Logistically Agile
An Agile culture and mindset are vital to the success of an Agile Transformation, however currently this is reported to be the greatest barrier (1.13th Annual State of Agile Survey) to successful adoption.
Few things have the ability to influence mindset the way a physical environment can, so there is a great opportunity to use this to promote an Agile culture that re-enforces collaboration, self-organisation and reflection. Co-locating with consideration to transparency and adaptability will create belonging and enable teams to react faster to the market.
Here are four key principles to set you up for success.
Seating Matters. Physical proximity encourages familiarity, social ties and information sharing; individuals that sit together feel more like a team. It is important for a Squad (an Agile team) to be aligned and collaborate well towards their goal as autonomously as possible. Their success is dependent on their ability to cooperate and self-organise; we need them to rapidly learn to identify and rely on one another. Seating Squad members together in a free-flowing way that encourages face-to-face interaction is an easy way to achieve this. Ideally a communal, open plan style layout with no separating walls or dividers is best.
This also holds true at a Tribe level (collection of Squads brought together by a common mission). Therefore, Squads within a Tribe should co-locate together too. This allows for visibility of each other’s activities, and they become more likely to educate each other by osmosis. I saw this occur recently at a Financial Services client where a Squad observed another successfully navigating through a complex funding request and quickly realised the opportunity to piggy back on this request, saving time on paperwork and additional form filling.
Open Gathering Space. Ceremonies (regular team meetings) are a huge part of Agile, and Tribe level ceremonies are the opportunity for a Tribe to congregate, celebrate and align on their mission. This requires a large open gathering space to indicate it is non-exclusive and inviting where stakeholders or passers-by can feel free to participate, i.e. ‘Open Space, Open Invite.’
I recently watched on as Tribe Lead who had concluded a meeting early, observed a Sprint Planning session occurring and walked over and joined in. It gave the Tribe Lead the opportunity to effortlessly gain insight in to the Squad’s priorities, and the Squad the chance to receive instant feedback. An inviting space will also encourage post-ceremony lingering, increasing information sharing in an informal environment.
This is also a great spot to house the Tribe Wall (a transparent display of the Tribe’s milestones, missions, dependencies and how they are tracking). A clearly visible Tribe Wall where all squads understand how their work contributes to the overall Tribe Mission, will result in a sense of belonging. A way to further enhance this is to make the Tribe Wall unique to the squad’s hobbies/styles/content so they feel ownership. An example from a Health Insurance client: A Tribe whose squads used “Beer” names for their Squad names, and then used Beer related concepts/themes to link back to the tribe wall. A little fun and creativity can go a long way to driving collaboration.
Flexible Tools. All squads in a Tribe will have their own Kanban or Scrum Board, along with necessary stationery items. Squads should not be limited to boards drawn on a wall in a meeting room as this causes chaos when that space becomes unavailable. Walls you can write on, or use Post-its on are also handy, as the flexibility to lift and shift (or write and rub out) is useful when ‘Testing and Learning.’ Plans change, our tools should too!
Moveable boards mean that ceremonies can occur flexibly, using available space. Doing so opens up a variety of options to hold ceremonies in different locations where different stakeholders can feel free to participate, hear what’s going on and collaborate. For presentations to other departments, such as Legal or Marketing, a flexible board can save time in preparing a presentation, where a board can be brought in to showcase a backlog or sprint tasks.
2 Person Meeting Rooms. There will always be time where consideration or discretion is needed, and to cater for this it is useful to have a few non-bookable, two-person meeting rooms. Agile is based on the culture of continuous improvement, iteration and feedback and the environment should provide for the space that allows for these interactions to take place. Small spaces, where people can retreat to nut out ideas, resolve conflict, spontaneously collaborate or provide feedback are necessary to build momentum and encourage face-to-face communication.
I once witnessed a heated exchange between two Squad members on the duration it would take to deliver a task. As this exchange began to derail the ceremony, they agreed to retreat to a quiet space to discuss further allowing them to speak more earnestly and on a personal level without an audience. More intimate spaces ensure progress is not held up by deferring conversations, and that the temptation to revert to electronic communication is avoided.
By following these four guidelines during an Agile Transformation we can create a space for our Squads and Tribes that promotes an Agile culture by allowing them to interact freely, create a sense of team and engage with each other. Having flexibility of tools and meeting rooms that can be used quickly and informally ensures that in a variety of situations, the Tribe can adapt and react in short time frames. A well-designed Agile space will go a long way to ensuring the success of a Tribe.
- 13th Annual State of Agile Survey | The Largest, Longest-Running Agile Survey
- Photo by İrfan Simsar on Unsplash
Originally published at https://medium.com on May 5, 2019.
