Of Team Leadership
Two days into working on the new account dashboard, I received a video call from one of our hardest-working developers. The moment her face appeared on screen, I could see the frustration etched in her expression. She told me that the prospect of revisiting the same account dashboard interface we’d been tweaking for months left her feeling completely disheartened and exhausted, and she said she wasn’t the only one struggling.
In that moment, I realized how much this star performer needed it to be okay not to be the perfect team member. Instead, she was seeking validation and psychological safety to share her emotions. So I listened, and acknowledged her feelings of fatigue about the challenging nature of this unexpected change in plans. And as she felt heard, her feelings gradually de-escalated, and we were able to figure out a better solution together.
Our shared solution took the form of a brief hiatus from the dashboard to work on other aspects of the product such as the logout state and CMS. By switching the focus for a sprint or two, this superstar got back in the game, and the overall team morale was improved. This creative, positive momentum kept on rolling once we restarted work on the dashboard, too.
Taking that break wasn’t just about alleviating frustration. Task switching is a proven way to improve idea generation, diversify problem-solving, and contribute to overall motivation. It’s also a great technique to foster a flexible, sand over stone mindset in your product teams.
Taking Agile Change Management One Sprint at a Time
As leaders, we can’t just talk the talk — we need to walk the walk, especially when it’s challenging.
In this case, the development team wasn’t the only ones left reeling by yet another product earthquake knocking our account dashboard off course. Like every human, I can have a negative reaction to change and feel resistant to a new approach. But as a leader, I had to get over myself.
That’s because a leader needs to consciously model adaptability and flexibility in order to foster the sand over stone philosophy in their team. That means being open to input, receptive to feedback, willing to try things another way, and looking at working software as an opportunity for feedback and not a permanent feature.
It also means acting quickly to identify moments where something isn’t working for the project or the team.
This conscious blend of modeling flexibility and anticipating needs works hand in hand to support your team to the other side of resistance to change.
Build Better Digital Solutions, One Sandcastle at a Time
Sand over stone is more than just a metaphor. It’s a mindset that improves your team and company, and ultimately, creates better digital solutions for your customers and users.
The example I shared came from eCommerce, but the lessons can be applied to any product in any industry, from a healthtech tool built to streamline patient records to a bank’s self-serve investment app.
What matters most is creating a psychologically safe environment where you model transparency, push decision making down to the team, and foster flexibility and adaptability. What underpins this entire philosophy is embodying the sand over stone mindset, both in word and action. And maybe you’ll mess up from time to time, but so what? Trying something, failing fast, and building things up again is the definition of sand over stone.
Would you like to chat more about agile change management? Contact us today!