Getting Buy-In: Overcoming Larman's Law

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Copenhagen 2025. https://gotocph.com Allen Holub - Authority. When Allen Speaks the World Listens @AllenHolub RESOURCES https://bsky.app/profile/allenholub.bsky.social https://mstdn.social/@allenholub https://twitter.com/allenholub https://holub.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenholub Links https://web.goodnotes.com/s/qIZRDGx5GiIzXT6inIzWe7#page-1 https://www.craiglarman.com/wiki/index.php?title=Larman%27s_Laws_of_Organizational_Behavior ABSTRACT Larman’s Law states, “Organizations are implicitly optimized to avoid changing the status quo…” The third law is particularly relevant: ‘Any change initiative will be derided as “purist,” “theoretical,” “revolutionary," " “religion,” and “needing pragmatic customization for local concerns”—which deflects from addressing weaknesses and the manager/specialist status quo.’ You need to overcome that resistance to use innovative approaches like no-estimation or mob/ensemble programming. Devs, however, almost always go about that the wrong way. Senior management is rarely interested in the mechanics of what you’re doing. They’re interested in the bottom line, how the new approaches change how the business is managed, and whether the inevitable disruption is worth it. In this talk, you’ll learn how to convince the “suits” (and your clients) that innovation is a good thing. You’ll learn how to create a business case for innovation that overcomes the resistance of Larman’s Law. […] TIMECODES 00:00 Intro 01:14 Larman’s Law of organizational behavior 12:39 Conway’s Law 15:12 How to make this all work 22:35 How to speak to managers 28:35 Value Stream Mapping 35:49 Time value of money 53:40 Summary 55:57 Outro Download slides and read the full abstract here: https://gotocph.com/2025/sessions/3628