A Scrum Caretaker’s view on Agility, Scrum and organizational transformation

In August 2024, the 4th edition of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” was published. I created it because I am continuously uncovering better ways of explaining Scrum and want to help people by sharing these ways. Luckily, my publisher, Van Haren Group, agreed that there was value in making my update available (again) for the many friends of Scrum around the globe.

In my announcement I said I was planning to share a few excerpts from the updated version. Find herewith a compilation of my thoughts and observations on Agile, agility, Scrum and organizational transformation from the updated edition of my book.

The challenge is real

The use of lightweight, Agile methods continues to gain traction with Scrum being the most widely adopted framework. The general level of interest in Scrum is already huge and still its use keeps expanding, in and beyond software and (new) product development.

Transforming an organization’s way of working to Scrum represents quite a challenge. Scrum is not a cookbook ‘process’ with detailed and exhaustive prescriptions for every imaginable situation. Scrum is a lightweight framework (not: a methodology) of principles, rules and values that thrives on the people employing Scrum. A major potential of Scrum is that it forms the stable foundation for the discovery and emergence of practices, tools and techniques and optimizing them for a specific context.

The challenge is real. The balance of society keeps drastically and rapidly shifting from industrial (often physical) labor to digital (often virtual) work. In many domains of society, the unpredictability of work increases incessantly. The industrial paradigm is rendered useless, definitely, for many types of work. The need for the Agile paradigm is bigger than ever, and thus the need for a tangible framework like Scrum to help people and organizations increase their agility in performing complex work in complex circumstances.?

People come up with many reasons to stay away from Scrum; because of its simplicity, because it’s too radical, because we don’t need frameworks, because it’s a ‘process’, because it has rules. Often these reasons serve as an excuse to propagate a gradual introduction of Agile practices within existing, traditional processes and procedures. However, there is reason to be very skeptical about such gradual evolution, a slow progression from the old to the new paradigm, from industrial to Agile.

The chances are high that such a gradual evolution will never go beyond the surface, will not do more than just scratch that surface. New names will be installed, new terms and new practices will be imposed, but the fundamental thinking and behaviors remain the same. Essential flaws remain untouched; especially the disrespect for people and the continued treatment of creative, intelligent people as mindless ‘workers’, as ‘resources’.

It requires honesty to accept the serious flaws of the old ways. It requires leadership, vision, entrepreneurship and persistence to embrace the new ways, thereby abandoning and replacing the old thinking. It starts with accepting, or rather provoking, that our organizations must change not to fade, even without the realization that the fourth Scrum Wave coincides with entering the Tornado phase of Agile with Scrum as the gorilla method. The industrial fundaments on which a majority of today’s organizations are constructed have been invalidated anyhow.

A gradual shift to introduce the Agile paradigm results factually in a status quo situation that keeps the industrial paradigm intact.

Scrum (a definition?)

Scrum is a tangible way to adopt and ingrain the Agile paradigm. The distinct rules of Scrum help in getting a grip on the new paradigm. The small set of prescriptions allows immediate action and results in a more fruitful, long-term absorption of the new, Agile paradigm. Using Scrum, people develop new ways of working; through discovery, experimentation-based learning and collaboration. They enter a new state of being, a state of agility. This process helps their organizations transform towards such a state of agility too, a state of constant change, flux, evolution and adaptation.

Nevertheless, despite its minimalism, experience shows that adopting Scrum often represents a giant leap. This may be because of the uncertainty induced by letting go of old certainties, even when those old certainties have proven not to be very reliable or…certain. It may be the time that it takes to make a substantial shift. It may be the determination and hard work that is required. Over and over again it is shown that Scrum is simple, not easy. When we say that Scrum is simple, we mean to say that Scrum has a simple set of rules. When we add that Scrum is not easy, we mean to say that it is not easy to stick to Scrum’s simplicity, certainly not for organizations with their roots in the industrial paradigm. The idea of Scrum is not to pretend that the problem itself becomes simple by using Scrum and would thus not be complex (anymore). That would be simplistic.

Agile (no definition)

The official label ‘Agile’ dates from February 2001, when 17 software development leaders gathered at the Snowbird ski resort in Utah. They discussed the commonalities in their views on software development, although they were following different paths and methods, each being a distinct expression of what would become the new, Agile paradigm: Scrum, eXtreme Programming, Adaptive Software Development, Crystal, Feature Driven Development, etc.

After having considered calling them ‘lightweight’ first, the gathering resulted in assigning the label ‘Agile’ to the common principles, beliefs and thinking of these leaders and their methods. They were published as the ‘Manifesto for Agile Software Development’. It turned into an expected success, and Scrum gradually became the anchor and reference, the de facto standard against which to measure and to oppose. Or to join.

In the absence of a concise, specific definition I prefer describing ‘Agile’ in terms of three key characteristics. These are the traits that are common to the portfolio of Agile methods and are typical of an Agile way of working, regardless of the domain or industry:

• Collaboractive people; plus
• Iterative-incremental progress; plus
• Value as the measure of success.

Agile thrives on dealing with answers, solutions and competing ideas that emerge while delivering product, with product being the vehicle of value. In that sense, I often use “Deliberate Emergence” instead of “Iterative-incremental progress”.

It might take some time to experience the fact that the continuous learning innate in Agile actually increases the level of control in turbulent enterprise, business and market circumstances. It might take some time to shift management focus away from continuously making judgments over the past, like is done through actuals and time registrations, towards building on the impact and outcomes of the output and the work performed. It might take some time to gain confidence in the Agile development process and optimizing for value through feedback from its incrementally produced outcomes. It is essential however to make these shifts; if the purpose is to increase an organisation’s agility.

Agility

Agility is the state envisioned by moving to an Agile way of working. Agility is a state of continuous flux, high responsiveness, speed and adaptiveness. It is a state needed to deal with the unpredictability so common to creative work, like software and other forms of new product development, and to the moving markets that organizations operate within.

Agility has no purpose if the mentioned characteristics of flux, responsiveness, speed and adaptiveness are not expanded to the relationship of the teams with the surrounding organization and to the relationship of the organization and its markets, user communities and consumers. The adoption of Agile processes, like Scrum, is an important foundation for such enterprise agility. From that adoption, new ways of working, interacting and collaborating emerge, together with a new organizational culture of learning, improving, adaptation and restored respect for people.

Throughout such an adoption important learnings are ingrained and injected into an organization’s DNA. It might take some time to accept that this takes time. It might also take some time to accept that agility need not be analyzed, designed and planned upfront.

There are some basic truths that are fundamental to any transformation toward such a state of increased agility. When these essential truths are ignored, the door to increased agility is closed rather than becoming a gateway of opportunities:

• Agility can’t be planned;
• Agility can’t be dictated;
• Agility can’t be copied;
• Agility has no end-state.

A time-planned way to become (more) Agile introduces awkward and unfavorable expectations. Agile is a new paradigm and the shift toward it will cause significant organizational turmoil. Existing procedures, departments and functions are impacted. Organizational constructs are questioned. Such change is highly complex and unpredictable. There is no way of predicting what needs will be encountered at what point in time, how these will have to be dealt with, how the new ways of working are being ingrained and what the exact outcome will be in order to plan and control the next steps. There is no way of predicting the pace at which the change will spread and take root.

Agility requires much more than following a new process. It is about behavior and in that sense about cultural change. A decision to move to Agile is a decision to leave the old (industrial) ways behind. It is not only about accepting but even more about celebrating and living the art of the possible. It requires the courage, honesty and determination of acting in the moment, acting upon the reality that is exposed by iterative-incremental progress information, resulting from acts of deliberate emergence. Agility is about doing the best possible at every possible moment, constrained by the means we have and facing constraints that surface. A time-planned way ignores the essence of Agile, that of dealing with complexity via well-considered steps of experimentation and learning. Time-planning for agility simply extends the old thinking. It is even counterproductive as a traditional plan will actually slow down the transformation process because it introduces delays, handovers and waiting times.

Time-plans also create the illusion of deadlines and a final end-state. Yet, agility has no end-state. Agility is a state of continuous improvement, a state in which each status quo is challenged, by our own will or by external turbulence, if not today then tomorrow.

Agility is a unique and continuously evolving state that holds and reflects the lessons and learnings that an organization went and goes through, the way in which specific annoyances and hindrances were and are overcome, the many inspections and adaptations that inevitably occur along the journey. Agility is a unique signature, with imprints of the people, relationships, interactions, tools, processes, practices and constructs within and across the many ecosystems that exist in and adjacent to an organization. No model or blueprint can predict, outline or capture such a unique signature. Agility is a path requiring vision, belief, persistence and . . . hard work.

Agility is a state of high adaptability that is achieved by regularly inspecting and adapting upon observable work results. What works today might not work tomorrow. What works for one combination of teams, technology and business might not work for another combination. Inspection without adaptation is pointless in a world of complexity, creativity, fierce competition and unpredictability. Adaptation without vision, observation and inspection on the other hand is ungrounded and directionless.

Living the art of the possible against inexactly predictable results is a call for people to engage. It motivates, since all players co-shape the future, thriving upon the unwritten state of that future and what that future might bring. Accepting the unwritten nature of the future can thus accelerate a transformation. It is a bright future for organizations that have the vision, the determination and the dedication, for organizations that have the courage to move away from following a plan or copying a model.

These basic truths must be in the hearts and minds of every person managing, guiding, facilitating, living or leading a transformation based on the Agile mindset. And even then, it still takes time for agility to settle in the hearts and minds of the people impacted by the transformation. After all, people have been instructed in ‘wrong’ behavior through the industrial paradigm for several decades.

Scrum is a foundation, the bedrock for agility.

As the need for agility rises and can be boosted through a tangible, actionable framework like Scrum, we know that the journey of Scrum is far from over. But, remember, agility can’t be planned, dictated or copied, as agility is unique and has no end-state.

Read my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” for my description of Scrum. Check out its global availability to get your copy.