Keeping the Heart of Agile

When you’re truly Agile it’s hard. Hard from so many points of view. But if you’re one of those DevOps Superheroes that I keep writing about, who is essentially keeping the very heart of Agile in their enterprise beating, it’s harder than it is for anyone else. Over the last year, it’s been even harder than the usual hard. Hardest.

Most Agile Superheroes are sandwiched between panic attacks. Hysterical ones from the top and seethingly quiet and damaging ones from the bottom. Everyone is losing heart and Agile “rollbacks” are looming. 

Nonetheless, for all of us over the last few weeks - some glimmers of hope: vaccines announced, elections finished, Christmas coming- we can’t help but be -reluctantly and tentatively- optimistic. 

There are good reasons to believe that by mid next year we’ll be back to “normal” life and stronger for it, ideally, we would have retained these amazing three wins - hybrid or remote work, an open conversation about people and increased resilience. Hope for "going back" to a long-longed-for pre-2020 stasis is justified and that’s great, so the panics should soon subside. 

But has there been a loss? Even if no loss in the actual process, or in actual velocity, has there been loss in enthusiasm because even if we haven’t failed, if we lost any of that, according to Churchill, success is less probable. But then again he didn’t know how many micro-instances of enthusiasm loss we had to deal with to change mindsets towards Agile to begin with, and chances are, he had some waterfall-Gant-chart in his war room so let’s not worry about him.

Let’s worry about execs saying “When we get back are we still doing Agile?” or asking “What is the actual exact roadmap for 2021 now then?".

Let’s worry about the times our people ask for extra proof points or complain something hasn’t been “thought through” or “planned properly”. Let’s worry about our end client not feeding back how they feel. About how many times we make things off a list and far from a POC. About how we move to the next item with no clarity and when we know nothing about impact. 

Let’s worry about seeing healthy and happy team dynamic slipping and productivity going with it. About the silences in the retros or the disengaged shrugs or even the subtle glares on zooms. Let’s worry about the lack of new ideas and innovative solutions or proposals to try something new. Let's worry about not having felt any moments of team magic in months.

Let’s worry about the “Agile doesn’t work” and “Agile is dead” old articles and “research” resurfacing here and there. The excuses. The measures of lack of true mentality change creeping in. 

And let’s worry about being all “worried out” and worn out. Just because Agile Superheroes are stronger than everyone else and just because they know beyond a shadow of a doubt all the worrying is necessary, and the work to change and keep heart is not done, it doesn’t mean they are unbreakable. Self-care and gratitude will help. 

Time to count the wins: no one “cancelled” the progress; there are times when there is no panic sandwich and both sides run fast and do magical things; nothing fundamentally changed through this horrendous year in how we make products we can’t and we won’t let it break us in insidious ways. There are wins aplenty to look at and show out teams when we bring them back to open and honest bubble-level sharing. 

If you’re an Agile Superhero reading this, don’t worry about the silly questions and demands from the panicked top, that can be dealt with it later, but instead, look at lasting ways to help your teams get back in making-magic-shape by re-focusing on Psychological Safety -choose from our Playbook or your own but a “Back to Agile - Manifesto Refresh and DORA quick check” refocusing exercise then an end of the year “Team B!Tch Fest” and a January cheesy “Team Re-Launch” and a practice of "Team Gratitude" should be done as they'll improve your indicators in all areas of speaking up and ensure the heart is kept.

Hard as it may be to see, there is a lot to be hopeful and grateful for, let’s obsess about that and our bubbles and we would have gained more than we’ve lost. 

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Don't send your teams home with a laptop, a Jira and Slack account and a prayer!

Get in touch at www.psychologicalsafety.works or reach out at [email protected] and let's help your teams become healthy, happy and highly performant.