The Agile Mindset

Where does Agile come from??

Google, Amazon, Apple…these companies not only have their products and services. Their employees are known as happy, sporting company-themed clothes, excited to share what they do. For instance, Google receives over 3 million job applications yearly. How to create a culture where people have a burning desire to work with you??

Organizational culture is a complicated and messy subject. This culture is created by people, with different mindsets. There are mindsets that can create a harmful culture, a positive one, and there's an Agile mindset.?

An Agile mindset means you do not work all day every day. Apparently, we all have a family, a pet, friends, hobbies, and other million things to take care of. That type of mindset does not support over-working hours because the TEAM is establishing how work will get done, and the TEAM is deciding when to take time off. Sounds like something unattainable in modern times, right??

Agile is not only for software engineers. I've heard that nearly every single organization is excited to use Agile for a smooth workflow yet the majority of leaders do not understand how it works and what it is needed for.?

Agile values?

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. That means that technology or certain methods of doing something doesn’t evolve on their own; instead, people modify them following high convenience and efficiency.?

Software or product over a comprehensive documentation. Isn’t it obvious how time-consuming it is to first introduce a client’s order in a documentation format, then create the product, and then report it manually again? Are those pre-development presentations truly necessary, or better to deliver the draft instead??

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Contracts are cool, but trust is cooler. A contract is more of a formality and yet another waste of time. Everything that is described in contract is most likely to change, re-plan, shift, and become irrelevant. Collaboration is a real-time communication about everything that is to be done in pieces.?

Responding to change over following a plan. With an Agile mindset, change is not just acceptable, but necessary.?

What is it like??

When implementing an Agile mindset, it is important to remember: it won't be perfect right away.

Here’s some stats about how businesses approach Agile overall: 48% of organizations face resistance to change; 44% of organizations are at odds with Agile values; 43% of organizations have inadequate management support and sponsorship for their Agile transformations.?

All of this to say, your company is not alone having setbacks when applying Agile. It may not work for a couple of reasons: a company is not ready, the leadership is not on board, however it is always a good idea to just sit down as a team and think through about productive ways of working. Besides the ways, discuss the challenges you as a team expect most.?

Applying the method will take up to a few years of time, therefore no need for aggressive pressure and disappointment. However, applying Agile culture means to accept the fact that you will be making mistakes and guess what? The faster and more you make them, the better. It is crucial to learn fast when utilizing an Agile mindset.?

Agile Implementation Use Cases

Autonomy?

The freedom of deciding how to accomplish a task rather than being told exactly how and when to complete it is something many people would say they crave. The crave for autonomy.?

When you are lucky to know that your team believes in your ability to solve problems, your confidence, productivity, and creativity boost. Thus, ensure that everybody in the team has that space to do their own work.?

Autonomy allows learning new skills, broadening knowledge base, and gaining new connections. When you are told what to do and how, you simply don’t think much. On the opposite, when you are fully responsible, you automatically start brainstorming, coming up with nice ideas, doing research, analyzing, and so forth.??

It is all about contributing to business’ success. When the organization sees that you make your work better and deliver better products, your retention increases.?

Communication?

Another situation is when a leadership takes action on changes during the work process without informing the team. Suddenly, abruptly, unexpectedly. Agile stands for open communication between you, your teams, and your organization.?

To achieve that, the team agrees on sharing any and all information that's appropriate.?

Obviously, the confidential information remains private.?

Next, gather examples from your teams about times leadership failed or excelled at communicating openly. Then share these examples with leadership.?

Last, gather stories on how the organization is succeeding in its Agile mindset implementation and share them too.?

Collaborations?

Agile mindset only exists due to the belief that your individual contributions matter to the success of the whole team. To achieve that, as described in the “Values” section, no more wasting time on presentations that take hours to present and even more hours to prepare. No more wasting time on creating contracts. That is not even the real work.

Your main job is to create products that are true and accurate to what your stakeholders need. Agile mindset is so focused on stakeholder feedback, the chances of you delivering an incomplete product decrease significantly.?

People work to either make an impact or money. Very few do it because it’s fun. Agile makes work more fun by simplifying and clarifying the delivery process. Essentially, if customers are engaged in positive relationships with you, and feel like they're saving time and money, they will be happy.?

Job hunting?

The truth is, when you’re seeking a new job, recruiters look for an applicant’s achievements in the form of quantifiable results. How much revenue had been created or how much time had been saved and so on. In doing so, they track the impact you have created. And again, Agile mindset:?

1. Determine how much time you saved other people from having to do work. For example, if you implemented a project that saved two weeks of time for two people who work 40 hours a week, then you save your team 80 hours of work.?
2. Identify how much those individuals got paid. If not sure, just google a market average for their job roles and do the math to determine how much they would get paid in a two week or 80 hour work period.?
3. Analyze how your project compares to other projects of a similar nature. If yours was faster and created more output, you saved time, money, and resources for your company by doing more efficient work.?

How to make it work?

To maintain the success achieved via the Agile method and to gain even more,?

• Meet regularly to discuss completed work, current tasks, and any blockers. Daily sync-ups (10-20 minutes).?
• Use visual tools like post-it notes, whiteboards, or software to share ideas and stay on the same page.
• Ensure everyone’s opinions are heard. Leadership and teammates respect experimentation. Building this environment takes time, consistency, and collective effort.

Hope it helps.