Framing Agile: How to start?
The article is part of the miniseries: “Agile Frame of Mind.”
It’s 2021! Chances are you have heard the word “Agile” at least once! Rumors about agile framework have long been cascaded from Utah Mountains down to today’s business world. Doing agile is progressive, being agile is forward-thinking but… Do we know what’s agile and how to do it right?
The Agile movement started by 17 Software Developers in 2001 (methods being used as early as the 1930s) has reached its popularity well beyond IT. Companies pressured to respond with speed and flexibility are craving for agility cross-functionally. The agile methods bring a vast spectrum of opportunities from becoming nimble to turbocharging innovation. However, agile gone bad can become a blessing in disguise! That’s the puzzle companies are trying to put together today.
To start, Agile is an operating philosophy that combines different lightweight frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, and Lean Development. The principles and practices that govern all three will be described in upcoming articles. For now, let’s look into three scenarios of how NOT to do agile:
“Our leaders are ignored when we try to provide strategic guidance to our business units”
Extreme #1: Country Club
Companies taking the “agile-everywhere” approach inadvertently find themselves in a country club. By losing sight of the objective, agile becomes the mainstream everyone follows. Declaring the bureaucracy as an enemy, and embracing agile with arms wide open often leads to chaos. The key is to balance operational efficiency with agile innovation. Transformation does not happen in a day. Instead of ignoring the existing rules and hierarchies, agile should be gradually introduced to where it’s prioritized so that agile teams don’t lead to agile anarchy.
“These leaders tell the agile teams not only what to do but how to do it. After all, isn’t that the job of an executive?”
Extreme #2: Agile Mirage
Agile can’t flourish next to micromanagement. The fertile land of innovation needs an abundance of autonomy, risk tolerance, and leadership support. Without the knowledge of agile approaches, leaders are trapped into the agile delusion — if it works well for others, we can do it too! Indeed, if there was one magic tool for everyone, we won’t be talking about agility in this article.
“Our approach to agility was not very agile”
Extreme #3: Agile Big-Bang
“Work smarter, not harder” does not go along with agile. Copy-pasting the approved agile design into one’s organizational structure might lead to an agile anomaly. Usually, it starts with re-designing office space, adding other “well-known” agile elements until one day it creates shiny new silos. The main premise of agile is to continuously evolve and grow within the company’s context instead of using widely acclaimed methods.
The best approach for leaders is to keep Agile in their toolkit and use it when needed. Maintaining the optimal balance is crucial. Although different sides of the coin, innovation and traditional operations are still parts of one.
After deciding on the agile priorities, it’s time for the environment to flourish. It’s hard to scale agility in different pockets of the organization if technology and functional processes don’t adapt to changing needs. The favorable conditions for agile are:
- Close proximity with the internal and external customers — insights incorporated early on
- Work broken down into rapid, iterative cycles supported with modular technology
- Cross-functional collaboration between teams through multilevel learning — a shared division of labor
- “Subtle Control” by management enabling self-management and autonomy
- The openness to take risks and learn from mistakes
Agile might start at the roots of launching the new product, but if done right it may act as a catalyst to bring change in the entire organization! More to come in this miniseries of “Agile Frame on Mind.”
Bonus: Measure the agility of your organization by the Bain Agility Quotient
References:
- Rigby, D., Elk, S., Berez, S. (2020). Doing Agile Right: Transformation Without Chaos. https://www.bain.com/insights/books/doing-agile-right/
- Takeuchi, H., Nonaka, I. (1986). The New New Product Development Game. HBR. https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game
