What, for FSM sake, is agile?

When I shared a link to Sue Johnston’s (It’s Understood) agile training programs, on Google+ a couple of weeks ago, Michael asked me what constitutes “agile”.

A good question. A very good question.

One to which I have no answer.

Not quite. Yet.

My best resource not enough for Michael

So, I pointed Michael to an article by Steve Denning on Forbes. Steve’s discussion of agile is a bit long, but well worth the read. I think it does the best job of explaining agile than any other article I’ve seen so far.

Michael read it. And wasn’t satisfied:

I read that article, and am no wiser. It seems to confirm my suspicion that “Agile” is an utterly meaningless catch-all word for whatever one wishes it to mean. It starts by explicitly saying in cartoon form that “Agile” can mean at least 40 distinct concepts! It this is the “best” description of what “Agile” means, then it means less than nothing, and is a gobbledegook term designed to cover the obvious fact that it has NO meaning whatsoever.

Ouch. Michael doesn’t exactly mince words there, does he?

Agree and disagree with Michael

I both agree and disagree with Michael.

I wouldn’t say it’s by design, but a case of “Agile” having been hi-jacked and then hyped out of all context and meaning.

And while Steve Denning does mention a lot of frameworks and methodologies at the start, the meat of his discussion ignores them entirely and discusses three core characteristics of organizations that have embraced agile.

Reading Steve’s article again for this post, I do have to agree with Michael that despite the structure provided by the three characteristics, it doesn’t seem to provide an easily digested description of what agile means.

Three core characteristics of agile organizations

Let’s boil it down a bit. Steve presents the three core characteristics of agile organizations as “laws”:

• The law of the small team
  “Agile practitioners share a mindset that work should in principle be done in small autonomous cross-functional teams working in short cycles on relatively small tasks and getting continuous feedback from the ultimate customer or end user.”
• The law of the customer
  “Agile practitioners are obsessed with delivering value to customers.”
  “In truly Agile organizations, everyone is passionately obsessed with delivering more value to customers. Everyone in the organization has a clear line of sight to the ultimate customer and can see how their work is adding value to that customer — or not.”
• The law of the network
  “Agile practitioners view the organization as a fluid and transparent network of players that are collaborating towards a common goal of delighting customers.”
  “Agile teams take initiative on their own, and interact with other Agile teams to solve common problems.”

Boiled down like this, I think it actually is a pretty good description of what people and companies are trying to achieve through adopting agile (responsiveness to customers in an ever more competitive and faster moving environment) and how they are going about it (small teams organized in networks).

My first stab

At the time of my discussion with Michael, I didn’t have the above reduction and when Michael pressed me for my meaning of the word “agile”, I gave it a try.

I prefer to talk about agility rather than “Agile”. What it means to me is something that is still very abstract and fluid.

Some aspects: no dogma; establish and live “reason for being”; establish and live core values; organize in networks and teams not hierarchies; distribute (decision making) power and responsibility; trust people to do deliver your reason for being (customer value) following the values you hold dear; allow them room to maneuver.

In all this trust is the hardest part and what I am focusing on in a new blog/venture.

Similarities and differences

My first stab shares a lot with Steve’s three laws. The teams are there, the customer value is there, the network is there.

But there is more in mine, I feel. Something which goes to the core of the many discussions on “doing agile” and “being agile”.

I suspect an organization could do everything that is in Steve’s three laws and still not be an agile organization.

The difference has to do with your why’s and with your views on many aspects of doing business. With your views and beliefs around people, relationships, power and decision making.

Those views are, in my not so humble opinion, highly contingent on what you trust people to do and not do. When you’re not around. And when their financial stability would not be jeopardized by stressing the relationship with you.

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