An agile survival guide for 2021 and beyond

Of the many lessons that 2020 has taught us, I think we can all agree that the most important take away is the importance of being open minded and flexible. It's hard to imagine a plan or a goal, personal or business related, that was set at the beginning of this year that wasn't somehow impacted by the unprecedented challenges 2020 brought us. (Unless, of course your goal was to avoid face-to-face contact with people this year. In that case you're probably pretty on track! )

As I continue to reflect on the many lessons of this year... changes in our country, our company, communities, families and friends... I think my main take-aways are two fold; always challenge assumptions, always stay grounded in what matters.

The Agile Manifesto was originally crafted in 2001 by a group of thought leaders from the software development world. After much discussion, this group came to realize that regardless of their individual perspective on the steps they should take to complete their work, that they were completely aligned on why they should work. That why was to deliver value to customers. Everything else was really just mechanics. They came to realize that they, as people, partners and peers, shared the same set of values that drove their individual visions of how things should work. They realized that if we ground ourselves in the why... in the values... then the how just becomes a means to an end. Focusing on the end is what is important. That end is value to the customer (and making life better for the people making that value as well).

As organizations continue to evolve and change, it is really important to stay grounded in the why we do this. There will always be a better mousetrap. There will always be new innovations that change the way that we interact with each other. There will always be new processes and procedures that will outline how things should function. This constant evolution can make it really hard to keep focused on the "why" of what we're doing in the first place. That brings me to my first agile survival tip...

Agile Survival Tip #1 - always be clear about who the customer is.

Any time you start a new project, help a new team, begin a new effort... ask who the customer is and be clear about the fact that it will be your customer too!

Customer is a tricky word. It can be thrown around a lot to justify a lot of different things. For this survival tip - I would encourage you to use the formal dictonary.com definition of the word:

cus·tom·er

noun

a person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or business.

It doesn't really matter what role you play on a team, or what kind of work that you do - ultimately we are all here to serve our company's customers. We work with teammates and partners, support all kinds of different teams, and we all individually provide value. At the end of the day, nothing a single one of us does really matters unless a customer buys goods or services from us, directly. It's really easy for us to dilute the word customer to mean "internal customers" (I support this kind of team or product.) While that might feel good to think about the "internal customer," it creates real challenges because agile teams focus on delivering value to the customer (the definition above.) Think of it this way...

If a customer is dependent on our company to add a feature to a product (could be software, could updated terms on a type of account, could be a reward for using a product, whatever), there are a million things that need to be done to make that happen. As a customer, do they really care that the requirements were perfectly fleshed out? Do they care that it went through 3 iterations of legal reviews, or any single step in our process, or even really what our process is? Probably not!

Now, do they care the feature is available for them to use... to solve a problem, or take advantage of an opportunity, or to make their life easier? Absolutely!

Our collective job is to get the best possible product to the customers so they can use it, so we can focus on the next product or improvement. If we all serve the same customer regardless of the role we play, it changes the conversation with each other. It gives us permission to challenge ourselves and each other to improve the way we work together in service to that customer, instead of just the "next step" in the process. I've said it before and I'll say it again... "we all win together." There's not a lot of room for "I did my job" in that statement.

So agile survival tip #1 - ask who the customer is for the work that you're about to do, and keep asking it until you get to an actual customer! Once we're clear on who our customer is, we can start to work on the second agile survival tip...

Agile Survival Tip #2 - always be sure to align objectives.

Teams are most effective when everyone contributing to the team has the same objective. Why are we building this feature? Why are we creating this product? What is the reason for us doing this work? What value are we delivering to our customer and creating for our business?

It's easy to think of ourselves as a "part of the process" instead of "a living, breathing, thinking person who can help our team achieve it's objective in lots of different ways." One of the core values of agile is collaboration in service to the customer. When we view ourselves as an internal service provider, we can be easily distracted away from the actual objectives of the project and instead focus on "internal metrics". The lure of internal SLAs ("tickets closed per day" and "number of defects" and "number of stories completed") can be hard to resist! Those objectives (the internal ones) can feel easier to be in control of, but in whole, do they really tell us if we've done a good job? Maybe in our individual step of the process, but they very rarely if ever point to whether or not the customer actually bought our products and services.

I know, I know.... there are a lot of "but metrics and efficiency and someone else picks the projects.." thoughts going on right now. I'm not here to argue any of that. Those types of thoughts are perfectly valid. And to be perfectly clear - those internal metrics can be very important clues to finding ways to improve the way that we work together toward shared objectives. What I am suggesting is that laser focus on those internal metrics can cause a team to miss real and meaningful opportunities to improve the way that they deliver the project's objectives, together. As counterintuitive as it seems, sometimes optimizing individual steps in the process can actually lead to creating a lot of inefficiency end to end. We all have to be accountable for delivering the overall objective - because if we don't actually achieve it - well then we really didn't win. "I did my job" may be easy to say - but we all have to be accountable for achieving the objectives and outcomes together or none of the work that we did really matters.

So agile survival tip #2 - find out the actual objective of what you're being asked to work on is, and do everything you can to help your team achieve it.

Bonus Survival Tip - always assume positive intent

As always, I crowdsource support when I write these blog posts (it really does take a village to make this stuff!) and Brooke Schwerdt suggested I add in a bonus tip, that is always on my mind, but 1 always forget to write down.

Agile teams are formed to bring value to our customer. We are asked to be a part of that team because we have things to contribute to bringing that value. We all bring different perspectives and experience and ideas to the table. A rule of thumb should always be to assume that the people on our team are doing what they do, and saying what they say because they are trying to help us all achieve that objective. If you're ever feeling like that isn't the case... my advice would be to get curious, and refer to agile survival tips #1 and #2.

We are all empowered to ask about how what's being done is in service to our customer. We are all empowered to ask about how what's being done helps us to achieve our shared objective. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that if you have the same customer in mind, and a common objective - there isn't much that can't be worked through together. So the next time you hear something from a team member that makes you go "OMG" or "WTH" or some other internet acronym, start with assuming positive intent, get curious and make sure that you're on the same page with customer and objective. It's a great way to work toward getting on the same page!

I'm sure there are dozens, if not hundreds more lessons and survival tips that a deep reflection on 2020 can teach us. I'm also sure that the agile survival tips that I've outlined on this page can be improved upon. What I am certain of, is that there isn't much that we can't accomplish, together, if we have a common objective and are working in service to the same customer.

We ALL win together. Go out and BE agile today!