Agile & AI: Can you shape my team’s culture traits A, B, and C?

A recent, short volley in LinkedIn inspired this article.

What culture traits would you like Agile and AI to shape/improve? If you can immediately answer, please skip the bulk of this article and respond in the comments. If you welcome ideas from this author, please read on.

The tools in in my public speaking and books (under the name “Elegance”) shape certain culture traits for innovation teams. This article contrasts an Elegant culture and a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) culture and welcomes your reactions and additions about the culture traits most important to you.

Said another way, can you help me populate the first two columns of this table?

If you're asking, "What ARE these 'sizable upfront costs?' please get in touch, or check out my books (links below).

Instead of ambiguity, choose clarity.

The typical innovation team governs with a framework called RACI. RACI has been around for a long time. TRUE – a RACI is better than nothing, but if you’re willing to hold the bar higher for yourself, acknowledge the ambiguity that RACI creates.

Is the work worth putting on paper? Is the work one meeting? Is the work ten meetings? Could the work just be an email? What is the sequence of R, A, C, and I? What constitutes “done?” Do any corresponding verbs apply or is this work verbless? This is a lot of ambiguity.

RACI doesn’t even pretend to begin to solve VUCA because no one asked it to. RACI gives a false sense of governance.

In the English language, there is a form of speech that conveys action, and that form of speech is a verb. Instead of Four Adjectives, govern with Five Verbs – Draft, Review, Revise, Approve, Distribute (DRRAD or “Doctor Rad”). Whatever is worth governing with Four Adjectives is worth putting on paper and is worth the discipline of governing with Five Verbs … five ruthless, unambiguous verbs that give clarity (not rigidity) to sequence, duration, and what constitutes “done.”

Worried about over-documentation? Five Verbs prevents over-documentation because as soon as a team cannot (for whatever reason) assign all five verbs (on four rows of a project plan), that work is just a chat, you can do the work at a pub, and after a 60-90 minute conversation, the results can reside in the memories of those who attended – no problem (wink, wink).

Governing with Four Adjectives (RACI) shapes a culture of ambiguity. Governing with Five Verbs shapes a culture of clarity.

Bonus culture trait: empathy. Governing with Five Verbs increases how much you care about others’ assignments, competence, and attentiveness.

Instead of complexity and high variability, choose simplicity & low variability.

The typical innovation team has countless verbs (20? 30? more?) in its project plans and task lists. This “Verb Sprawl” is high variability. It is noisy and a sign that the team is “all over the place.” A project plan does not need to be exhaustive and infinite. Verb Sprawl increases the complexity of the work and distracts you from organizing the vital and finite ingredients of collaboration.

Emphasizing Five Verbs in your project plan minimizes reinventing the wheel. Five Verbs is simple without being simplistic. Low variability shapes a team that is focused on the most valuable decisions.

Governing with Verb Sprawl shapes a culture of complexity. Governing with Five Verbs shapes a culture of simplicity.

Bonus culture trait: collaboration. With RACI and Verb Sprawl, collaboration is optional. With Five Verbs, collaboration is forced.

Bonus culture trait: smooth. Verb Sprawl imitates the lumpiness of waterfall culture of the 1990s. Instead of the lumpiness of Verb Sprawl, choose the smoothness of Five Verbs.

Instead of meeting minutes, choose an Asset Portfolio. Instead of disposability, choose durability.

Some innovation teams execute a certain rhythm: conduct meetings, record minutes, distribute action items. Rinse. Repeat. Such a team builds a library of meeting minutes. For a new employee, imagine their onboarding including a library of meeting minutes. A culture of meeting minutes is a sign that people talked, and some chump (or AI) documented what they can remember. Meeting minutes shape a culture of disposability.

Instead, choose an Asset Portfolio. Know the exact titles of work that are worth Five Verbs. Build a library of assets. For a new employee, imagine their onboarding including this asset portfolio. A culture of an Asset Portfolio is a sign that people know what to put on paper (competence), they know how to govern the collaboration (integrity), and know where decisions need to reside to ease recall and reuse weeks and months later (benevolence). An Asset Portfolio shapes a culture of durability.

Contents of an Asset Portfolio are explicit, not rigid. The ink is always wet for the next project to revise and for the current project to change its mind.

Thoughtfully choose your team’s legacy: meeting minutes or an Asset Portfolio.

Bonus culture trait: trust. Meeting minutes don’t shape a culture of trust. An Asset Portfolio demonstrates competence, integrity, dependability, and benevolence – trust.

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Instead of high marginal cost, choose low marginal cost.

If meetings are your primary communication channel to align, this is understandable. Meetings have low upfront cost. If you complain about too many meetings, this is also understandable, because meetings have high marginal cost.

If you grumble about documentation, this is understandable. Documentation has high upfront costs. If you are pleased to benefit from documentation, this is understandable, because documentation helps information sharing to be low marginal cost.

If your communication traffic is low (like a tiny restaurant or tiny conference), documentation (like a written menu or nametags) is overkill. It makes sense to avoid high upfront costs. But as your communication traffic grows, avoiding documentation becomes laborious and unbearable. It makes sense to avoid high marginal costs. Documentation (a written menu or nametags) is attractive. Choose the cost profile that matches the scale of your innovation traffic.

If your innovation traffic is low, choose a culture of low upfront cost.

If your innovation traffic is high, choose a culture of low marginal cost.

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Instead of low transparency, choose high transparency.

Many innovation professionals complain about low transparency. Many teams lack the tools and incentives to pursue this culture trait. One habit that shapes low transparency is over-reliance on meetings to exchange information. Meetings have high marginal cost. They raise friction to share information.

The habit that shapes high transparency is emphasizing thoughtful documentation. Documentation has low marginal cost and reduces the friction to share information. The right documentation, governed with Five Verbs, is nothing short of a love letter to your future team.

Instead of treating speed as a leading culture trait, treat it as a lagging culture trait.

For a leading culture trait, instead of frequency, choose synchronization.

Instead of a communication traffic jam, choose a communication symphony.

Speed – specifically “speed-to-market” – is an attractive culture trait. However, when a team treats speed as a leading culture trait, a common result is a communication traffic jam, which ironically, causes the moving pieces to slow down. Instead, treat speed as a lagging culture trait. To achieve this, the leading culture trait for numerous moving pieces is synchronization. A synchronized team knows the sequence, dependencies, and duration of all the moving pieces of work.

Agile (the 2001 manifesto version) aims for high frequency (of go-live events). Don’t confuse speed with frequency. You can execute something with high speed and low frequency, and you can execute something with low speed and high frequency.

Frequency is not free.

For innovation teams, frequency is not universally attractive, but speed is. This makes synchronization very attractive, and this is why the metaphor of an orchestra is so common for teamwork. You cannot shape the culture of an orchestra with an infinite number of meetings, emails, and verbs. You absolutely can shape the culture of an orchestra with two finite ingredients: a limited number of verbs (five) and a limited number of assets (your Asset Portfolio).

If you want to go fast, imitate a symphony and lead with synchronization.

If you shrug at synchronization and are committed to frequency, accept communication traffic jams.

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Instead of vulnerability on others’ terms, choose vulnerability on your own terms.

You are human. You have limitations, make mistakes, and have blind spots. You are vulnerable. Even if you don’t see or acknowledge your vulnerabilities (arrogance), others do. Your arrogance can impose your limitations, mistakes, and blind spots on others, putting them at a disadvantage and shaping an unsafe environment. Others respond by minimizing their vulnerability to your arrogance. Your vulnerability is now on others’ terms.

Instead, acknowledge your vulnerabilities, limitations, and blind spots on your own terms (humility). This empowers others and shapes a safe environment.

Behaving with humility reduces a team’s vulnerability. Behaving with arrogance increases a team's vulnerability. Exhibit vulnerability on your own terms, or those around you will choose your vulnerability on their terms.

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Authority and accountability often decouple | Insist they stay coupled

Many of us have felt “accountable for ABC without authority for ABC,” which means someone else had the inverse, i.e., authority without accountability. That’s a bad deal and a terrible relationship.

Conventional methodologies and frameworks (RACI, Agile) don’t fix this problem. In executing Five Verbs and building an Asset Portfolio, Elegance fixes this problem, i.e., authority and accountability stay coupled.

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Instead of High Tolerance for VUCA, choose High Awareness for VUCA.

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Of course, I hope this article, my public speaking, and my books persuade you to choose Elegance instead of VUCA. But even if you do choose Elegance, your executives may not. In that case, one consolation prize is high awareness of VUCA.

High awareness of VUCA translates to low sensitivity to several habits and culture traits: Four Adjectives (RACI), Verb Sprawl, meeting minutes, low transparency, disposability, frequency, high marginal costs, decoupled authority and accountability, arrogance, optional collaboration, communication traffic jams, lumpiness, low empathy, and low trust.

Low sensitivity = don’t lose sleep. Do what you need to do to retain your sanity, serenity, self-respect, and psychological safety.

Choosing Elegance requires that you adopt several habits and culture traits: Five Verbs, Asset Portfolio, simplicity, synchronization, smoothness, clarity, high transparency, durability, humility, low marginal costs, coupled authority and accountability, high empathy, high trust, forced collaboration, and a communication symphony.

In the short-term, choose high awareness for VUCA. Warm up to the idea of Elegance.

In the long-term, choose low tolerance for VUCA. Choose a culture of Elegance.

Back to AI and various generations of Agile (“Disciplined,” “SAFe” Version X, “Business Agility,” an agile “mindset”), what culture traits would you like Agile and AI to shape/improve?

For a deep dive on Innovation Elegance, please explore my two books.

Innovation Elegance: Transcending Agile with Ruthlessness and Grace.

Innovation Portfolio: Five Verbs Shape Your Team’s Culture.