Why is agile not working for your teams?
It is evident that digital transformation is a top priority for most organizations today. While significant resources are being allocated to this endeavor, many agile teams are struggling. Instead of steady progress and improved flow, there is often frustration. Some have even gone so far as to question the efficacy of agile methodologies, few are even claiming that "Agile is dead".
I believe that agile remains a vital and relevant approach. However, the difficulties faced by teams are undeniable. My hypothesis is that the rapid pace of transformation has overshadowed the fundamental principles and diverse practices that make agile practices wonderful & fruitful.
In my interactions with teams, discussions frequently revolve around agile practices. It is clear that the way we work and collaborate is intrinsically linked to the technology we employ. Both have to go hand in hand in order to produce the outcome we desire.
This blog post offers my perspective on the current state of agile, opinions I hold loosely and open to change with new experiences and information. I have chosen to keep the practical advise out of this post in order to not dilute them with opinions. I have offered some practical advice in separate posts, such as: on estimation & on story points & will continue to do so!
Agile & Scaling
The debate surrounding the scalability of agile methodologies has been going on for a while now.
Businesses of today need to embrace the digital world. Becoming a modern digital business necessitates a fundamental shift in mindset. There's no one-size-fits-all solution, only strategic choices to be made. Agility is undoubtedly a key element in this strategy.
This realization has created a huge demand. Demand that cannot be realistically met, but one that the market had to respond to. While I think the discussions on scaling of Agile methodologies is a valid one, perhaps the more crucial question is: can we effectively scale the supply of skilled agilists to meet this need?
Scaling the supply of Agilists
When the demand is this overwhelming, many people try to fill it, not all of them are qualified to do so. Companies responded by insisting on credentials and certification. This led to a rush for getting certified, as it was now seen as a necessity to get into this field. I think this is where it started to go wrong.
Certifications and trainings existed prior to this influx of people. But the motivation & incentives are different.
People who did certifications and training prior to the influx, were intrinsically motivated by a desire to learn and explore the potential of agile methodologies. I recall a shared enthusiasm among my peers and instructors for the transformative power of agile practices. We were captivated by the prospect of the world where we can achieve significant outcomes with such little complexity & overhead. Agile methodoliges made the team feel seen as humans with ideas than machines with tasks.
However, the current emphasis on certifications has shifted the focus from learning to a necessity. This is not to say that credentials are not valuable, nor that everyone who got the certifications recently did not want to learn.
The people who saw credentials as a way to enter this job, do not see the things they learnt as things to try, they did not focus on the problems being addressed. Instead they interpreted it as a set of instructions that must be applied, in full force & with no deviation. This is not what agile is about.
What is agile about then?
There is no formula for agile. There isn't even a definition. It is an idea originating from a manifesto. A manifesto which lists 4 values & 12 principles. Agile software development is an umbrella term, a pretty broad one at that.
There are frameworks for agile software development, most popular ones being SAFe®, Scrum & Kanban. These frameworks offer a lot of guidance & some hints, but they won't work when taken religiously. The important bit to remember is these are frameworks, they still need to be adapted and tailored to your unique needs. To tailor them we need agility, leading to a chicken and egg problem.
For me, agility means stepping away from the norms and processes, looking for what is not working, finding out what can be improved and trying to improve it. Rinse and repeat. There is no end to improving, you can have pauses, but never stop. Keep your goals in focus, work towards them relentlessly
My wonderful colleague Birgitta, brought up the point that "Agile is counter-intuitive". This is the truth which seems to have been forgotten. When you are deeply embedded in the setup your own intuitions & biases can hold you back from improving. Being brave to carry on experimenting, looking back at the past to analyze objectively & learning from a diverse sets of resources is the skill which can help, but one that is hard to master.
This cannot be taught in a course or a couple of seminars. One should look at amassing a lot of tools and techniques. Sharing and learning from experiences. Leveraging those around you.
Conclusion
I think a good agile team is organized like a professional kitchen. A chaotic, but organised hive. Everyone has their stations and responsibility, but information flows efficiently & people know how to react to it.
This is not how majority of the teams labelled as 'Agile teams' function. They are designed to function more like an assembly line. Stations with clear boundaries, but minimal touch points. Trying to create focus by managing capacity instead of cultivating focus. Focussing more on handovers than optimizing the information flows.
Agile is not dead, it is misunderstood, mislabelled, rushed and badly cultivated.
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