What is next for agile? Two things will drive!

(Updated 29-Mar)

About 10 years ago, I worked on building SAFe trainings in Denmark. Leading SAFe was the first course.

After one class with very few participants, we put SAFe aside. It was part of Delta Share. A long time ago.

At that time, I had already worked more than 10 years in Nokia with SAFe, lean, and agile.

I remember wondering why it was so difficult to get any traction. But it was, and we had to let it go. A few years later SAFe boomed. At the time SAFe ?really helped solve the ‘predictability problem’ of large-scale technology delivery.

Yes, not all could make it work. But do not blame the hammer. It worked. And it works.

We still see a lot of organizations moving towards SAFe. And more importantly you have few other options that anyone can explain to you without leaving you even more confused.

Now the world is asking ‘what is next after agile’. There is no ‘after agile’. Like my colleagues remind me ‘Business Agility is a critical component for why anyone would want to take a technology journey’.

Adaptability is a prerequisite, more than a quality. Always have been. Always will be. And increasingly so.

But clearly something is changing. We are constantly learning. Constant evolving.

What does this mean for agile? Well, that is what we all speculate about. We are probably what cynefinnians would call healthily confused. But we cannot stay here. It freaks people out that we can not make up our minds, while coaches lose their jobs.

I believe two things will drive the next evolution.

ONE

Technology is now at a level where it liberates more than constrains. It needs to, or you are not where you should be. Automation, augmentation, analytics, and generative ai allow humans to do less coordination and more innovation. Work itself gets digitized.

We will see a shift of balance from cold hands to hot hands. Joe Justice talks about 100%. The norm is more around 50% for most larger organizations.

This may mark the end of the bureaucratic era that Gary Hamel has cursed for decades.

TWO

The pace of things that can change your plans is increasing. You wanted to be aligned for everyone to work on the same goals. Now you need to be aligned, so that everyone can change what they do in a coordinated move. The gurus talk about ‘avoidance of failure’ over ‘drive for value’. In a manifesto sense not a risk avoidance sense. Value is in risk, but it is not a lottery (unless you make it one).

The gurus talk about ‘directional control’ over ‘situational control’. Many of us have heard Snowden say, ‘a little bit more of this; a little bit less of that’.

So, what does all of this lead to?

I now look at Collaborative Lean Portfolio Management (CLPM) and Open Strategy, including an implied need for adaptive or open organizations (link to more information below).

No need for any organizational changes or year-long transformation programs. Those in need can transform from where they are by reconfiguring and repurposing existing elements.

We literally talk days to get started.

Agile until now has been troubled by being mainly around teams and their work. Going forward sustainable and purposeful risk taking at enterprise level will be more important. Strategy traditionally has been outside the agile scope. That need to change.

I believe the shift we need and see can be explained by that: a shift from puzzling with teams&work dependencies to balancing cost&risk position.

CLPM helps shift your stance and perspective from an ordered to an unordered worldview.

On the bigger why, this connects to our ambition of a cooler, greener, cleaner, and more friendly planet. Every person who goes to work without contributing at full or is excluded from freely exploring personal growth and prosperity is a loss for society. Any company spending more resources than necessary on accomplishing their mission is a loss for society. A deadweight loss and a tax on sustainability and innovation. And we talk big numbers with a lot of +/-50% factors at play.

Fat-tails and toxicity in the wider sense have no place in the modern workplace. Period.

You often hear companies expressed difficulties finding the balance between structure and freedom. The impossible balance I would say. I see this play on another axis of closedness versus openness - with any progression towards openness desirable, if not necessary.

We might well be facing a new era of openness - transparency, inclusion and adaptability.

This is still a bit 1%

But unlike 10 years ago this time I do not need to put my hammer down.

If you want to know more, join one of our meetups. Participation is limited to max 10 people (for now) and we always have wonderful conversations.

Or ping me. If your team is interested and time allows, I am happy to offer a short intro. You can also ask Iben Stjerne.

Find the meetups and more context from www.openstrategy.works/meet-us

(The picture above is from our latest presentation on open strategy, which is a curation of classical open strategy in a complex perspective. Some will recognise Cynefin in the picture.)