Agile Transformation; principles led vs practices led

When you select and commit to a certain brand of agile, it’s typical that folks will focus on the specific practices you need to adopt. Some examples:

• How do I shape up a backlog, and best decompose my work into Stories?
• Should we use Scrum or Kanban?
• How do I best approach planning?
• How do I understand how much work to commit to?
• What’s the best way to approach my next retrospective?

Which makes sense right? Because you are wanting to learn from those who have travelled that road before you.

But there is sometimes a danger in focusing too much on the practices – which I’ll get to shortly.

So, what’s the alternative?

Well, some advocate a Principles led transformation – which focuses much more on culture (i.e. the behaviours you exhibit).

In this case, it’s believed that the right practices and behaviours will emerge if you behave according to a sound set of principles.

So, this is very much a culture-first / culture-led approach.

Huh – what on earth are you talking about?

Well, if everyone subscribes to a common set of principles (e.g. agile principles), then behaviours will align to a certain culture / set of behaviours (i.e. an agile mindset in this case). You might not get it right to begin with, but over time you will successively acknowledge shortcomings, fall back on your principles and course-correct. In time the right culture will emerge.

But only if those principles are well understood, bought into and always top-of-mind.

I should add, that even if your agile adoption is largely process led – I’ve no doubt your consultant / trainer / coach has discussed relevant principles – usually on which the particular brand of agile was built. But the degree to which this factors into the training and ongoing coaching may vary, but, I feel, is typically under-emphasised.

But, I’ll return to the earlier question – what’s wrong with a practices led transformation? Well, sometimes nothing – in cases where principles are appropriately adopted as well; but other times I believe there may be a greater chance of dysfunction – a greater chance of teams failing to become truly agile (even if they are following the prescribed ceremonies, etc.). Or, perhaps, just a greater chance of backsliding over time. I’ve certainly observed this before, where squads seem to be ‘doing’ many of the right things, but they aren’t quite– and are likely to struggle to gain further maturity; they can become stagnant – having only achieved moderate success. This is because their practices aren’t rooted in the right principles. Sometimes they don’t even fully understand what the purpose of some ceremonies may be – and how they might relate to specific principles.

A true test is to ask any random person to:

• articulate what principles they subscribe to
• how they might have ‘lived’ their principles today
• what inconsistent behaviours they have observed in others and called-out

 Many will struggle to do this.

This is often the reason why you hear about folks ‘doing’ agile rather than ‘being’ agile. The cause of this phenomenon is often due to a lack of understanding and buy-in of the underlying principles – and therefore their ongoing behaviours are non-aligned.

And the evidence is there – I think you’ll find that many of the leading lights of agile practice will agree that behaving according to a fine set of principles is far more important than adopting specific practices – certainly more important than adopting certain ‘brands’ of agile practice.

But what’s the drawback of a totally principles led transformation?

Those going through the transformation (especially in the early days) often feel that a set of principles isn’t enough, and are looking to be taught ‘how’ to do things. They often think / say; ‘just show me’. And not having an answer to that question can lead to a huge amount of confusion and anxiety. It simply doesn’t provide enough direction to teams and individuals.

So, the obvious answer is that it needs to be both; principles and practices. But I believe we need to start with a strong foundation in the principles, and focus less on the practices. I feel the early days of many transformations fail to do this, and often do not ensure principles continue to be strongly reinforced throughout the journey.

Which means that a lot of this comes down to how you are coached. Finding a coach that thinks and feels this way will be key.

Let’s use my ‘go to’ example regarding the importance of ‘built-in quality’ through adopting an engineering culture (as per Spotify); when a team member is tempted to cut corners (perhaps at the behest of a Product Owner wanting to turn out work faster); this may need to be recognised as dysfunction; team members should be empowered to call this out as poor behaviour – not due to any specific practice, but because it conflicts with our agreed principles.

So, the balance is key – starting with principles, but supporting them with the right practices; and ensuring the mix fits your specific circumstances. In practical terms, it might mean coaches and trainers being flexible on the practices – recognising that there’s more than one way to be agile. This is often tough when you have engaged a consultant / coach who is strongly aligned to a specific brand of agile.

So, I’ve adopted a new matra; ‘coach on the principles and behaviours first, then the practices’; first and foremost you root practices in the relevant principle. This is a far more powerful coaching mechanism as it will help folks make the connection themselves – so they’re better able to make the right decisions in the future – when the coach isn’t around (i.e. based on agile principles).

This has another advantage. When you extend your culture change beyond the traditional agile domain to become something more holistic, (i.e. Lean principles have been a part of agile for a long time, but recently it’s common to also include Design Thinking (HCD) and Product Management principles & practices; but there’s no reason to stop there – also consider incorporating Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset stuff and Management 3.0 to produce a more holistic set of principles and practices.

So, as coaches, this requires us to focus a lot more on culture change and driving the right behaviours than simply teaching folks how to run any given ceremony.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with the above – certainly not all aspects of it. I’d love to hear some thoughts!

Final note: I’ve generically used the term ‘principles’, but often you’ll find this exists in the form of higher-order values and principles, often supported by more detailed 'guiding' principles. The guiding principles are often quite specific (i.e. a breakdown and further explanation of how any given principle might be applied) and can be more useful to team members on a day to day basis.