Heart of Agile and Scrum
The most exciting part was to meet Alistair Cockburn. My mistake was not raising a hand.
In February 2001, Seventeen persons signed the Agile Manifesto. The participants are today considered the royalty of Agility. Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland founded Scrum; Ward Cunningham developed the first Wiki. If you google for refactoring, XP, or clean code, you will find Martin Fowler or Kent Beck. And so on. Another prominent signer was Alistair Cockburn, and he has searched for the Heart of Agile.
I saw Alistair live in 2016 at Agile Bangkok. I remember the session as fun but not what I expected. Cockburn mostly talked about how he practiced diving (!?) from a cliff and the practice of Shu-Ha-Ri.
At the end of the session, he asked if anyone wanted to grab a beer with him at a sky bar. Unfortunately, I did not raise my hand— I had parked my car nearby and didn't want to leave the vehicle for the night. Probably a big mistake. Maybe the evening had ended up at Sirocco as in the movie in Hangover 2.
Roughly a year or so ago, I read his book "Agile Software Development" from 2007. Despite its age, I find the book relevant and refreshing as it does not promote a specific framework but rather Agile principles and ideas. Sure, Alistair talks about his framework Crystal. But, in general, the book is about what works. Discoveries he made traveling the globe and interviewing software teams.
I messaged Cockburn a few questions, and to my surprise, he answered them very openly and honestly. I was surprised as I am sure he is barraged with messages.
Alistair told me he had started training people in the "Heart of Agile" (HOA), and I decided to attend in June 2021. We were only eight attendees in the class. It was a luxury to be so few persons. Today, in October 2021, some 590 students have participated.
Attending, I hoped to get first-hand knowledge on how he felt participating at the meeting in Snowbird, signing the Agile manifesto. I never got to ask the question. Maybe next time.
Heart of Agile (HOA)
I did, however, get an explanation of his personal opinion on how the Scrum Guide has evolved. I also got an acknowledgment that the ideas from the Heart of Agile and Scrum can coexist.
The themes taught in HOA works with any Agile framework or setting. They are at the heart of Agile and not a framework.
I understand HOA as the refined essence based on what Allistair has learned after some 30 years of work. The principles are not hard to learn by heart (pun intended):
- Collaborate
- Deliver
- Reflect
- Improve
The four themes help us reach a more straightforward, powerful, and applicable way of becoming more agile. HOA is not a(nother) framework. What is essential is Kokoro or "Brilliance in the basics."
Heart of Agile is not a framework but should act as a compass in which direction to advance the conversations — Sole Pinter
Let's look at the four themes to get the picture.
The Reflect and Improve themes
To understand and learn, we should focus on micro-improvements. I would refer to this approach as "how to boil a frog." The trick is to first reflect on the current situation and envision the smallest step you can take to improve. Lastly, you visualize how the change will have an impact. The change will happen, but the steps should be so small they happen seamlessly.
To practice, try asking yourself, "what is my best hope?", "Where are we now?", "What is working today?" And finally, "How can I/we take the next tiny step?"
For example, imagine a good day. Picture where you are, observe what change you can make, articulate the difference between before and after and then act on the slightest noticeable improvement.
Improvement comes in different stages. Cockburn refers to martial art and the concept of Shu-Ha-Ri to describe the various steps we go through on our path to mastery.
Shu = Learn a technique and copy/practice it
Ha = Collect ways and perform them
Ri = Perform and invent new techniques
Cockburn then extends the idea by adding the term Kokoro which means the heart or spirit.
Kokoro = Teach or learn via brilliance in the basics
Shu-Ha-Ri is IMHO much up to discussion today. I reflect that Scrum, for example, builds on the fundamental idea that you learn Agility by copying a few techniques to perform better and then understand why you do the "katas." Eventually, you can do your own katas.
Today, Cliff Berg and Agile2 challenge this approach by emphasizing principles and ideas first, saying you don't need a framework to be Agile.
Collaborate theme
While we were discussing the Collaboration theme, a sentence that struck a chord with me was:
“The speed of the project is the speed at which ideas move between minds” — Alistar Cockburn
I find the quote brilliant — it sounds as if coming from the book Dune. Like "It is by will alone I set my mind in motion."
Going back to the quote's meaning, I have often encountered project delays because of factors preventing information and ideas from flowing between teams and team members. Factors such as hidden or unknown goals, lack of focus, hierarchy, lack of listening, lack of knowledge, fear of making mistakes, lack of trust, ego, politics, lack of ownership, no sense of direction, fear of perception, etc.
The above factors make ideas and communication move slower. They introduce waste such as hand-overs, whispering games, delays, focus, or priority shifts. Also, they prevent information from reaching those who need it the most.
To improve collaboration, we should focus on:
- Identify what improves collaboration effectiveness
- What speeds the movement of ideas between minds
- Learning specific actions, you can take that improve collaboration
- Identifying ways you can combine the above to solve problems
Example of behavior that improves collaboration is, for example, being yourself, lifting others, making it fun, keeping energy high, being honest, showing vulnerability, spending time to get to know each other.
Reflecting and collaborating alone is not enough for success; we also need to deliver value.
Deliver theme
What we deliver are decisions. Reflect on this statement for a little while. What does it mean?
We often deliver wrong decisions — causing us to build a faulty product.
To improve our chances to make good choices, we should make them at the last responsible moment. That is while we still have some options, but before we run out of options. When making decisions, we should hold and move smaller sets of decisions to correct mistakes sooner.
When making decisions, we can keep a flow going by practicing pull instead of push. By deleting dependencies. By making sure we limit work in progress, adhering to the scientific model, and working with small batches and hypotheses.
You basically will never know what value something will deliver until it is in production, so the motto is to learn early and often. If you learn quickly, making changes will be less expensive.
To succeed, we need to become aware of how we make decisions. Imagine yourself going to work — what influences you how to dress? The weather, dress code, your colleagues? These factors decide whether your choice is fit for your purpose. By becoming more aware of the process of how and why we make decisions, we can make better decisions.
“A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.” — Frank Herbert, Dune
For products, we should be very aware of the decisions that we take. That is the difference between success and failure. We want to make the right choice when creating a Minimum Viable Product. As Alistair puts it, we want to slice requirements precisely; we want to start small and scale up on successes, like making Carpaccio.
Summary
Heart of Agile is attractive as it allows you to discuss what Agility means outside the context of a framework. HOA discusses four themes that together help us become Agile.
I find that many times we discuss how to be Agile using a framework. A framework should help us become Agile, not tell us what to do.
Today, in the middle of the framework wars, Agility is the new Spice — making a parallel to Dune again:
“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”― Frank Herbert, Dune
For me, it was refreshing to take a step away and discuss the essence or heart of Agility. I am still pondering whether you need to be an Agile Ri-person to work without a framework. When you start something new as a Shu-person, having a framework such as Scrum is comfortable. As long as the framework supports and guides you towards Ha and Ri.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain. — Frank Herbert, Dune
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