05.01.19 The Case For ADOS: Agile Activism — An Organizational Strategy for Community Development (Part Three)
This is going to be the initial stage of an ongoing, developing program. Much in the spirit in which Agile operates, the forms and methods that it shall take when engaging the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) community and organizational outreach and development shall evolve as well.
This is a dynamic, changing, evolving project with continuous improvement as the fundamental focus. The Main Thing is to keep The Main Thing The Main Thing.
POTENTIAL THREATS AND HOW AGILE PROVIDES VALUE
When it comes down to it, a Black leader is a mortal human that, when interacting with other humans as a figure of leadership and followers, is inherently a setup for failure. Humans are flawed and not perfect. The added glare of social media and the internet and its world of instant scrutiny does not make things easier. Our expression of opinions in 280 characters or less allows snark and cynicism to have more influence over nuance and shades of gray. The practical effect of this and the structure of such leadership in a country that historically has not and even today, does not often work with Black people’s interests, is to see those leaders killed or “killed” in the court of public opinion. This has the effect, desired by those who do not want to see Black self-determination and uplift based on that to become demoralized.
It demands a decentralized strategy that allows breakouts of the valued information to the community. The stakeholders. The end-users. This framework is as applicable to a grassroots community unit to a grassroots movement writ large, in this case, the re-energized ADOS struggle for reparations.
Thousands of software developers have embraced the Agile methodology as the means to get things accomplished through a centralized manner with no central leaders. Taking this strategy, and translating it for modern-day relevance for workers, doers, facilitators who care about “the Black Community”–this is Agile Activism. Agile Activists answer to the stakeholders — the Black ADOS community. Many people who are in technology use Agile as their strategy and it is one that exposes the flaws in linear, tiered strategies of ADOS uplift.
In retrospect, I have a deeper respect for the imperative of Black politics to ignite the efficacy of ADOS business and development and I better understand how important that is.
I have an evolved respect that “Do For Self” has to be refocused toward Black politics and a Black agenda. We have to work, we have to eat, we have to live and support our families…but meanwhile, it is wise to recalibrate our lives to adjust to the realities of our socioeconomic position and standing.
Agile is not a linear process, nor does it require a massive undertaking. Agile involves a constant, ever-evolving working process and collaboration that builds values and gives people iterative successes, things that give the people something to show for it, even if small.
WHAT IS AGILE ACTIVISM? (#ADOSAgile)
Agile Activism is an evolution from technology research that I was engaged with in 2015. A research group of Afrotechs who studied urban patterns, practices and cultures around the world, particularly in developing nations, as well as collaborative models and low-cost and crowdfunded technology solutions to address them with the intended purpose of creating tech-focused community development models that could sustain American descendants of slavery-majority neighborhoods and communities. The output of that research and labor was much of the community development models that I posted in Narrow The Gap! from 2015 through 2017.
I brainstormed developing Industrial Revolution 4.0 solutions for Black economies to be applied in ADOS communities to then spread in other developing urban areas of the world and the African diaspora. After my direct tech research ended, I have continued to research patterns, review and study ADOS history and struggles for justice, continue to educate on local (and now international) media, assemble data on my website and involve myself in localized (now national) issues, from block to neighborhood to local ADOS communities and think about the scope of our challenges and how we can more efficiently address them with our existing limited resources.
The opportunities are right there for us, good people. We are going to encounter turbulence and challenges during the journey. There will be moments where as we are gaining momentum, we will be hit with setbacks that will have you feeling like it has all gone to waste. It is in those moments that you have to continue to push forward and find a way. You are God-formed and God-created with a purpose. Self-analyze. Recognize your skill sets, and find the related activities where you can best serve.
Use this journey to find practices and patterns that help you be more efficient towards your goals, learn how to measure your results to know how effective you have been and to be able to make adjustments how to improve your effectiveness. As you do this, if you are not a part of any or many, join and support ADOS-owned, Black-operated community-focused institutions. Support the reparations initiative that we have for the descendants of American chattel slavery.
We have to pool, to organize the collective positive efforts of our striving citizens develop a culture of innovation. Humans need an aspiring goal, the pursuit of efforts that are larger than themselves. When you do not see the leadership that you believe that you need, become the leader that you want to see. See real, be real.
Let us take a deeper dive in the elements of Agile Activism.
Individuals and Interactions over Process and Tools. Agile focuses on regular interaction with the community with frequent sessions to receive feedback, provide input and to prioritize goals. Community workers and contacts speak directly to the people, get the people’s feedback about their concerns and priorities. This process is more than the gathering of Black intelligentsia and media figures or some mainstream media-appointed “Black leadership” that goes to the White House or Congress with our interests in mind (that comes later, after the groundwork is laid with community connection and feedback).
It’s a focus on interacting with people in the community in regular sessions to get input and feedback so that the organizers can prioritize. Skill groups listen directly to the community for their mission, and after accomplishment, they go back to the community for feedback to make corrections or get better but the interaction remains. Don’t get caught up with tools or processes that get in the way of delivering results and giving Black folk what they need.
Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation. An Agile Activist understands what matters and that it is in working solutions that Black folk can use right here and right now. The people have a multitude of books and authors, but not enough working “software” and practical applications that delivers the results for sisters and brothers to improve their lives and build toward political master plans. Working solutions that the people can use right now, no matter how small or basic the ask. It’s one thing to talk about health and wellness but another to take over an empty lot with a mobile health van that shows up every Tuesday. Software to our technological generations means both the literal thing that you use for our computers and devices to the practices and patterns that we use in service to the people.
These are disruptive strategies that allow one to present disproportionate value from the apparently available resources. Agile strategies must be applied to both.
Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation. Whether you’re talking about web development or the software industry, you often have a company charge you to build something and the product that you get is completely different than what you originally envisioned. When you are upset at the end product, the vendor then wants to charge you more to fix the problem, another contract, another headache. Looking at ADOS’ history, this is the way a lot of our ambitions and desires have been stunted with Black leadership. Vision is fine, but beware those that sell you a lofty story to accomplish some grand goal — it’s a thin, thin line between genuine vision and nebulous vaporware.
One example. A useful tool for the people comes in creating educational media that can provide training and educational support to Black people. Talk to people in the community and find out what they want to know…and make some videos on how they can do it. With our faces. Doing it for the people. Positive results sends a positive message to the people that we are all in this together.
Responding to Change over Following a Plan. After years of observation and a life of trial and error, I have evolved to this conclusion. The over-reliance to scripted, linear plans have a higher rate of failure in an ever-changing, dynamic world. The struggle of ADOS cannot be based on some grand “master plan,” even generated by Black people! It set us up with a zero-sum, binary outcome of success/fail that makes any scripted plans of ours outdated. Our struggle cannot afford to fail. Black folk must learn to anticipate and react to change and be dynamic with our solutions. Then we continue with gathering feedback, accomplishing the next step, gathering more feedback and moving on to the next challenges.
This is continuous improvement. This is placing a new focus on small tasks meant to bring improvement in smaller increments that builds victories that build confidence. When you and yours can take pride and pleasure in small victories, that matters more than any success story out of Black Enterprise and contained on a Twitter or Facebook meme.
A key concept in Agile principles and subsequently, Agile Activism, is collective ownership. Collective ownership shifts responsibility from an “anointed” individual (who can be picked off or marginalized) to both stakeholders and sources of talent and skill-sets to deliver results and functional solutions. Instead of a charismatic Black leader, Agile Activism brings people with the required skills and talents to work directly with people to understand a given community’s challenges and collaborate together to develop and deliver solutions.
It is my hope, and I will do everything on my part to make it so, that there will be grassroots people on the community level that will make Agile Activism practices their organizational routine. To focus on collaborative ownership, iterative development and delivering reasonable value to their customers (the community, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block) on a timely basis as opposed to giant promises with the rhetoric on big dreams and second-hand inspiration.
As we build and engage with the monumental task of extracting a righteous justice claim for the descendants of American chattel slavery in the United States, that we build small, skilled teams focused on goals writ small for the communities in which they live as we struggle together for the first major step in making ADOS whole and moving this country to inch closer to A More Perfect Union.
ITERATIVE DEVELOPMENT
What Is Iterative Development? It is a process of continuous improvement through incremental cycles focused on delivery of solutions, small and up. The community is involved in the process of providing input and feedback, and the work is invested on delivering solutions that create value. To make this happen, it demands open communication and participation from the people.
User stories of the people, by the people and for the people allows the techs, the activists (the “tree shakers”) and the “jelly makers” better know what the collective wants as we gather continued input and feedback from the people to deliver expected results to build both value and momentum. That is why I assert that ADOS focus more on self-organizing teams to fulfill multiple user stories. Multiple related stories collect into Features. Collections of features lead to building up Themes where the people have a deeper investment through collective and collaborative ownership to deliver value and that builds stakeholder confidence and momentum, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community.
I know that ADOS have been denied a lot. The Middle Passage. Centuries of forced free labor. Land theft and terrorism. Soul-crushing male emasculation and criminal violations of women in the Jim Crow South, while in the north Black folks were used as pawns in union busting, denied union access for decades, redlined into ghettoes through government policy and illegal white covenant laws that also had a compounding evil effect in making ADOS a contagion to wealth, denied freedom of movement in housing access by government policy until barely over 50 years ago, our ADOS-concentrated urban areas flooded with crack cocaine, exploding gang activity and violence with the murders, chaos and mass incarceration these offenses wrought.
Pandemic addiction that worsened the incarceration problem and severely damaged ADOS families and their human possibility…and now here we are. A laundry list of historical crimes against a people, in a nation with ever-increasing wealth disparity and calcification. ADOS deserve comprehensive redress and restorative justice. Agile activism in the midst of making this Grand Case to America is a strategy to gather a “sick and tired” people on a common accord.
Recognition by high society and so-called elites and the ownership of gobs of material stuff is not success, real success is the fulfillment you get by living your life and Your Story no matter how modest or major the project. Rather than fighting for status, pursue your story and find joys in the moments and effort that you put toward your dreams. In the places and spaces where you can share information and offer support to like-minded sisters and brothers pursuing their Stories.
WHAT TO DO IN THE MEANTIME AS WE GET AGILE?
Engage in Circular Economics and Collaborative Consumption. I have covered these issues on my website. Do not run out and own things if you don’t have to. Do not hesitate to buy used clothing or furniture and upcycle it. In the meantime, given our socioeconomic realities and this struggle for our justice claim, let us examine ways we can upcycle spaces in our community and repurpose those spaces for the community to reclaim and enjoy those spaces. Why brag? Why floss? Let’s grow to do better in spending our limited resources on experiences over ownership.
It is not a zero-sum game about failure or success. Enjoy your moments, the planning and work that you put towards your success with determination, yet a spirit of contentment are the efforts that will help you live.
THE CLOSEOUT…FOR NOW
I had an understanding of key elements of the scope of Black America’s problems and challenges, but I had not thought of them in the most functional fashion until I listened to Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore. I was a “do for self-er,” though one striving to do so with more egalitarian, communal and creative models, but these efforts were at best incomplete and certainly would not be a fast-track solution for the masses of ADOS.
As was said, the very nature of Agile Activism demands that new data and community feedback demands dynamic change and development. This is an evolving guide and document, and shall be as we all continue this journey for justice.
As I said from the beginning, this piece is going to be more dense, yet dynamic. As an Agile Activist, I welcome your thoughts and your input in the Responses section. Let’s make this work lean and mean. — MRH
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I thank all contributors who have provided support along the way. I continue to be committed in the engagement of this critical work for a righteous justice claim. Any and all contributions to help me research and write future pieces are humbly appreciated. You can donate here: Pay Michael R Hicks using PayPal.Me.
