Agile doesn't make teams better, people do.

 Fair warning - Coach Dan is feisty today!

Wherever I get in front of a group of people who are newer to the concept of agile and agility, I like to ask them what they think agile is all about.  The responses I get are pretty predictable...

"Agile is about going faster."  

"Agile makes teams more efficient."  

"Agile is about speed."  

Agile is about sprints." 

"Agile is about being flexible." 

"Agile is about Metrics."

I very rarely, if ever hear someone suggest, 

"agile is a way of reorganizing our teams around delivering customer value, rather than around artificial organizational boundaries."  

I hardly ever hear someone say, 

"Agile means empowering teams to self-organize around the work that they are doing to drive value, rather than organizing around job title."  

And I never hear people say,

"Agile means teams can decide to improve the way they work together, becoming more effective, efficient and engaged."

I guess I shouldn't be surprised about that.  Our current collective mood seems to be all about reduction.  Reducing expenses, reducing risk, reducing waste.  I get it - it's an incredibly important goal.  I would offer up this argument for everyone to consider...  An agile framework or (cringe) process doesn't make things faster, or more efficient, or even more effective, without the mindset (the values and principles) firmly embraced by the people working in and around that agile framework - well I would submit to you that you'll get next to no improvement.

Consider this.

Teams need clear, shared objectives and outcomes.

Teams need to be allowed to self-organize, test and learn.

Teams need very clear, transparent support from their leaders.

Now more than ever, it's important to lean into our shared agile journey. 

A team that completes all of the scrum events (backlog refining, sprint planning, daily stand
up, sprint review, team retrospective) but isn't interested in improving the way they work together as a team to deliver value, will rarely if ever go out of their way to improve.   Sure, management may "monitor and report" a team's metrics - but speaking with 100% honesty, it's pretty easy for a non-mindset focused team to game just about any agile team metric.  We can tweak our story sizing to show improved velocity or predictability.  We can sandbag sprint planning to ensure that we never carry over stories to the next sprint.  There are countless ways to make the metrics look better.  Does that really help our customer?  Does that really improve the way we're working?  I would humbly submit - nope - not even a little bit!

What does make a difference? 

• A team who is genuinely focused on delivering customer outcomes together.
• A team who truly believes that if they improve the way they are working together, they can collectively increase the value they bring to their customer, and therefore the business.  
• A team that, regardless of who their individual managers are, is truly empowered to self-organize around the work that they are doing, and to find ways together, as a team, to work more effectively and efficiently.  
• A team who trusts each other and truly feels trusted to achieve their team's outcomes and objectives.
• A team that feels it is safe to openly discuss and challenge without the fear of being criticized.

A team that truly embraces the values and principles (that by the way, we start each and every team off with) has the potential to become more effective, efficient and engaged.  So what does it take for people to embrace this mindset?

If every person on the team has a different objective (i.e. efficiently turn a widget, write the perfect requirement, design the perfect targeting grid) instead of a shared, common goal (increase profitable credit card applications by delivering effective campaigns, improve the quality of home loan applications by simplifying the online application tool) - well, let’s just say "you get what you measure."  If you measure individual performance (I turned x number of widgets last month) instead of team outcomes (I helped my team generate 25,000 credit card applications last month), well, you get the point... 

Just about every new agile team member I've helped to coach here has had a common challenge to overcome - the fear of veering out of their swim lane.  Transitioning from a RACI heavy environment toward a self-organizing team can be extremely challenging.  It takes a balance between coaching and challenging people to contribute in different ways, managers encouraging (giving permission) to engage with the team differently, team members making a psychologically safe environment for people to contribute in a different way, and people actually learning that it's OK to speak up (and even see the results of their contributions.) Where it's OK to test and learn, and where failing fast is an advantage because things were learned that will make the team's outcomes even stronger.  

Let's be clear, everything at companies have been tuned to reinforce the current way of working.  From performance reviews, to MBOs, to the way manager and employee relationships are structured, to the way that that project or work is "staffed", they have all been aligned to an unagile way of working together.  It can be challenging to say the least.  We ALL have to learn new skills and unlearn old ways of thinking.  That's not limited to the team members on the agile teams.  The way we manage and lead has to change as well.  While a lot of things have to change, that doesn't mean we have to wait for everything to change before we change anything at all! 

A good place to start is having a conversation between manager and employee.  Acknowledge that agile teams are different.  Give permission to test and learn new things.  Put a premium on the team achieving their objectives, rather than the individual meeting a particular metric,  Encourage the team to resolve differences or impediments that they have the ability to resolve.  And, when a team faces an impediment too big or political for them to resolve (and let's face it, we have an abundance of these), lead by doing what you can to resolve it or escalate it. Small steps can go a long way in encouraging agile team members to shift away from command and control to a more agile mindset. 

Leaders, are you aware of how you're leading?  Are you making it an imperative to change?  Are you showing up with a "test and learn" attitude, or are you doubling down on how it was until we get through this tough time?  Are you being curious, or do you seem to criticize with your questions?

Agile team members, how are you showing up?  Are you focused on a shared objective, or just "doing your job?"  Are you making it a priority to grow and challenge not only yourself, but us all to be more effective, efficient and engaged?  It all starts with the values and principles, and our first shared value is "Individuals and interactions over process and tools."  People embracing an agile mindset, and continually challenging the idea that things are "good enough" make the difference. 

What have you done today to help your team embrace an agile mindset?

We ALL win together.