As they say, nothing is more dangerous than using yesterday’s logic for today’s problems, yet we are still working in our organisations with mental models that were inspired by manufacturing. You can see artefacts of it even in the language we use: people are resources and they work in development factories. If we are surprised why our transformations are not progressing as fast as we hoped when Agile took the stage, then looking to these old mental models provides part of the answer.

In this talk I will explain from practical experience in my work, how the old models still influence us every day and how we can break away from them and learn new models. I will give positive and negative examples from real projects to show that it is normal to experience failures and how to course correct from the lessons such failures teach us.

I will also provide pragmatic steps that everyone can take in their own organisations that don’t rely on buying new tools or following specific methods. Charting your own course starts with understanding where the problem is and understanding where our mental models let us down is part of that journey.