Agile way - Focus on getting things done

“Individual commitment to a group effort and that is what makes a teamwork”

This quote came from Vince Lombardi who was a famous U.S. football coach in the 1960s and I personally believe sports metaphors are perfect example of explaining what an agile mindset is all about.

Agility means that you are able to react quickly and efficiently to a changing situation. And this is where sports teams provide great examples. Do they know how the other team is going to react. No because they cannot. No they cannot plan right, What they can develop as an intuitive sense where the team members are on the field that they instinctively know Which tactic they should deploy in a certain situation that their actions become routine that they continuously focus on improving their moves and that they can easily measure a successful execution those that believe that agile means free form where everyone can do what they want are solely mistaken.

It requires agreement within the team what is to be accomplished how they should best approach it.

A commitment from each team member to what they collectively agreed upon and then practice practice and even more practice.

The approach part of agile we always talk about, but the practice part is what seems to be missing. Often if we don't practice how are we supposed to get better.

There is a lot to overcome like the bad habits we have collected throughout the years. The ability to make decisions as a group and make them stick the routine that is essential in making the execution instinctual the goal.

It's about getting something done but not just anything. It's about getting something of value completed. That's what we're trying to get done.

How do we determine what we are delivering has value. Well who is supposed to receive what we're producing within sports. It's about goals and wins. That type of value is easy to measure.

For our agile team it's all about the recipients of what we're trying to produce. If they find no value, then it was a waste.

Let's go back to our sports team example. How effective would these metrics be.

Number of steps per team member,

Amount of playing time without water.

Amount of playing time per team member.

Now let's take a look at some of the metrics I hear people use and let's compare them in corporate world.

Number of e mails received,

A number of emails answered,

 A number of conference calls per day number of meetings per day number of hours worked per day per week per month per year per life Per Per per & more per

you get the idea unless we concentrate on getting things done that bring value then it's all a waste.

The key is the how……

Agile leadership is always about how effectively it can be done without wasting time & brings value to the team.

Sports is best example of it.