All the Agile Ladies! All the Agile Ladies!

I received a text today “Join us for our FREE Trade Brekkie this Fri 8 Mar celebrating International Women's Day, from 7-9AM at your nearest Bunnings. Enjoy a hot egg & bacon roll on us!”?

“Oh No”, I thought, it’s that time of year again when I feel like I should be doing more for International Women’s Day, when I feel so many mixed emotions seeing people at companies post what they are doing to honour Women, hot on the heels of the latest Gender Pay Gap study which enraged many of my contemporaries.?

“Come on!”, I said to myself, if Bunnings can do it, shouldn’t I too? The least I could do was write a blog, I thought ;)

Writing has been my latest mountain to conquer, a truly joyous endeavour as it turns out. I crossed off an item from my bucket list last year in publishing my first book Empowered Agile Transformation - Beyond the Framework. Available Here! It made the bestseller list on Amazon in 3 categories locally and internationally. I was super stoked to have finished it, let alone published it, let alone have people buy it, let alone have received wonderful feedback, from people I respect and admire and even complete strangers.?

As you can guess from the title, the book was about Agile Transformations, and how we can achieve them much more successfully when we avoid large heavy frameworks and large scale consultancy driven approaches. In chapter 1 of the book I lay out a large list of dysfunctions prevalent in our organisations today, in it I included what I thought was a fairly non-controversial paragraph about the lack of diversity we see in organisations, and in Agile frameworks themselves.?

“Organisational transformation is challenged because of the lack of diversity and diverse thinking, which in itself poses a problem and can also contribute to the need for transformation. Many Agile methodology frameworks have traditionally been developed by a specific demographic, namely older white males, which limits the inclusion of perspectives from a broader range of individuals. This perpetuates certain beliefs and behaviours commonly observed in workplaces, homogeneous thinking such as the notion that the most competitive employee will naturally advance the furthest, and a lack of awareness regarding white and male privilege, as well as the unconscious bias that is in us all. While there have been efforts to incorporate more diversity, ‘Industrialised Agile’, the dominant force behind Agile frameworks and certifications, still predominantly represents a homogenous group, whose influence remains disproportionately prominent in the market. It is crucial for organisations to recognise the significance of embracing diverse voices and perspectives in order to foster genuine transformation to better ways of working and overcome the limitations posed by a lack of diversity in these frameworks.”?

I admit to having a tiny second thought before I included it, but I felt my sisterhood deserved solidarity and that I really couldn’t skate past the knowledge that not only the Tech industry but the Agile industry alike is dominated by the many strong opinions of men. If you aren’t aware of this I invite you to stop reading, search LinkedIn for the term ‘Agile’ and follow a few comment threads to see the sometimes 100% commentary by men, talking to other men about what Agile is and isn’t, whether it is broken or not, and you’ll perhaps start to see what I see. The male voices are loud and proud, the women’s voices, not so much. (Hope you made it back after disappearing down that rabbit hole.)?

What I wasn’t prepared for was negative feedback when I posted a link to the book in what I now realise is a community that was also dominated by male voices. I received a comment from someone who started reading a sample of my book “I was surprised to see political activism in the first chapter” he said. “Activism?” I asked “Are you referring to the one paragraph that mentions diversity?” (Which by the way is 175 words out of 87,000).? This line of questioning continued for a while as he asked me to produce references to back up my claims. I was surprised not necessarily because of his feedback, but more that he didn’t have the same perspective, he couldn't see the diversity issue in our industry as I did, while simultaneously posting in a community that was dominated by male posters, ironically, illustrating my point rather beautifully.?

I mentioned I was getting a bit of backlash to my partner Stu who was seated on the other sofa, he casually looked over his laptop and said “I was wondering if that was going to be picked up by someone actually”. My partner was one of many male reviewers of the book (shout out to all the helpful lads!) and had also wondered if the paragraph was worth including should it risk the ire of the internet. Since I am now getting blog fodder out of it for International Women’s Day, I say to him “Yes it was!”?

The other day I was holding his phone helpfully while he was in a MS Teams work meeting and driving at the same time. I looked at all the faces, in that particular meeting they were all male, (I happened to look his company up as an employer, they have a comparatively small gender pay gap - good to know), I asked him “Doesn’t it bother you when you’re in a meeting and everyone’s a dude? Doesn’t it feel off?”?

“It’s fine, I don’t even notice” he said. An Ah-ha moment has entered the chat, I thought.?

Wow, I would notice, I do notice, when I am the only woman in a meeting. I notice and do an internal happy dance when I am in a truly diverse group of people. I was yesterday in fact. I was working for a client who has put in astonishing work to create a diverse workforce over the last eight years, and I can tell you it feels amazing to be in big rooms of people where the thinking and perspectives are more diverse across gender, age and ethnicity, it creates a pool of better ideas and just FEELS BETTER!!?

I feel the difference when I see comment threads that are mostly male. I often silence my own voice when I see It. I think “Oh why would I bother getting into this debate with these fellas? Why would I get involved in this little discourse, they are having a lovely time talking to each other over there". But we must, my comrades, we must not silence what we are observing, we must publish that paragraph and we must bring our perspectives to the conversation. They are important and different perspectives, and they are going to help us build better organisations, better products and a better world.?

So this is my tribute and my excuse to post #IWD2024. Perhaps you can think of some excellent Agile Women’s voices that you would like to include by tagging them in the comments? I would love to hear more of their experiences and stories.