Somewhere, a Chihuahua is staring suspiciously at a taco, wondering who to believe. First it was the lettuce. Then it wasn’t the lettuce. Well, sort of. And Taco Bell is somehow stuck in the middle of the story.
Watching the Cyclospora investigation unfold reminded me of something we often forget in organizational change. In Agile environments, changing direction isn’t a bug—it’s a feature. As new information becomes available, good organizations adapt.
The problem is that most audiences don’t experience your work through an Agile lens. They experience it as a series of public announcements. Once you’ve blamed Taco Bell, millions of people don’t wait around for Sprint Review #2. From the organization’s perspective, the message evolved. From the public’s perspective, the organization contradicted itself.
That’s why change management deserves just as much attention as execution during change. Your internal team may understand that today’s hypothesis could become tomorrow’s correction. Your customers, employees, regulators, and stakeholders may not.
The lesson isn’t to avoid changing your mind. Quite the opposite. Good organizations should follow the evidence wherever it leads. The lesson is to recognize that most audiences don’t give you unlimited opportunities to reshape the narrative. Once the message is out, it’s out.
Organizations can iterate. Public perception usually doesn’t.
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