How Agile ways of working (accidentally) delivered the solution for accelerating organisational diversity

Can Agile ways of working improve organisational diversity and drive innovation? With research showing self-organising teams and working across organisational silos as clear accelerants to diversifying organisational make-up, perhaps businesses who want to maintain a competitive advantage need to re-think their more traditional ways of working.

In this article, I share my thoughts on the opportunities for embracing agile ways of working to improve organisational diversity, potential challenges and recognised business benefits.

What does agile have to do with diversity?

I first formally experienced Agile ways of working and became a practitioner (SAFe agile methodology – for those in the know!) while supporting a programme which encompassed both software development and complementary business transformation activities within the Agile methodology. Fast paced, collaborative and constantly focused on what would bring the most value to the end customer, I had found my perfect way of working. Since then it would be fair to say, Agile has permeated my mindset… Goodbye Waterfall, Hello Agile!

At the same time, as a board member for the Women’s Infrastructure Network I am passionate about equality, diversity and inclusion and actively read on the topic. I recently came across the Harvard Business Review article ‘Why Diversity Programs fail’ which challenged my accepted (and it seems incorrect) view of where organisations should focus their efforts to improve diversity.

In a nutshell, the article highlights how traditional and widely adopted organisational approaches to increasing diversity such as D&I training - counter intuitively- has negative outcomes. Meanwhile, approaches like implementing self-managed teams and working across organisational silos realise more positive results. I immediately recognised that both of these approaches are inherent in agile ways of working. And it got me wondering, if…

Self-managed teams and cross-training have had more positive effects than mandatory diversity training, performance evaluations, job testing, or grievance procedures, which are supposed to promote diversity.

Should organisations who want to accelerate employee diversity and become more inclusive focus on embracing agile ways of working? This was the subject of a recent LinkedIn post which, after 75,000 views, I decided warranted a little more thought…

Agile – What is it? (Software developers feel free to skip this one!)

As a business strategy consultant, I hear the word ‘Agile’ used a lot… and oftentimes it means wildly different things to different people and organisations. This article discusses Agile approaches (born out of the software industry) to deliver business outcomes - which I won’t attempt to explain in this article. If you’re new to Agile and want to learn more, find some helpful information here.

In software development, Agile approaches develop requirements and solutions through the collaborative effort of self-organising and cross-functional teams and their customers. It advocates for adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continual improvement and it encourages flexible responses to change.

How could Agile approaches improve organisational diversity?

Agile approaches inherently leverage self-managed teams and working across organisational silos. Such business practices increase contact between diverse groups working as equals toward a common goal. This consequently lessens bias and breaks down negative stereotypes, ultimately leading to more equitable hiring and promotion practices.

Creation of self-managed teams, for example, allow people in different roles and functions to work together on projects as equals. This increases contact among diverse types of people through mixing individuals from specialities that are still largely divided by racial, ethnic and gender lines.

Organisations that create self-managed work teams see the share of white women, black men and women, and Asian-American women in management rises by 3% to 6% over five years.

Additionally, encouraging working across organisational silos (through cross-training programmes or similar) allows further inter-group contact which delivers similar positive results.

Cross training programmes see a bump of 3% to 7% in white women, black men and women, and Asian-American men and women in management over five years.

When it comes to increasing diversity, what’s promising about wider adoption of Agile ways of working is that the approach will not suffer from explicitly being a ‘diversity effort’. A number of studies have shown diversity programs promoted as such can actually activate bias or spark a backlash, counterproductive to increasing diversity within the workforce.

What might the drawbacks be?

Referencing my own experience delivering using SAFe agile methodology and with a focus on gender diversity specifically, I see two key challenges to exploiting an agile approach:

1. Agile promotes co-location of teams

The approach advocates for face-to-face conversation as the most efficient and effective method of conveying information which, if adopted without consideration, drives a culture of presenteeism.

A workshop held by the Women’s Infrastructure Network identified flexibility of working as a key requirement for organisations committed to increasing gender diversity. In this case, flexibility of working encompasses working from home, non-standard hours and part-time working.

Given the recent global shift to virtual working, the large-scale proof of concept for effective remote working has been demonstrated. I would therefore encourage virtual face-to-face conversation to be adopted, where necessary, to accommodate team members that require flexibility.

2. Agile promotes a structured approach to deliver outcomes (Increments, sprints and ceremonies).

The approach advocates for frequent delivery which is facilitated by a standard pattern of ceremonies (meetings) typically held over a 2-week time period (sprint) within a planning cycle (increment).

The success of this approach relies on the majority (if not all) team members supporting these ceremonies which can be a challenge for individuals with, for example, childcare responsibilities and part-time working arrangements.

I would encourage the Scrum Master to collaboratively plan ceremony timings to accommodate the personal constraints of the whole team. For example, this should recognise that a daily stand up at 9am for someone who must drop their children off at school is a logistical nightmare!

With some consideration to the implementation these drawbacks are easily mitigated and, in my opinion, are heavily outweighed by the in-built practices which promote inclusion within the team.

Unlike more traditional ways of working which often lead to introverted team members being left out, the loudest team members leading the conversation and less confident team members struggling to be heard. Agile approaches encourage consistent and frequent opportunities for all team members to participate in the creation, development and delivery of team outcomes. These opportunities, I believe, create the space for individuals to understand the views of others, empathise and be understood themselves, creating a truly collaborative and equitable working environment.

Gaining a competitive advantage

I would suggest that there is an opportunity for organisations to drive diversity and inclusion efforts through less traditional, more effective approaches such as wider adoption of Agile ways of working.

The business case for diversity in the workplace is now overwhelming; with studies showing businesses with:

1. more gender diversity on their executive teams were more competitive, more likely to experience above-average profitability and more likely to outperform their peers on longer-term value creation
2. a stronger focus on Diversity and Inclusion within their culture are more attractive to millennial job applicants
3. more diverse management teams have higher revenues due to innovation

‘More diverse companies are simply more innovative’ - Rocío Lorenzo

It is undeniable that there is a clear opportunity for businesses to drive competitive advantage through diversifying their workforce. Perhaps embracing Agile ways of working is the solution that we’ve been looking for?

Thanks for reading!

#innovation #diversityandinclusion #diversitymatters #waysofworking #agile #diversity #womensinfrastructurenetwork #womenintech #tech #software

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Since launching in the UK in 2011, the Women's Infrastructure Network has been growing the visibility of women in the infrastructure sector. It provides a networking and support group for women, and currently has over 1500 members. Interested in joining the network, subscribe to our mailing list here.