Rule(s) for life and Agile mindset

The term “Agile Mindset” is so obvious we very rarely explain it. Unfortunately… as I believe it is the key to mastering Agility.

It’s a matter of mindset

When Agile enthusiasts talk about framework implementation, either discussing successes or failures, very often the notion of mindset comes into place. The “mindset” seems to be a deep root cause behind successful implementation of Scrum and other Agile frameworks. It also might be the cause of failure - when the “mindset” is based on command and control or tracking tasks / working hours. It became a blackbox - helpful in closing the complex discourses, finding the reason of success/failure or just a summary of various experiences and processes that are not easily quantifiable.

The meaning and function

My favorite philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that the meaning of a word is determined by the context of its use. In different contexts the word “genius” may mean someone who is exceptionally smart, in others - a person not very bright. When we talk about “mindset” or “agile mindset” what do we actually mean? Following Agile values or principals? Or “really” believing in them? Being focused on value? Planning work iteratively? Or is it simply another buzzword? It depends on the context.

In most articles I’ve found over the internet authors associate Agile mindset with the first meaning – acting according to Agile values and principals. But several examples of companies like Nokia - that mastered Agile and yet failed in terms of market performance shows that there must be something more to it.

What Scrum Guide didn’t tell you

In Scrum Guide 2017 the very definition of the framework contained important information that was (sadly) removed in 2020 edition. It stated that Scrum is simple to understand and difficult to master at the same time. While first part seems easily explainable – Scrum framework has very limited complexity and short number of roles / events / artifacts the second part was harder. Why mastering an easy framework is hard? My answer this question is:?????

“because there are some fundamental preconditions to making Scrum work that are not described in the Guide itself”

I believe there are three of them and they are truly hard to master.

First rule for life

In August 2022, during our family holiday while having a walk in the park a total stranger approached us, asking where we’re from. It was Michael Dominguez - former championship boxer who won the 1981 Golden Glove. He asked my son one basic question - what is the first rule for life? With my son struggling to answer Michael came up with an answer:

“The first rule for life is: be brave. If you are not – act like one.”

This may sound like a cliché but in fact is the key not only to sport and life success but also having an Agile mindset.

For Scrum Master being brave means being able to protect their team – from inefficient processes that limit team’s independency, Scrum buts, from too much external pressure, from anti-agile ways of working that would be beneficial in short term.

For Product Owner being brave is the ability to say no to business when they demand too much in too little time, leaving the development team freedom to find most efficient way to implement a business requirement and understanding that true efficiency will come with time.

For the Development Team being brave means taking responsibility not only for coding – but also for improving their ways of working, having ownership over processes – not only executing them and being able to speak openly about impediments and inefficiencies.

For leadership in any company being brave is the ability to let go inefficient mechanisms of control and micromanagement, the ability to think about Agile Transformation as a process – not a yearly goal and being able to share their decision-making powers with teams engaged in company’s processes.

Only by being brave you can build a transparent organization – where team members are not afraid to speak up, share either positive or negative feedback and use it not to judge or assign guilt but to improve in next iteration.

Being brave may be the first rule for life – as Michael Dominguez was trying to teach son – but also a first rule for true Agile Mindset.

Be humble

Being brave is a great thing. But without balance it may lead belief in one's own infallibility, overconfidence, and hubris. This balance is being humble. At all levels of agile or lean organization it allows you to decide collectively, become a true leader or a great expert.

Courage and humility are both equally important you create a culture of feedback in your organization. You need to be brave to give feedback to other person – no matter if it’s someone you worked with for ages or if it’s somebody you met for the second time. It’s always hard but luckily can be trained. But you also need humility to receive feedback – especially negative one – and use it not to let yourself down but grow with it to become even better person or employee. Assuming that you can always be wrong and getting honest feedback is the key to improving yourself, your teams’ ways of working and your organization is the key to building agile self-managing organization.

This probably the hardest precondition. After all we are all humans. Putting our own beliefs and values over others’ is completely natural. Therefore training oneself to be humble requires even more work than becoming – or acting like – a brave person. And what is even hardest – promoting and growing humility is an art – there is no standardized process to develop it. Maybe beside the one described by Karl R. Popper in his famous book “All Life is Problem Solving”:

“I have often said that from the amoeba to Einstein there is only one step. Both work with the method of trial and error. The amoeba must hate error, for it dies when it errs. But Einstein knows that we can learn only from our mistakes, and he spares no effort to make new trials in order to detect new errors, and to eliminate them from our theories. The step that the amoeba cannot take, but Einstein can, is to achieve a critical, a self-critical attitude, a critical approach. It is the greatest of the virtues that the invention of the human language puts within our grasp”

Distinguish between right and wrong

Third precondition of Agile Mindset is not a moral obligation suggested by the title of this paragraph. It’s practical one. You should learn how to identify and deliver real value. Being brave and humble will allow you to create a space to make informed, transparent, and team-lead decisions. But what to choose is a matter of identifying the real business value.

Why “real”? So that we can distinguish it from “perceived” value. In many failed Agile Transformation or product development stories one observation is frequently brought up: “we thought we were addressing customer needs”, “we thought we were building a better system”, “all measures shown us that we were agile” or what Stephen Elop in his last speech as NOKIA’s CEO said “We didn’t do anything wrong”. Well in most cases you did everything well – or to be more precise – your processes might be even excellent. You might have been – or even currently are – most Agile company in the world. But what will eventually work for you is not having perfect Agile – but using it to provide best possible products and services.

Knowing the value – third fundament of Agile Mindset – together with two previous ones – will also tell you when to let go – abandon bad ideas, retire loss generating services or products you might have invested a lot in, stop pushing ideas that are there only because they’re well established in the company (ofter called “mature”).

Only by knowing what is worth your effort will in the end determine the success or failure of the overall individual and company mindset.

Mind-set-ting

Scrum framework is easy to understand and hard to master. The reason behind it is that to understand it you only need to get familiar with the rules presented in a document that has around 15 pages. To master scrum you need a specific mindset that consists of three elements – being brave, humble and aware of the value. Why is it hard? Because the process of creating or changing mindset – mind setting – cannot be written down in several steps. It stems from psychological background, self-awareness and individual capabilities that we cannot give a formula for. Therefore you do not train a good Scrum Master, Product Owner of Developer – to some extent you already hire one – no matter of his or her professional experience.