2020 Was Agile’s Year in an Unexpected Way

Some occasions lend themselves to reflection naturally and what more “natural” of a reflection point than the major retro that the end of any year brings. Even those of us who may have never done a formal retro will be thinking back. Most years the list of what went well versus what didn’t has a million and one things and irrespective how hard a year it has been, it’s easy to know that it was just another year and like it, there have been many before and there will be many after, but this year, well this year is so different that this will be a retro like no others.

It reaffirmed for us these things we already held true:

• Circumstances can severely change - we’ll still be ok;
• We are stronger and more resilient than we’ve ever dreamt;
• VUCA has nothing on us;
• People do matter, we can all agree on this, we are all it. 

And then it would have brought about another very interesting side effect and a win we wouldn’t have seen coming but is worth getting very giddy about. 

You see, I think 2020 was the year that insidiously taught everyone they can do Agile whether they like it or not. So many had gone through life foolishly declaring it isn’t for them. They can’t stand being that flexible. It makes them feel uneasy, unprepared, unsettled. 

That they can’t function without a well laid out plan outlining every possible detail. That it would be unnerving and taxing. That they’re not built to embrace changes of course and therefore see no point in comprehending and taking to heart this new mindset that would require they effectively celebrated this discomfort. 

They had their heels firmly planted, their glares at the ready and they clung to their refusal as a badge of honour. Where they were and how they felt was what was holding us collectively back. Even if they had paid enough lip service, shrugged enough or pretended enough. They were eye-rolling, scoffing, belittling every chance they got. 

They knew, of course, they would have had to change one day and that the world would never go back to its waterfall ways, but they thought the day to be far away. It wasn’t. It was in 2020. 

They saw themselves more able to rapidly adapt and still perform than they ever dreamt they could be. This won’t have seen them deeply clear that that the humans -both the clients and the employees- always count over and above the process and that what they think and feel should inform their ever move. Nor would it have helped them embrace DevOps as a culture or go to DOES or read all the books in this astoundingly amazing reading list from Alex Yates -that I hope my book makes next year!- but they may have had the theoretical blocker of “not for me” put aside for long enough that they would have noticed some speed in action. Some MVP in motion. Some half-baked or re-thought magic at work. Something would have happened faster than they would have ever expected and that is priceless. 

The beauty of Agile is that it is impossible not to fall in love with once you have enough emotional capacity to objectively witness the blessings of speed and the trust and collaboration that was needed to accomplish it. They may not have realised this at all but behind nearly every moment of speed, there’s a moment of team. There’s magical doing that enabled it. And those team moments of true connection are highly addictive even if not apparently noticed. 

All through the year, I wrote many times with alarm signals when I saw talk of “rollbacks” and an incipient cancel culture around transformation and change efforts, but I’m here to happily report that I was wrong to be fearful. Much as it seemed it stood to reason it would be the gut reaction of many, that they would try and retreat from any Agile effort into what they perceived to be the comfort of their previous set of process and their sequential way of thinking, it hasn’t happened nearly to the extent I was afraid of. 

I think the net gain is going to prove monumental. Added to the understanding of the importance of humans that stands at new and unprecedented levels now, and coupled with the flexibility around the very nature of work, the gain of having had swathes of naysayers have to acquiescence that yes, being this bendy, fast and open-hearted is possible and desirable and that they may as well embrace it, will mean that in a not-so-distant future where the futurologists predict a 20’s-like economical and social upturn once the virus is conquered, we will wake up in a world that’s truly Agile. Where everyone would have arrived there because they lived it not because they finally believed the likes of us who have been screaming from the rooftops that you “can’t have the WoW without the WoT(Way of Thinking)” and that you have to start repaying your HumanDebt? to perform for years. 

Having started the week with acknowledging that this end of the year is horrendous and that next year is comes with no “happy” guarantees, this post can not escape being optimistic and very grateful indeed because there’s objective cause for celebrating - thanks to an inordinately traumatic 2020, the future of Agile is brighter than ever. 

If we don’t speak again -and we might, learning how to take more time off is firmly on next year’s resolutions list as I’m still consistently underperforming at it- know that we’ve all been buffalos and ran through this and that we may have less and less of the storms to run through from hereon as the herd got unexpectedly bigger - all the warmest wishes for some weeks of hope and love!

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