Using Agile in the Bush!

It was meant to be my first walk into the New Zealand bush, on a trail, easy 4-5 hours in and then 4-5 hours out. Sometimes, the best made plans are the ones that go wrong the fastest.

My friend and I were fasting and he forgot his water, I had a litre of water and about 500ish calories that my wife had packed for me (Just In Case). We had no plan to stay overnight and it was nice and warm, so I wore shorts and tee.

For all those who are aware of New Zealand’s bush walks, hearing a guy from London with no experience going in like the above makes you cringe, I now understand why. However, I had my map (project plan), read everything I needed to know (lessons learnt documentation) about “The bush” and was ready to go. We turned up at the route above Otaki to find that the route I had chosen was far too advance, so quickly we made a call to drive down the road (PIVOT!).

Visibility

Everything we do in life should be visible to someone, in this case, I text my wife with the new location, general direction and estimated time of completion. With no knowledge, this really was T-Shirt sizing, but I will be out by 6pm I said. Visibility seems so obvious in this situation, but time and time again I see businesses not promoting visibility of their daily tasks. Why? I believe it is fear, fear of judgement, fear of criticism and fear of pushing oneself to the next level.

Each and every day, I write my things to do list, I prioritise it, it sits on my desk for anyone to see. I identify what I need to complete my tasks and I link them to wider and higher goals, it gives me clarity and it allows me to test if I am on track. Ensuring I am accountable for my actions builds trust with the people I work with which in turn boosts collaboration.

This simple business practice allowed me, out of habit, to update my plan and let my product owner (My Wife) know the new goals for today.

Trust the process

As we walked up and down steep hills, following rocks on the floor, orange signs and pink/orange tape, I was In awe of how amazing New Zealand bush is. However, when we hit 5 hours in and hadn’t reached out end result, it was time to stop and analyse.

There is a reason that there is a process. Inputs and outputs and principles that allow you to make quick and safe decisions. In some businesses I hear that Agile has no formal process and you just do whatever you need to do to get the job done. I find this mind-set has been pushed by reckless individuals, that have a motive. A good solid process is vital, the agile part is allowing the process to be constantly updated with new information and allow the experts on the floor to decide how it evolves.

We had such a process. At 1pm on the dot, we stopped. Knowing we had 6 hours of sunlight and 5 hours till our deadline, we turned around.

Don’t be afraid to fail

How many times have we been on a project, when we don’t raise our hand for help? There is nothing wrong with embracing failure, it is how we learn. Failure to learn from mistakes is ignorance, not allowing others to learn from your mistakes is selfishness. By raising your hand and asking for help, you may engage a different perspective and will still meet the deadline. Don’t be afraid to fail, it is not a weakness and shouldn’t be treated as one. I would rather work with those that try and fail openly then those that hide their failures through fear.

However, we had no one to ask. Why didn’t we get to the hut? Where exactly are we then? I can’t call Johnnie from OPSEC … So we head back, only to find that after 3 hours, things do not look familiar. Is it a different perspective? Is it because we are worried, tired, hungry, thirsty? All of the above?

Sound familiar? Being on projects where everything is going well then suddenly a staunch realisation that your plan isn’t going to work on time can cause stress. In traditional project management, you would raise this to the Project Manager and let them deal with it. They then go up the chain, explaining there is a cost, quality, time problem and they had always said it was never going to work J then weeks go by with re planning in some cases and eventually you start again and maybe you shelf some work you have done in the meantime. Those with an Agile mind-set, however, will plan there and then. We notify the stakeholders that need to be notified but we make the decision to pivot and re plan, and due to the small traceable goals, the impact is less and allows us to learn from this quickly. 

In our bush case, we wasn’t getting out of the bush tonight.

MVP

A crisis can happen in any moment, it is an unknown by definition and it is how you handle a crisis that can be the output for your business. Some projects will focus so purely on the goal that they forget to plan minimal viable product (MVP). “Everything is MVP” “We are different” “We can’t be agile” “You don’t understand Michael”. Yet, by focusing on what the minimal need is to either make your customer happy first, allows you to realise quickly what you can deliver and what needs to be side-tracked so you don’t waste a finite amount of time working on something that is not going to be completed.

A great example of this for us is that our goal was to get home. However, what if we do not complete the goal in the two hours of sunlight remaining? What is the risk to reward ratio here? We could say that getting out and home is all that matters, we are different, agile doesn’t work in the bush?

We sat down and re planned. Accepting that the main goal is now a stretch goal. That the main goals now are Water and Shelter and everything else is not important until they are met. First step Water. We broke down the logic to find water and headed down, finding a stream and finding the river. Now we have water. Next on the list, shelter. Machete comes out and a bed is made. All in time for a quick retrospective of what we learnt today.

Positive Attitude

Why worry about what you cannot control? Why be negative in a situation? Study after study shows us that our positivism is a more reliable metric to success than other more extrinsic factors. When you are in your project and things are happening that you believe are wrong? Say something! Once you have voiced your concerns, you have done all you can do. This is why we have retrospectives, this is why we change process to meet the demands of the group and this is why one companies process will never work in another company (much like how copying strategies never work).

It was an awesome night, near the water, nice and cold, I hadn’t slept out under the stars before. This was amazing! My friend and I were able to test our skills on something that we had only read about. No need to sleep inside an animal… this time.

Incremental steps

At the crack of dawn, we had a plan. A goal. We knew our process, our constraints and we were in charge. We went back to a point we knew, we had 100% confidence about, we worked out the duration based on the map and challenged every assumption we had.

We prioritised the most likely scenario and followed the route back an hour, then came back. We did this another four times. Until one route that looked blocked, we tried it anyway, even thou we knew! KNEW!!! It wasn’t the right way.

It was the right way…

Three hours later we were twenty minutes from the car park when we heard this interesting sound of a helicopter. Oh… that’s right. My wife had realized this project was off course and decided to rescue us with a “Top Down” solution. 

Lessons Learnt

Always be visible – If this had turned into something more serious, an outside project that is aware would have been able to rescue us.

Always have a process and be willing to change it – If we were unable to react to a changing environment, things could have gotten a lot worse

Always be positive – I had a great time. 36km walk, shoes fell apart, night under the stars and a story to tell

Culture Matters – There is no way I would have wanted to go through this event with someone who’s culture didn’t match my own, choose your team members wisely

It wasn’t faster… Agile is not faster, a well written project plan would have got us out earlier. However, you do not know what you do not know and being faster to pivot, means faster results in the long run

Always learn from your lessons. I have bought a GPS tracking device and now carry overnight gear, just in case.