A Discussion with ChatGPT about Agile

I had a good discussion with ChatGPT about two weeks ago. I started by asking “What is Agile?” The response was that “Agile is a methodology” with a bit more details. While technically incorrect, given the amount of information and vectors it pulled from, it wasn't completely wrong. What I mean by this is that many people, including some “Agile experts”, refer to Agile as a methodology which is incorrect. Depending on where ChatGPT is pulling this information from, this isn’t a surprise.   

• My response: “Agile is a set of values and principles. Some Agile information is not aligned with Agile values and principles and instead rely heavily on Agile processes and methodologies or people's misinterpretation on what is agile”.  
• ChaptGPT's response: You are correct. Agile is indeed a set of values and principles outlined in the Agile Manifesto, and it emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, iterative development, and customer satisfaction. However, misinterpretation or a focus solely on Agile processes and methodologies can lead to a deviation from these values and principles.

I was happy to see that it was aware of the Agile Values and Principles as this is how Agile is defined by the Agile Manifesto which is the seminal information defining Agile. And as I mentioned in my previous article, The Dangers of ChatGPT to Agile, there is a lack of quality evaluators on the numerous Agile articles and presentations in cyberspace that indicate if the information provided is right or wrong, good or bad.

Two weeks later (today), I asked ChatGPT the same question, “What is Agile.” This time it included the Agile Values and Principles as part of its long-winded response that included:

"Agile is an iterative and incremental approach to project management and product development that emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement. It was created as a response to traditional, plan-driven project management methodologies that often struggled to adapt to changing requirements and deliver value in a timely manner.

Here are some key aspects of Agile:

1. Values and Principles: Agile is guided by the Agile Manifesto, which outlines four core values: individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. These values prioritize human-centric approaches and adaptability.
2. Iterative Development, 3. Cross-functional Teams, 4. Continuous Improvement, 5. Customer Collaboration, 6. Flexibility and Adaptability" (Note: I removed the details of 2 thru 6 from ChatGPT as this wasn’t relevant to this article).  

While ChatGPT will continue to develop and response to my queries, I am happy to see that it is using my (and others’) input to fine-tune its language model and improve its responses.

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If you are interested in learning more about ChatGPT in relation Agile, Teamwork, or experimentation, consider reading these additional articles:

• Are there Dangers with ChatGPT for Agile? 
• How to Experiment with ChatGPT 
• Are there Benefits for adding ChatGPT as a Team Member?

Good and Bad Reasons for Moving to Agile

There are various reasons behind moving to Agile. Some are proactive and some are reactive. Proactive motivations tend to be accompanied by a greater understanding of the business benefits of Agile and the culture change it implies. However, this is not always the case. The reasons behind the motivation can determine your chances to achieve a real transformation. Let’s take at a notional proactive-reactive model that looks at some motivations for moving to Agile and what you can do to enhance your chances of gaining the business benefits of doing so.  

• "It’s the trendy thing to do." Agile is popular, so we should do it. This is reactive and not a strong motivator for change. When another trend comes along, Agile may be abandoned. Agile may be seen as a hollow initiative and some may wait it out to see if it will go away. It will be important to investigate the benefits of Agile to see if it is right for you. Then determine if real commitment can be gained. 
• "The competition is doing it." Others are doing it, so we better do it. This is reactive. Although it may provide a driver for change, it does not provide clarity on why Agile was chosen. Some will question why what a competitor does is good for us. What happens when they do something else? It will be important to investigate the benefits of Agile to see if it is right for you. 
• "We need to reduce costs." This is a reactive and insufficient reason whereby Agile is seen as a tool to cut costs and maybe the workforce. This will not lead to the business benefits of moving to Agile. Although it may be an outcome, other benefits of Agile may be gained if you are willing to adapt the culture. 
• "What we have isn’t working." We’ve been using another process to deliver software and it isn’t effective. This is a reactive reason with little understanding of Agile, but it may provide an initial motivation for change. However, moving to Agile without understanding what it takes may lead to a failed deployment. It is best to understand the root cause for the failures in the past, because this can affect your change to Agile. 
• "We hope to increase employee morale." This is a proactive reason based on an understanding of the importance of employee engagement and empowerment to improve morale. Validate that there is real commitment to empowering employees and self-organizing teams. 
• "We hope to improve productivity." This is a proactive reason when the goal is to empower employees and help them improve productivity. The danger is that management may believe that Agile is something someone else must do to increase productivity or the real intent is to make employees work harder. The other challenge is that productivity may come at the expense of sacrificing quality. It will be important to investigate all of the benefits of Agile, not just productivity. 
• “We aim to decrease time to market.” This is a proactive reason in which Agile is seen as a way to shorten release cycles. If there is an understanding that this implies a change across the organization to get from market idea to release and it is meant to satisfy the customer, then this is a good starting point. It is still important to discuss the benefits of Agile to see if it is right for you. 
• “We want to deliver customer value.” This is a proactive and genuine reason if Agile is seen as a way to engage the customer and understand value. Validate whether there is a real commitment to delivering value and an understanding of the need to change organizational behaviors and processes to get there .
• “We believe in the Agile values and principles.” This is a proactive and genuine reason where Agile may be seen as a positive change in company vision and behavior. Validate a drive toward continuous customer engagement and employee engagement that can help gain the business benefits that Agile can bring. 

In all of these cases, you need to validate commitment to the values and principles and the culture and business change it entails. Once the initial motivation is understood, we can work to adapt it with the goal of better gaining the business benefits of going Agile.  

Agile - Is it Real or is it Fake?

At the World Agility Forum in Lisbon Portugal on September 29, a panel of leading Agilists focused on “Shifting perspectives to know what is Real (agile)” The panel was made up of Chet Hendrickson, Steve Denning, Nigel Thurlow, and Mario Moreira.  We discussed “What is fake Agile? What is real Agile?”

What is real Agile?  It starts with an alignment to the Agile Values and Principles.  Without understanding and embracing the values and principles, whatever a company is doing is certainly something but can it really be considered real agile?

Agile is more than mechanically applying Agile processes. This I refer to as “doing Agile”. More important than choosing a particular process of Agile, is the art of learning how to live Agile values and principles, to transform Agile mechanics into Agile mindset. This is what I call “being Agile.” 

Steve shared that fake Agile is really a reference to “Agile in name only”.  Since many companies want the badge, he indicated that to understand if companies are Agile, you need to look beyond what they are saying and look at what they are doing.

Nigel discussed how companies feel the need to get on the Agile bandwagon and do Agile as it is the trend.  He stressed the importance of understanding the benefits that Agile can bring and focusing on this instead of Agile itself.

Chet shared that there may be something much worse than fake Agile and that is “dark Agile”.  This is using Agile as pressure to get more work done or impose Agile on a team and not remove any of the constraints leading to numerous anti-patterns. 

Mario talked about a concept akin to fake Agile which I call “FrAgile”. This is when Agile is so minutely applied with little focus on the Agile Values and Principles that it quickly becomes brittle, lacks vigor, and shatters once there is tension applied, leading to a regression to old ways of working.

It was a healthy and collaborative discussion leading to a clear awareness of how fake Agile is damaging the good name of Agile.  Instead, it is time to bring pointed awareness of what is and isn’t agile and advocate for “being Agile” and the outcomes it can bring.

For more on Fake Agile, consider reading:

• Understanding Fake Agile by Steve Denning  
• You may be FrAgile if… by Mario Moreira 

Importance of treating Relationships as First Class Entities

I have been helping companies implement agile for over a dozen years.  I love agile because it aligns with the evolutionary and incremental manner in which change occurs in nature.  As in nature, people’s needs change continuously and it is best when an incremental and evolutionary system is used to support this continuous change. In my early years, I focused more on communications via television, photography, and film, as it was fascinating to capture the importance of character development and the relationships being built. As I moved into mindset and methods, I realized how Agile values and principles and the practices that support them focus on not just the changing needs of customers but the importance of the relationship between team members and customers and amongst team members themselves. 

During one of my engagements, I was introduced to a fascinating model called Matrix Leadership by Amina Knowlan and Jody Gold. During the education they were delivering that was focused on giving and receiving feedback, I realized that the thing between two people, a.k.a., relationship, is a first class entity.  In other words, it is a real thing that must be built and nurtured.  In a programming world, a first-class entity is a data type you can freely assign to variables such as Scalars, Arrays, and Hashes to help build out the language. 

In the human world, relationships should be thought of as first-class-entity with variables such as respect, honesty, trust, commitment, forgiveness, expectations, and empathy that can define, strengthen, and build out the relationship. There are elements that impact the way a relationship works such as experience together (aka, past) and dynamics of your relationship to those around you (e.g., influences).  These variables structurally represent various channels (or strings) that live within a relationship between two people that can either strengthen or weaken a relationship.  If one does not exercise the relationship or speak honesty, the channels of a relationship can become brittle and break when tested.   

I used to think relationships were the by-product of personalities applied to goals and are often thought of as invisible and nebulous entities.  But relationships are more like channels through which information, energy, and resources can move between people.  The strength and capacity of these relationship channels enable or inhibit the creation of value on teams as surely as the width, depth, and condition of canals enable or inhibit the movement of goods by ship.  

In an Agile world, to fulfill our goal to get our best ideas to customers faster, we have to learn faster and implement better together.  Most organizations experience meaningful gains during their first two or three years of agile implementation.   The early and iterative feedback achieved by delivering value to customers faster lets us build feature sets and user interfaces that align with current needs, instead of adhering to imperfect plans made long ago.  But after we’ve followed the agile model for a while, we run into the same people-problems that bedevil collective understanding, intelligence, and action everywhere.  Eventually, there are fewer process problems, and more relationship problems.

Understanding that relationships are first class entities has allowed my teams to take early, incremental, and iterative actions on ourselves as a system so that we can work together as effectively as possible.  Because we offer feedback not only about our tasks, but also about the impact that our behaviors have on one another, there is more trust, psychological safety, commitment to outcomes and each other, than I’ve ever known.  Next time you look at your friend, attempt to visualize the relationship entity.  What do you see in the space between you?

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We hope you enjoyed Part 1 of the Relationship series. Consider reading Part 2 and 3:  
- (Part 2) Strengthening the Relational Infrastructure to Build High-Performing Teams
- (Part 3) Woven Together - A Practice to build Authentic Connection and Psychological Safety 
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Top 5 ways to adapt your Agile Enterprise for a better Year ahead!

A New Year is upon us!  What is in store for 2018?  Better yet, what changes might you apply for a better Agile transformation and better business outcomes?  Here are a few to consider.

1) Focus more (much more) on the Agile mindset and the Agile values and principles.  Without this, people aren’t quite sure whey they are implementing the Agile mechanics (practices and tools).  Ask your employees if they know why they are applying the Agile methods and practices.  If they don’t really know, more strongly relate them to the Agile values and principles. 

2) Place Coaches high enough in to make a difference.  Placing them too low in an organization will give them little or no influence to change anything that matters.  Gauge your current placement of Agile Coaches and determine if they have the right access and influence to leadership.

3) Ensure leaders in your organization are educated in Agile.  Provide a combination of the Agile values and principles and Agile concepts, mindset, and practices that will help them support and lead an Agile transformation.  This includes understanding and establishing a high performing Agile workplace.

4) Focus on the employee side of Agile and what it takes to build a high performing team.  This includes establishing psychological safety, demonstrating servant leadership, creating a culture of self-organizing teams and even self-management, introducing continuous peer-to-peer feedback loops, and more. 

5) Become totally customer-value driven. Stop doing Agile for Agile’s sake and focus on the customer benefits.  Bring a customer mindset to Agile.  This means more closely identify with your customers (e.g., personas) and capture and apply more customer feedback along the way. 

I will go so far to say if you don't do anything else this year but these, you will have a stronger Agile enterprise that brings you more aligned with building high value products and services.  Give them a try!

Learn more by reading The Agile Enterprise.   

In your Business, what are you Optimizing for?

Do you optimize for your customers or for the ease of following a plan or process? Many companies like to say that they optimize for their customers.  However, upon a closer look, you catch the scent that some companies optimize for their own internal processes or plan instead.  When you change the plan, it can disrupt schedules and make it less clear on what will be built for the release, as things tend to evolve.  It will also force re-planning, which can impact dependencies and staffing of the work. One of the Agile values states “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.” In other words, Agile advocates the importance of interactions with customer.   

One example of optimizing for a plan or process (instead of the customer) is purposefully avoiding customer feedback because it can force you to adjust the plan which can be messy. Another example that I’ve witnessed several times is when actual customer feedback is captured that indicates a change to customer needs, yet the feedback is ignored since sticking the plan is an easier path.  This is a sign that the organization may be optimizing for their internal processes or the comfort of sticking to the initial plan. When paired with management objectives of sticking to a schedule, this often leads to a mindset of avoiding any change. Does this sound familiar?  Be careful not to fall into this trap.  It can be very easy to do.  It can lead to losing touch with the customer and poor business results.

When you optimize for the customer (external), it will often lead to change.  One of the Agile principles states that you should “Welcome changing requirements”.  The more you interact with your customers (which you should be doing), the more they will provide thoughts or feedback on what they really want. This, in turn, leads to adapting the plan to the great benefit of building something the customer wants.  The net result is an increase in better business results. 

There are several ways to gauge if you are optimizing for the customer or for your internal plan or processes.  A first way is to identify how often you actually engage with customers (and how many) in ceremonies like demos and sprint reviews. Engaging with many customers indicates you are optimizing for the customer while none or few indicates a leaning toward the internal plan.  A second way is to capture how often you actually incorporate customer feedback.  Methodically incorporating feedback indicates that you are optimizing for the customer while incorporating little feedback may indicate a leaning toward following the plan.  As you look around your project, product, or company, ask yourself, who are you optimizing for?  Who should you be optimizing for?       

Embracing Agile in Tunisia

In October, I had the honor of being the keynote at the first Agile conference in Tunis in the past 4 years (generously sponsored by Vistaprint).  While I was grateful for the opportunity, seeing the number of the attendees from different fields highlighted the attention that Agile was getting in this growing Tunisian economy.  I was impressed by the quality of the professionals and students that attended, coming from a range of companies, government agencies, and universities.
 

My keynote was entitled the “Foundations and Future of Agile”.  You can watch the session here. I started my session by asking the question, “Who do you want to be.”  The intent was to get the audience to consider if they can be more than who they are today and make a commitment to Agile as they approach the future.  I followed this up with, “Who do we want Tunisia to be”?  I provided a vision on how Tunisia can be the pride of Africa. I challenged the participants to become the leaders in Agile and the customer value drive mindset.

To begin the “foundation” portion of my session, I focused on the Agile Values and Principles.  I find that too many companies lead with mechanics and forget the mindset of embracing the values and principles.  Leading with the mindset will remind people why they are doing agile in the first place.  As I shared each principle, one at a time, using a roman voting technique I asked attendees if they believed in each principle. I was pleased to see that there was a strong belief in embracing the principles.  This bodes well for their ability to apply Agile methods and practices and the future of Tunisia. 

As I moved into the “future” portion, I shared the importance of becoming customer value-driven.  I suggest that Agile shouldn’t be done for agile’s sake but instead the goal should be to build a customer value-driven engine. It is the customer who we are serving and who we want to make successful.  As they succeed, so will our business.  I shared the modern concepts of the enterprise kanban, customer value canvas, cost of delay, story mapping, and customer feedback loops.  I wove in the discovery mindset including incremental thinking, psychological safety, and, self-organizing teams.
  

I ended the session by asking again, “Who do you want to be? What is your role in building a greater Tunisia?”  With such potential in the audience from everyone I met, I can understand why some companies are already setting up development centers in Tunis such as Vistaprint.  I ended with asking all of the participants to make a commitment to explore in more detail one of the Agile concepts or mindset elements they learned today.  Almost everyone’s hand went up.  This will help make for a better future in Tunisia. I’m looking forward to it!

Note: In addition to my session, the conference included a session by Antonio Gonzalez on “The Role of an Agile Leader” and by JP Beaudry on “The Vistaprint Agile Journey”. Special thanks to Nawel Lengliz and Rahma Arfa for coordinating such a great event and to Walid Abdelaziz for sponsoring the event!  

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.  

What is Self-Management and is it good for Agile?

This is a four-part series on Self-Management.  This first article focuses on what is self-management.  The second article conveys the difference between self-organization and self-management.  The third article focuses on putting self-management into action.  The fourth article shares the ways to mitigate the challenges in moving towardself-management.  First up, what is self-management?

Self-Management is an alternative approach to management.  It moves away from the traditional structure of hierarchical management and moves the core management activities and work related activities to employees therefore effectively eliminates the manager role.  Typical management activities that move to employees include planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling (per Morningstar Self-Management Institute). 

A major change that must occur for self-management to be achieved is a shift in mindset.  People within the organizations that move to self-management must believe they both have ownership and accountability of the work and each other.  More importantly, relationships matter in self-management as there needs to be personal responsibility to each other. 

Self-management in context to organizations and corporations doesn’t mean people can do whatever they want.  Leadership defines the mission level 'what' and 'why' for the organization. Employees own the 'what' to work on and the 'how' to do the work, along with 'who' does the work.  It means that within the boundaries of the organizational mission or strategy, employees align the priorities, budgeting, planning, staffing and more around the work.   

Models similar to self-management include Holocracy, which is defined as a different way of operating an enterprise that moves power from a hierarchy management structure and distributes it across autonomous teams. Holocracy should have clear rules and definitions on what teams and individuals can do. 

It is recommended to start self-management with first understanding all of the types of activities that management would do so that they are understood and then adapted in a manner what allows for more of a distributed ownership of the activities. 

As self-management relates to Agile, it may be said that they are both mutually supportively of each other.  Agile works better when the bounded authority of many management decisions particularly regarding the work are pushed down to the team effectively reducing hierarchy.  Inversely in order to achieve self-management, it is supported by the Agile values and principles and the mindset it brings that is center around a strong focus on individuals and collaboration.

To read the second article in this series, go to: The Difference between Self-Management and Self-Organization. 

The third part of this series is titled: Putting Self-Management in Action!
The fourth part of this series is titled: Ways to Mitigate the Challenges of moving toward Self-Management.

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To learn more about self-management, consider visiting the Morningstar Self-Management Institute website at: http://www.self-managementinstitute.org/about/what-is-self-management. 

How Agile is creating a new Horizon for HR

A collaboration by Amy Jackson and Mario Moreira

Gone are the days of certainty.  In order to stay competitive companies must constantly innovate, adapt to changing market conditions, and deliver value to their customers faster than ever before.  As a result, many organizations are embracing Agile principles and practices, which are highly collaborative, iterative and focused on delivering maximum value to customers. 

As Agile adapts organizations, so must Human Resources (HR) adapt.  HR is poised to become leaders in the Agile transformation.  From an organizational change perspective, HR can facilitate and improve organizational agility by crafting programs that improve collaboration, ownership, adaptability, speed, and customer focus.  This can include:

• Continuous Learning – determine the appropriate Agile learning path for your teams.  For those just starting out, introduce the Agile Values and Principles and make parallels to the culture and behaviors your organization values. 
• Adapting Leadership - rethink the role of the manager.  Consider moving from a command and control approach to servant leader/ coach.  Leaders should focus on coaching and removing impediments.
• Empowering Teams – teams that are given clear direction and outcomes should be empowered to determine how they will work to achieve their outcome.  This autonomy will drive higher levels of creativity and engagement, and if done right, deliver maximum value to customers.
• Adapting Performance Feedback – consider moving away from “traditional” annual reviews to more frequent feedback and faster feedback loops.  Individuals and teams can adapt more quickly and apply learnings to improve work.  Provide tools and techniques that empower employees to take ownership of their development.
• Rewarding Agile Behaviors – evaluate programs to ensure they reward the behaviors and mindset you value.  In an agile environment, teams work collaboratively, consider rewards that promote teamwork and collaboration, or recognition for continuous learning, and rewards for delivering value to customers.  A one size fits all approach may not be appropriate.
• Reshaping Talent Acquisition – hire for culture fit and mindset and make this a priority.   Working in an agile environment is not for everyone. 

In addition to focusing on programs that drive agility, HR as an organization should embrace new ways of working that reinforce the Agile Values and Principles.  First, educate yourself and don’t be afraid to experiment and try new ways of working within your HR team.  For example, if you’re considering the idea of Self-Organizing teams, consider experimenting within your team.  You will become more knowledgeable and better equipped with first-hand experience to help guide, coach and facilitate the organization in their journey to become agile. 

As you think about adapting your programs, consider using Open Space Technology.  Open Space is a great way to gather feedback, ideas and insights from your employees that can inform how you design programs for your teams.  This approach promotes collaboration.

If you plan to change or modify one of your existing programs, consider breaking this work into small increments to avoid delivering a “big bang” fully baked program which may not meet the needs of your customer.  If you plan to move away from “traditional” performance management in favor of real-time continuous feedback consider starting with one team, educate them on the value of real-time feedback and then train them on how to give and receive feedback.  Gather their feedback and iterate as needed and then begin to scale the program.

In addition, start connecting to customer value.  Consider creating a compelling purpose that is focused on customer value.  Strive to keep the (external) customer front and center by linking your programs to the value they will bring to the customer. Empower your employees to make decisions that are customer centric – this shift may mean that you change how you compensate or incentivize your employees by moving away from performance metrics that are internally focused in favor of rewarding behavior and actions that delight the customer. 

Strategic HR organizations have expertise in helping companies achieve objectives through focus on organizational culture and high-performing teams.  Given this capability there is a natural role for HR to play in an Agile culture.  HR has an opportunity to become Agile coaches and change agents.  Embrace and ready yourself for change. This may be the new horizon for HR.

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Learn more about Amy Jackson at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amjackson/

Mario Moreira writes more about Agile and HR in his book "The Agile Enterprise" in Chapter 21 "Reinventing HR for Agile"

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