Being agile with Agile: How not to blindly follow the hype
Agile or agile?
Searching around the web to find contemporary ways of working or organizational culture, in the myriad of articles that you will stumble upon, you will find the word “Agile”. But have you ever wondered why is it usually written as such? With an ‘A’? At the end of the day, agile means to be adaptable. However, no one has ever written “Adaptable ways of working”.
There’s a reason for that. Agile with ‘A’ refers to frameworks, as in a set of values, rules and guidelines to the ways of working. But all these frameworks have emerged from agile, i.e. being adaptable, to change, to the circumstances, to the environment that surrounds them. And this is something that we’ve lost or have forgotten along the way. How can we be agile when we are overly strict in adhering to every rule and guideline of a (possibly) complex Agile framework? Or even worse, an Agile framework that is blindly copied and ugly stretched to our case without inspecting our real needs? (Spotify anyone?)
It might be a cliche mentioning it once again but,
(being) agile is a philosophy, not a set of business practices. It outlines a way of thinking and then acting accordingly, and thus, it describes a culture. It is the ability to respond to change, or even further, to create change. It is a way of dealing with uncertainty in a constant changing environment.
How we manifest agility
Our world is getting more and more complicated every day. The same happens in the Agile world with all the frameworks, tools and practices that emerge every-so-often. As many of you may have realized, especially if you have some years of experience under your belt, going back to the basics is always helpful in getting a fresh and maybe a minimalistic view of your challenge at hand and the way to approach it. So what screams back to basics more than going back to the roots of how the Agile “Big-Bang” started? In such cases we also introspect, retrospect and think back to where we started in order to find out how we will continue.
Being clearly inspired by the Agile Manifesto, we thought to manifest our approach of agility with the following over-statements.
1. Fit for purpose over imposing frameworks
Do not blindly follow any framework because it’s the hype or because it just worked somewhere else. Transform your organization based on your context. Understand how success should look like for you and then find the best way to get there. The fact that Company X being in hyper-growth has adopted the Scaled Scrum framework is by no means a reason why you should as well, even if you’re in a similar state. It may work well for their reality but not for yours. Even if you do choose to introduce a version of Scaled Scrum, question whether you want to adopt all of its features or you want to customize it to your needs.
2. Empowering teams over blindly following rules & practices
If we could tell that there is one thing that most agile frameworks have in common, is their focus on people doing the work and how they work together. So, we consider that
Our teams are the experts. Our teams are the heroes!
Let’s help them unleash their true potential in order to thrive by providing them with tools and best practices that will enable that, not by imposing them.
Of course, we have to define some rules for the game but focus mostly on what creates impact.
Be consistent, but not religious with your framework. Give your teams the space to be truly self-managed.
Focus on how your people are experiencing this change. Listen to them, get frequent feedback and ensure that you have the proper mechanism in place to respond to it.
3. Continuous development over classroom trainings
Adopting an agile mindset is a lifelong journey, not a destination. Continuous development is the means by which we embark on this journey. We can certainly use workshops and trainings but as a tool, not as the main purpose. What we should aim for is to develop our people on day-to-day basis to adopt the agile mindset and become independent in the agile way of thinking and working.
We need to seek to continuously help and support the teams to apply the agile principles in a meaningful manner and give feedback on the way they’re practicing next-gen-framework Z. We must not forget to also coach people individually according to their individual needs.
Lastly, but maybe the strongest advice, is once we follow the steps above, to create internal communities of practice to ensure that knowledge is shared and diffused within the organization. This is the cornerstone of perpetuating the agile organizational culture that we’re trying to build.
4. Integrated agile universe over standalone planets
Agile frameworks jargon spoiler alert: Scrum, Kanban, XP, Agile at Scale, Your-Favorite-Framework… No doubt, all these may be the most “notable planets” in the Agile universe. However, there are way more frameworks, tools and ways of working that can optimize our journey to achieving organizational agility.
For us, some of these are OKRs and Design Sprints. We’ve found them to be very helpful and effective for teams in staying focused on work that matters the most, while accelerating decision making and in boosting creativity. For you, it may be something else, but be sure to know what you’re using and, most importantly, why you’re using it.
To (be) agile or not to (be) Agile?
Take a moment to reflect on the below:
“What is working? What’s not?
Where do you start? Where do you want to go?
What do you want to achieve? Why do you want to achieve it?
What success looks like for you? Why does success looks like this for you?”
Scrum may give you the answers above. Or it might not. Maybe Kanban will answer your questions. Or maybe not. Maybe delving deep into organizational theory and culture literature will do. Or, guess what? That might not work out either. Maybe if you hire an Agile “Master Chef”, they will cook that great transformation meal for you. But are you sure that after that you will be the master of that meal?
If talking about meals increased your appetite, imagine it this way…
Treat any Agile framework, tool, practice, theory as a recipe. Try them, tweak them, experiment with them, but at the end of the day, you should feel capable of creating your own cookbook that suits your tastes!
…and there’s nothing wrong with that! If it works for you, and answers to all your burning questions while promoting progress towards something better, you’re doing it right.
A team can hold daily sync meetings without applying Scrum. A department can have frequent retrospective sessions without adhering to Large Scale Scrum. But having such meetings, even with a different name (and when done right), will accelerate your teams’ collaboration and performance, will empower your people and will enhance your organization’s ability to respond to change and improve.
Aim in getting the proper knowledge, training your people, understanding your needs, and carve a clear path of where you want to go and what you want to achieve. Put your teams in the center of this effort and maybe get some specialized people onboard to help you towards all of these. And then have no fear to experiment, to change, to inspect and to adapt. Whatever Agile element you choose, have an open mind and be agile with it. Chances are that you will get better and wiser in the end.
This article is deriving from our talk at Empowering Agile Insights virtual conference on 19 January 2021.
