Being Agile Vs Doing Agile

While amidst of my job as Scrum Master, have stumbled upon some anti-patterns of Agile. I am sure we all go through such transformational process either by force or a proactive team that wants to work differently.

Ahmed Sidkey’s agile mindset image shows that Agile is a Mindset, which is described by 4 values, defined by 12 principles, but finally manifested through the unlimited number of practices ( like: Scrum, XP etc., ).

When talked to some people across huge programs who focus on being Agile. It is surprising that they are considering what it really means to be truely agile, pretty early in their agile evolution cycle. This kind of throwing proverbial bouncing ball by mindlessly turning agile frameworks into a process or methodology overload has manifested in lost meaning of real Agile.  This form of doing agile is a way of turning into yet another corporate process does not really give any benefits per my understanding.

When asked the 5 why's ( term borrowed this from Six Sigma world ) - what people talk about being agile:

• We are just doing fine, we are doing agile. Then follows the process and tools. Rather than talking about the basic principle underlayed by it.
• We are practical about agile, we consider "what works for us" based on our experience.
• Being Agile is somehow superior to doing agile. We are better than you.
• There are too many meetings in agile, rather we prefer to do more work than the meetings. So, we say we are being agile. So that we are saved from being in DSM, Sprint Planning...

The misnorm is: I think I am agile, therefore I am. This logic is flawed.

“The problem with positive thinking is when it disconnects you from reality. If you have achieved your goals in your mind’s eye, studies show you are less likely to consider the concrete actions you need to take and the possible obstacles in the way.”

– Samantha Bordman, M.D. “ Positive Thinking? Overrated“

But actually in behavioral psychology, we see values, motivations and intent manifest into action. when these two conflicts with each other, we see cognitive disagreement.

We need to change our behavior and mindset to be in alignment. So, if someone claims to have an agile mindset, and proclaims they are being agile, what sort of behaviors should we expect?

The Agile Mindset:

• Teams exhibiting Lean Thinking of respect for people and eliminating waste
• Real empiricism over showcases at Sprint Review or navel gazing at Retrospectives
• User/Customer-centered value-centered focus in development teams over UX/UI team working as a separate team or in isolation in a Sprint-ahead mode
• Scrum's values of trust, transparency, inspection, adoption and empiricism in people using Kanban, not just using the easy aspects of visual management.
• Not have scope for the blaming culture - The problems of team pushed to a specific team/people with walls / boundaries. Rather, the mindset must be to catch the source of the problem by way of the critical thinking process. Blame the process, not the person. Then continuously thrive to improve the process.

To have agile mindset means living the values through action.