Purposeful Agile
Throw a purpose in a middle of a crowd, it will start to self-organise.
Many self-organised entities like … villages or cities have an “embedded purpose”, not voluntarily shared out-loud or displayed in common places. Acting in a purpose driven way is less obvious for organisations. More a company grows, more dissolved into the Process the original business purpose becomes.The enterprise gets diluted into the HOW-TO control complexity. Forget about the purpose. What products we build as a company and who are the services we provide for turns from core meaning to marketing fancies. That’s business as usual. Until it’s not anymore. Until crisis comes. Until customers change behaviour from consumers to service users. Until adapt to reality brings more value than creating processes to change reality. At this point in time, Agile becomes the new big thing everyone wants to have, do or be. Agile Transformations are ordered and Agile History is written. Here are the 3 levels of Agile Experience Awareness I’ve seen unfolded .
“How-To Agile” — leading To Agile Ghettos
1st Level of Agile Awareness
Companies keep employees occupied on “How To” process compliance since modern industry was stated as such. Bigger the company more compliance with Some BIG Silver Bullet Method is required as unique meaning of business life. Naturally enough , we are doing what we know to do. Which means we apply the cognitive biases we live by to all new initiatives. So the first chapter of Agile experience in business was the “Agile Methodology implementation”. Brought in by centralised processes guru teams ( actually these people are very smart people, that are longing to really serve the enterprise by making use of their capacity of managing concepts ) , this Agile Implementation is :
- focused exclusively of Software Development teams ,because Agile Manifesto talks about Software)
- regulated by new practices to follow , new roles to define in HR catalogues, new processes to be compliant with, new checklists ( like Definition of Done, ain’t it ?) , new matrix to build ( what project are eligible for Agile, what can we lead in the good old comfy way ?
- a source of new bureaucracy overhead !!??
And all of a sudden ( really ?) software teams state to experience a strange feel of solitude and non-understanded uniqueness in company’s landscape , uniqueness that might be experienced like the Agile Ghetto.
“Oh, my God , all this Agile stuff was ment to develop software leaner , faster , smarter”, some of Agile initiators and sponsors said. “What did we miss?” . The answer given to this question made organisations jump to the next level of awareness , the Agile Attitude.
Agile Attitude — triggered by Agile Therapy
2nd level of Agile Awareness
At the former level , organisations are busying to do Agile. First insight at the 2nd level is “Making Agile is not the point, the point is to BE Agile”. A lot of activities become now focused on identifying on … “how to be Agile”. Hmmm…the focus is now of course more on “Values and Principles”, and are still stuck in the “How To Focus Un Values”. At this stage, of course valuable things happen: teams value more collaboration, communication, support and new ways of management have increased chances to be accepted and experimented.
Managers eventually understand that teams’ intellectual comfort is important. They may be ready to listen and adapt. Unfortunately , the “Agile Attitude” stage turns often into a huge source of misunderstanding and unhappiness. The “How To Agile” stage had the benefit rise curiosity and show that things can improve based on good practices, but bringing the Agile Transformation to the next level does not point how to organise to insure emergent practices.
If management is willing to give teams “more space to express”, which means workshops, improvement ideas, improved working space , improved quality time to produce better software, things are better , though not great. Agile transformes in a huge “group therapy” to express everyone’s on-going issues.
No matter how many retrospectives, baby-foots and playful inspirational activities are conducted, insatisfaction sticks in the air. Actually, at this stage, more creative activities are in place, more self-focused teams are : “We are not part of an enough Agile organisation and we need to focus on ourselves to become an Agile organisation”.
More, other organisations and teams consider often Stage 2 Agile organisations , as “strange hippies”. Agile teams have no real quest and are not really understood . It’s not a good place to be , but there is an answer. Therapist — we are at the therapy stage, aren’t we?- say that having a purpose is the best anti depressor. Without a clear outcome as a token for collaboration, together with tolerance to error , massages, games and team building sessions won’t make it. Time is high to reset Agile achievements around the very purpose of the organisation in place . As an organisation, what outcome we dream to achieve?
Purposeful Agile
3rd level of Agile Awareness
At this stage , Agile is recognised as an enabler that facilitate answers to key questions like :
“Who is this for?”
“What is this about?”
“What we are trying to achieve? How visible is it?”
New management type voices agree that motivation is never an external factor. Managers are designer of systems that enable people to self motivate. And there is no better motivation factor that contributing to something concrete that will serve to someone that will recognise the utility of that service. That’s why the ultimate key of successful Agile is not observing religiously the principles, though it’s important, as applied “purposelessly” may turn teams in strange aliens. The ultimate key of successful Agile it’s creating something aligned with a purpose by using the power of Agile Principles and practices. Everything can be adapted if there is a “What for” together for “Who is it for”
To become a 3rd stage Agile organisation grasp the answer to “What For” and use the Agile container to hold it . Stating the purpose is not an obvious exercise, because usually ranch organisation sown bout feel authorised to express it. Some other organisation is in charge of. Eventually Senior Executives Committees might be in charge of purpose definition, rules and regulations. Asking this question at all levels , all the time may be perceived as a waste of time. Nevertheless, defining and detecting and saying aligned with a shared purpose is the best way to have highly engaged responsible teams. Therefore the fist activities of every Agile Happy Enterprise Transformation need to highlight the purpose : everybody is on boarded to explore Customer Behavior, best service to offer, what should be done next. To do so, practices from various horizons as Product Management, Lean Startup, Storytelling, Kanban, Design Thinking, User Experience , Innovation Management and Palo Alto School, can be experienced to achieve the best results, company, teams and each individual will be proud of.
Conclusion of Nothing and Thanks for Everything
Some time ago I had a chat with Sophie Freiermuth. She has met Diana Larsen and Vasco Duarte at a conference somewhere in the Frontierless Land of Agile and they were kind enough to mention me.
“Oana has to write a book” , they said. If that will happen , it will tell the story of of turning the “Inside Out” in an “Outside In” company through Agile. I’m already dedicating it to them. Here goes my purpose :).
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