As an Agile coaching community, we have gone astray. We have become obsessed with installing frameworks. We lead with frameworks instead of empathy. I’m not preaching, I’m guilty as charged.
Now is the time for a great reset within the Agile coaching community. We need to stop leading with framework installations (SAFe, Scrum, LeSS, Kanban, etc.) and get back to the basics of Agile.
Ivar Jacobsen has it right – Frameworks lead to method wars, method gurus, meaningless certifications, and snake oil salesmen selling “transformation” through framework installation. When this happens, we become sheep incessantly bleating the amazing cure-all properties of the framework as we mindlessly follow the framework guru shepherd.
What’s the chance that a framework with its myriad collection of packaged principles, practices, roles, events, artifacts, and rules will be the best approach for your team or organization? That’s right – slim and none. Frameworks are wrought with muda (waste), not so much in terms of bad practices, but more so in terms of “just not really needed for our situation”.
We should treat frameworks as one way to piece together various Agile concepts – with a big caveat. The caveat is that this comprehensive combination expressed by the framework, while interesting, is unlikely to be a good fit for our specific needs.
We need to get back to the essence of Agile coaching – empathy and understanding. Then, facilitated guidance to a better place. A better place discovered through experimentation with various Agile principles and practices (well-known or invented), not framework installation!
And most of all, we need to let the Team decide their own path to agility! That’s right – we preach team autonomy out of one side of our mouth but then amazingly mandate which framework to use out of the other side of our mouth. How Agile is that? Our mantra of “take it to the team” is ignored in this situation where we don’t even trust our teams to figure out their own path.
Agile coaching is facilitated guidance to a better situation, not installation of a framework!
How in the World Did We Get Here?
I’m not sure. It’s a complex 30-year situation with lots of moving parts. Perhaps something to do with monetization of a good idea, popular 2-day courses granting certificates of mastery, and a road paved with good intentions.
My gut tells me that a big contributor is this: framework installation is just easier than spending the time and effort to truly understand team/org needs followed by facilitating the design of a custom fit-for-purpose Agile solution that potentially addresses the need. Which has more potential – starting with a rigid/immutable framework or a fit-for-purpose set of experiments to try? Which will lead to greater levels of agility… faster? Framework installation can actually impede agility innovation!
My gut also tells me that we worship at the altar of consistency. In other words, it’s more important for all teams to follow the same framework than it is to let them innovate. Leaders that establish this mandate explain it away by claiming the efficiency of a common approach across the board and how it reduces learning curves when folks transfer to another team. But there is always a cost, and they never seem to mention this. The cost is a massive lack of innovation in new ways of working.
We have been conditioned to install a framework and then seek improvements down the road. Why would we start with a non-optimal framework solution that may not even solve the specific challenge at hand? Why wouldn’t we address the challenge head on?
Instead
Instead of spending time installing, training, and coaching a framework, let’s use that time to empathize with the organization leaders and team leads. Understand the historical context. Ask: What challenges is the organization now facing? How did we get there? How can we together “honor the past” while still admitting the need for change? Establish trust through understanding and empathy.
Then bring it.
Discover some zero-waste fit-for-purpose agility experiments that actually have a good chance of positive impact. Offer Agile principles and practices – that might work – based on your experience and knowledge. Rarely would this be an entire framework. Be willing to let the team/org invent a new Agile approach. Who says we are restricted to only known practices? Let the team/org decide their own improvement path. This will lead to ownership of the experiment instead of a mandate.
Avoid being prescriptive – treat each potential change as an experiment. After some time running each experiment, the team/org can decide to keep or reject the practice. Insert infinite loop here – continue indefinitely. Never stop improving!
Share findings and results – successes and failures – across the organization. Learn from other teams and try some of their successful experiments. Contribute to the system-wide Agile ecosystem! Can you imagine an organization of 100 teams each constantly experimenting with Agile practices and techniques, sharing those with the other teams, learning from each other, and together building an enterprise-wide continuous learning ecosystem?
In doing so, we have coached the enterprise into a better overall situation by quickly addressing specific needs. Contrast this to just installing a framework. Which has a better chance of success?
Wrap
Framework installation versus fit-for-purpose agility experiments. Which makes more sense? Which is more in line with the Agile Manifesto?
No more “Go SAFe” or “Go Scrum”. Just “We use Agile principles to constantly improve”.
Check out our Resources page with all kinds of other Agile-related goodies: https://agileauthority.com/resources/.
Postscript
As leaders, let’s offer the teams and orgs some guidance to help facilitate this approach based on the Agile Manifesto. Then grant them the autonomy to figure out the details. For example:
“We would like for our teams to have high levels of direct collaboration with our customers. We desire our teams to be able to adapt quickly when the need arises. We want our teams to build high-quality products that leverage modern technologies and are maintainable.
We also would like our teams to exhibit a spirit of continuous improvement, courageously experimenting with ways to improve the flow of value to our customers. We want everyone to feel respected and edified within a diverse and psychologically safe environment. And most of all, we want our teams to have fun along with a healthy work-life balance.
As leaders, we are committed to building an environment such as this to help us all be successful. Each team and organization is empowered to figure out the details of what this looks like in your unique situation.”