> I work at a large company... it would take a world ending event to move.
What's your current Theory of Change[0] for how to affect decisions at a large company? Are you simply "paying your dues" and moving up in the ranks until you've accumulated enough political capital to make unilateral changes in the working lives of your underlings? How much does your individual organizational agility[1] figure into it? Are you, rather, content to let all decisions be made by higher-ups for the rest of your career? How do you suppose your peers model change? Is there any semblance of democracy?
I am curious because project tracking tools seem representative of a whole class of stable, albeit local-optima that don't seem to change as often as they should, and as a company ages what changes are made seem to come increasingly from decision-makers far removed from the tools' impact on the Individual Contributor.
As it's been said, "ambiguity is resolved by actions of practitioners at the sharp end of the system."[2]
I've attempted to push change at a local level (team + department) in various forms with limited success.
Generally, I get a lot of positive feedback and "we should do that!" responses without any follow through.
At one point some of my pushing lead to a significant departmental change. However, within a short time frame, just as everyone was starting to buy in, something new came down the pipe from on-high and became "the thing".
More recently my approach has been to bypass any sort of organizational hierarchy. Instead I've identified a handful of peers who seem interested in these things and figuring out how we can make our lives easier even if no one else wants to get on board. But this only works for things that are not mandated by the company.
What's your current Theory of Change[0] for how to affect decisions at a large company? Are you simply "paying your dues" and moving up in the ranks until you've accumulated enough political capital to make unilateral changes in the working lives of your underlings? How much does your individual organizational agility[1] figure into it? Are you, rather, content to let all decisions be made by higher-ups for the rest of your career? How do you suppose your peers model change? Is there any semblance of democracy?
I am curious because project tracking tools seem representative of a whole class of stable, albeit local-optima that don't seem to change as often as they should, and as a company ages what changes are made seem to come increasingly from decision-makers far removed from the tools' impact on the Individual Contributor.
As it's been said, "ambiguity is resolved by actions of practitioners at the sharp end of the system."[2]
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_change
1. https://www.scaledagileframework.com/organizational-agility/
2. https://how.complexsystems.fail/