Agile culture is critical

Becoming agile is not a simple thing by any stretch. Sure, the concepts involved are easy to digest and sound simple enough to understand, but in reality, many attempts at agility fail. Not because the people/teams in the trenches did not understand or do their best to make it work but most often because leadership was not properly educated and properly equipped to be supportive and drive cultural elements needed for lasting success. Shielding teams from outside pressures to fall back to the old ways for example instead of pressing forward despite inevitable stumbles.

Agile is not a switch that is easily flipped nor is it a box to be checked. You do not become agile overnight. You should know that many agile adoptions fail due to leaders not fully understanding what is involved and helping to build the tolerance and supportive culture needed for success.

A few simple rules you may not have gronked online or from the books:

• The plan is flexible and never cast in stone
• The people doing the work need to be left to do what they do best as much as possible (operate in the zone) which includes estimating as well as validating the work to be done
• Customers know best what they want and must be at the center of it all and be heard
• Time and effort must be allowed each cycle for the team to learn and continually improve (20% rule is ideal but hard to accept) while delivering
• Happy and empowered people are far more productive

How do leaders help…

• Encourage and insist on some percentage of time for teams to do learning and improve how the work gets done.
• Walk the walk AND talk the talk – agile practices also apply to the things that leaders do to drive the org. So, live the dream and manage leadership work using agile methods. In doing so, you will better understand what is involved and how the teams are operating. Ask a scrum master or agile coach to help show the way. Show commitment and add visibility by showing your dashboard of leadership work (not some aggregation of the team’s work) so that all can see you are engaged and making progress each sprint.
• Push to increase agile maturity across all teams by appropriately linking to individual performance goals.
• Avoid the vanity or proxy metrics and instead leverage the right metrics that show the reality of how you are doing and actively allow your teams time to own and drive improvements.
• Attend team meetings (only as an observer) but only when invited.
• Add customers to your org chart. Where do they influence what work is done and how it is prioritized. Otherwise, it may not be clear how teams work and coordinate on delivering the right value to customers and the business.
• Insist on psychological safety across the board. People need to know they have the liberty to take risks, express ideas and opinions and participate in functional feedback loops. You hired smart people – let them know that they can speak up and be heard without risk.
• This is not an over-night process so give it at least a year to work the magic.
• Be clear on the relevant metrics that mean the most regarding success not only for the business but agile adoption and process improvement.