Importance of Agile Readiness for a Transformation

To be a successful farmer, one must first know the nature of the soil.  —Xenophon, Oeconomicus 

Have you ever been in a daily stand-up where everyone was reporting status to the one person they thought was the leader or where most didn’t know why they were doing a stand-up every day or ever? This highlights a lack of readying the mind for what a daily stand-up is and why we are doing it.  A lack of readiness can stall or halt an Agile transformation because people aren’t in the right frame of mind for transitioning to Agile.

Readiness starts the moment when the question, “Is Agile right for me?” is asked. Readiness activities can help you better determine if Agile is right for you. Agile readiness is akin to conditioning and fertilizing the soil before growing the seeds. It is good to take a realistic look at the conditions of the fields, equipment, and people. Conditioning the mind with an understanding of Agile principles improves the ability to adopt Agile in a way that leads to truly being Agile. Strengthening the soil helps improve the physical qualities of the soil, especially in its ability to provide nutrition for plants. They can make poor soil more usable and rebuild soil that has been damaged by improper management.

This is exactly what readiness activities can do. Examine the condition of the environment where Agile is being considered. Understand and educate people on the Agile values and principles and the business benefits that can be gained. Gauge the buy-in from leaders and the willingness and capability of teams. Determine if openness or command-and-control behaviors are being exhibited (explicitly or implicitly). Understanding this context provides valuable insight into ways to adapt and move forward.  What we learn, can help shape the agile implementation according to the condition and context of an organization.

You do not need to complete all readiness activities to begin implementing, but I have learned that if you begin implementing Agile, you quickly realize that you will need to address these areas, so it is better to be proactive. With this in mind, an iterative approach may be used. Here are high-level readiness activities that you may consider. As always, feel free to adapt this list of activities if it benefits you.

• Establish a common understanding of Agile.
• Construct and share the drivers for an Agile organizational change.
• Provide Agile mindset education based on Agile values and principles. Then determine subsequent educational needs.
• Add “Customers and Employees Matter” to the company vision and share this with employees.
• Gauge levels of executive and stakeholder buy-in.
• Establish an overall strategy and backlog for the agile transformation.
• Determine team willingness and capability.
• Identify allies, champions, and subject matter experts (SMEs) and resources.
• Identify and establish agile roles and organization.
• Establish agile frameworks and practices that may be used. (A flexible framework, as each team is different.)
• Craft measures of success to include value, flow, and quality metrics.
• Establish done criteria, user story framework, and sizing techniques.

A benefit of readiness activities is that you can adapt the transformation approach based on what you learn. Another advantage is that if you find that there are challenges in an area, you can address and improve the situation. For example, you may find that there is not a clear driver for moving to Agile. This can initiate discussions on the business benefits of Agile, motivational factors behind the move, and what it takes to be Agile.

Consider Agile readiness activities as the first increment in your transformation. The outcome of Agile readiness and what you’ve learned can help you better plan the next iteration. Finally, I recommend that once you embark on these activities, you initiate periodic check-ins to gauge progress, mitigate roadblocks (such as risks and issues), and adapt along the way.

Hiring for the Culture of your Future

As an Agile Consultant, I occasionally help companies hire for talent as I’m transforming companies (e.g., an Agile transformation, business transformation, digital transformation or similar). When I’m helping with interviewing or hiring talent process, the interviewers circle back together to discuss the candidate. I often hear things like “They don’t seem to fit our culture”. Sometimes, there is a question built into the interview questionnaire asking, “Are they a cultural fit?”. 

When a company is satisfied with their culture, I can understand that you would align with the concept of hiring for cultural fit.  However, when you are working through an agile, business, or digital transformation, this implies that you are also transforming to a different culture with new ways of working. When you say “hire for a cultural fit” it needs to be to the new culture that you want.

For example, if the culture is more command and control where work is prescribed upfront, then the work culture tends to be very individual driven (I have been assigned my task and I will work on it) with little feedback is asked for (do the work and get it done by the deadline). If you are transforming to Agile ways of working, you need a much more collaborative and team-oriented culture where people are pairing up on tasks, helping each other, and where feedback is expected. Hiring for the former (command and control type culture) will not help you get to an agile culture of collaboration.  

If you are going through any type of transformation as a company, include a theme or work on re-evaluating the hiring process. Take a look at your standard interview questions and adapt them for the culture that you want. Also, describe the type of people that will fit your future culture (e.g., collaborative, team-oriented, etc.) and share this with the interviewers.  This will help embed your current culture with the people that will support the culture you desire for the future.    

Lead the Change you want to see in the World

A collaboration by Kyle Cahill and Mario Moreira

In the beginning, the world was filled with doers.  There was so much to do that there was only time to get things done.  These were the no-nonsense types who like to just get on with it. They like to act first.

Then the second type of person came into being called the thinker.  Thinkers were the armchair philosophers. They are great at stepping through the arguments. They are awash with mental models and can run the thought experiment in their heads. One's ability to critically analyze the situation starts with uncovering the problem and this means ensuring the right question is asked. As Albert Einstein (was thought to have) said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” Einstein understood that hard thinking was to correctly identify the problem so that the solution becomes easy and addresses the real problem.

Over time, the third type of person emerged who has an extra skill. Not only can they think and act, but they are also talented communicators. Communication is easy to understand the concept but hard to do effectively. Communication at its essence is the imparting or exchanging of information. The ability to effectively communicate ideas can determine if the idea succeeds or fails. Often in today’s business world, you must win the war of ideas and this war is won not just by having the right idea but also by communicating it effectively.

Finally, the world evolved to create agents of change. They are the doer, thinker, and communicator combined. And they have a fourth attribute, they can help people and organizations transform by focusing on better outcomes and motivate people to take ownership of the change.  These are the people who propel the world forward, crush inertia, and break the chains. If you want to change the world (or anything for that matter), you need to be this type of person, who can think of ideas in context to the right problems, communicate well, be the doer to propel the change, and the motivator to get others to be the change.  It is the consistency of the actions that can remove inertia and break the chains that will change the way people work…forever.

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The importance of Meeting them Where they Are

As I work with teams, leaders, or executives when applying Agile, often times what they ask for is not the first thing they need.  This is why bringing a “meet them where they are” mindset is important.  When you meet them where they are, you can bring the kind of coaching, education, and feedback that better fits their role and experience.

In most cases “meeting them where they are” means to understand where mentally (both intellectually and emotionally) they are in relation to the topic, in this case Agile.  This may mean attempting to understand their level of Agile knowledge, experience with Agile, and motivation or willingness for Agile. Sometimes meeting them where they are is physical meaning you join them in their workplace, their daily stand-up, or any space you may observe their interactions to better understand where they are.

This approach can help you understand the common ground. This helps the Agile coach know where they are and where they can go from there. It helps a coach determine how to engage in a way that is sensible and motivating to those they are coaching.  Example of meeting them where they are include:

- If a team has only just begun to form, it may be better to educate them on what it means to be a team, the Tuckman model, and on what it means to form before you expect them to perform well. 

- If a new team wants to give and receive honest feedback to each other, it may be better to first initiate icebreakers and connecting activities so that team members can get to know one another and build psychological safety and trust first.

- If a team or company wants to embark on an Agile journey, before you educate the team on how to do Scrum it may be better to first start with a discovery activity to gauge the current knowledge of Agile, Agile experience, and willingness to apply Agile.  This can help you better adapt the level of Scrum education they need.

- If you learn that the team is fairly Agile savvy and have applied Scrum already, but are having challenges with decomposing work, then you can meet them where they are but experimenting with story mapping.

Meeting them where they are has multiple advantages but the primary one is that you can determine what they need first.  When you meet them where they are, you can bring the kind of coaching, education, and feedback that better fits their knowledge, experience, and willingness.

Woven Together - A Practice to Build Authentic Connection and Psychological Safety

By Jody Gold with Mario Moreira

The game is changing. Hierarchies are flattening out. Companies are re-organizing to profit from the agility and collective intelligence of smart, flexible teams.  The concept of “leadership” itself is changing—from individual leadership that devises strategy and drives troops into battle, to relational leadership that catalyzes the creativity and commitment of all team members.

The good news is that there are constructive frameworks from the isolation, frustration, and disengagement that reduce collective learning and performance, to fully engaged, highly coordinated, innovative and agile teams that increase learning and performance. Matrix Leadership is one such framework that helps you successfully navigate this transformation.

Woven Together is an early practice and part of Matrix Leadership that helps strengthen the fabric of your team. Icebreakers and team-building exercises are often fun but their value fades.  Woven Together builds authentic connection, curiosity, and care among team members that last. People who’ve worked on teams together for years often rarely know about each other as people.  They may not know that John has a baby girl, and fills up with love when he talks about her getting her first tooth, or that Jennifer gets lit up by the smells, sounds, and tastes of street food when she is in another country. 

Woven Together raises energy in the room and can be used as a stand-alone activity.  It’s also a tangible introduction to core concepts like seeing relationships as first class entities that Mario Moreira describes in his article (part 1 of this series) and the entire network of relationships within a team as the relationship infrastructure that Jody Gold describes in part 2 of the series.  You can practice Woven Together with your team, right now.

Set-up

The ingredients include your team, a ball of yarn, 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your team, and enough space to stand in a comfortable circle.

Determine if each person in the circle will say just their name or their name, role, years in role, years at company, years doing agile.  This will depend on how well the facilitator and team members know each other.

You are person A.  You will explain the activity and model the two most important components: 1) forming a connection with one person—person B - and speaking to that person only, instead of scanning from person to person as we’ve all learned to do, and 2) telling person B 'something that light you up' in a way that is genuine and concise.

Steps 

1. Person A wraps the end of yarn around a forefinger and loosens enough yard equal to the distance between person A and B.  Person A throws the ball of yarn to B.  A speaks directly and only to B.
2. Person A says their Name.  Person B says their Name. 
3. Person A shares, “Something that lights me up is…”
4. B responds in a few words to complete the connection, “Cool. Thanks for telling me that. I want to know more about that. Etc.”
5. Person B chooses person C.  Repeat steps 1-5 (figure 1)
6. C chooses D and repeats steps 1-5.  Iterate until all people steps 1-5 and the ball of yarn is back at A  (figure 2).
7. After the yarn is back at person A, ask people to share what the experience was like and how things feel different now than before the activity.  

Final Thoughts

If Woven Together is used to introduce other practices, you may invite observations about the structure itself and its capacities.  Participants will name many characteristics of distributed leadership before they’ve learned about them formally.

Woven Together almost runs itself.  It’s amazing how much authentic connection, trust, and psychological safety arise from sharing ‘What Lights You Up.’  As the one leading the activity, be prepared for someone to say that speaking to only one person feels rude, exclusive, or uncomfortable.  Of course it may—scanning from person to person is a deep cultural norm.  Others may describe a sense of ease staying in connection with one person, like talking one-on-one with a friend.

Woven Together is also a good way for everyone to hear everyone else’s name a couple of times, and to quickly know who’s in what role and for how long, and/or how long they’ve been on the team or in the company.  It’s a great activity for a new team, a team whose membership has changed, or a new cross-functional project.

You have everything you need right now to turn thirty minutes into gold.  If you would like more information, consider contacting Jody Gold to discuss Woven Together or to learn more about how to equip teams to think, decide, and act as effectively as they can together.  

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Read Part 1 & 2 of the Relationship series:
- (Part 1) Importance of treating Relationships as First Class Entities 
- (Part 2) Strengthening the Relationship Infrastructure to Build High-Performing Teams

Agile Games to Accelerate your Agile Transformation

Games are essential to humans to learn and grow. In many cultures, children use games to simulate and gain the skills that they will need as adults.  As an adult, a game can be a quick way to understand a new concept or practice. In the Agile world, Agile games can be used to grasp Agile related concepts. 

As Agile is typically implemented within organizations as they embark on an Agile transformation, games can be key to help them adapt toward an Agile mindset and accelerate the learning.  They can be used to grasp many of the Agile values and principles and the concepts of customer value, flow, and feedback. 

What is an Agile Game

An Agile game is an activity focused on teaching, demonstrating, and applying the Agile mindset through using game theory. An Agile game has a learning objective in mind.  The objective is to teach the player an Agile concept, practice, or technique that supports the Agile values and principles.  Games without objectives are meaningful to learning. 

For example, in order to learn about customer value, a game may be introduced that asks team members to differentiate between different types of currency.  You may learn that it isn’t always easy yet feedback may be used to better understand the value of the currency.  This simulates what it takes to understand customer value in the real world. 

Why use Agile Games

Games can jump-start the learning of concepts that can lead to an accelerated transformation. This can be useful in an Agile transformation. Games can also be used to model complex concepts or give you insight into processes.  They can give the participants the ability to assess why they work or don't work.

Games insert energy and excitement into learning. Games are often hands-on and get you out of your seats.  They get the blood going in your body and more importantly into your brains. 

Typically Agile games teach basic and mid-level concepts.  More complex and deep concepts should be accompanied by deeper studying, experimenting, and applying of the concepts and practices in real-world environments.   

Getting started with Agile Games

The first step in getting started with Agile games is to identify your specific learning objective.  An objective is often focused on exercising a specific Agile concepts, practice or technique.  Once you have identified your learning objective, you may search the internet for games that may support your objective.  A good place to find a variety of Agile games is at TastyCupcakes.org.