Where is the Agile I was promised ?

We adopted agile 2 years ago. However, I feel we are still missing the Agile we were promised.

 We are going through a transformation, but it feels so chaotic and people are very unhappy.

 We have been Agile for the past 3 years but I am still not sure if it helped us be more productive?

 And so on ….

 Do you find that any of the above applies to your organization? Have you had this conversation or at least read an article on the same subject?

 Hmm ...

 So what do you think is happening with so many people complaining about Agile?

 There are two possibilities

1. We were lied to and tricked - Agile never worked for anyone and is a flawed process.

                                                        OR

1. The Agile I understood and adopted is not what Agile is.

 To start with, I will go with option 2 and will come back to option 1 later.

 Option 2: The Agile I understood and adopted is not what Agile is.

 Before I come back to Option 1, I would like to explain Agile in a non-Technical way (to simplify it).

 Agile has two parts

1. Body / Frame: The body of Agile includes
   1. Roles: Scrum Master, Product Owner & Delivery Team
   2. Ceremonies: Planning, Refinement, Daily Stand Up, Sprint Review & Retrospective
   3. Artifacts: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog & Burndown Charts,
   4. Other Parts: Definition of Done, Definition of Ready, Working Agreements.

1. Soul
   1. Agile Values (Communication, Simplicity, Courage, Feedback, Trust, Collaboration, Respect, Focus, Commitment)
   2. Servant leadership. (Leader who develops people, removes impediments, provides autonomy, engages & motivates)
   3. Autonomy of individuals (Teams have a say in decision making, they are not dependent on managers for everything)
   4. Performing Roles as prescribed (We act as Scrum Master and not the Manager, we act as a Product Owner and not a messenger, we act as a team and not individuals)
   5. System thinking (Optimization of subsystems of the systems and thinking of the system as a whole)

Now since we talked about the Soul of Agile let’s go back to basics. i.e. the Agile Manifesto.

1. Individuals & Interaction over Process & Tools;

• How much time and money have you invested in motivating individuals to collaborate? Or is that an overhead?
• What have you invested in teams to come together, talk, eat, have fun, know about each other, go out together? Or have you assumed that a lunch once in a while is enough to bring together and collaborate?
• How much autonomy do your teams / individuals have? Are they aware of and involved in decisions? Can they talk and express themselves freely? Or you think that decisions are to be only made by managers?
• How accessible, approachable and involved are you with your teams? Or you think Managers are to manage and belong to their office.?

2. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the       environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

I picked three points “Motivated Individuals”, “Environment and Support” and Trust:

• So what have you done to motivate your teams or individuals? Activities, incentives, participation, autonomy, empowerment, involvement?
• How have you supported your teams? Are you easily accessible to remove any impediments, have you allowed your teams to make decisions, can they freely express their opinions, do they drive themselves or are they “Managed”?
• Do you trust your teams? Do they trust you? What have you done to build that trust?

 3. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

• Are business people really available to work with the developers? I mean Business People not a messenger?
• Alright, they are available, but are they really business people?
• Fine they are business people, how much do they engage the developers for their inputs and ideas? How transparent are they with the teams i.e. vision, roadmap, evolving needs & feedback.

4. The best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

• So what is self-organizing to you?
• Have you invested in people to develop their skills?
• Have you given an opportunity to people to participate in discussions that help designs & architectures emerge?

I can go on and on. However, at this point I would like to ask you, how much have you invested in the Body of Agile versus the Soul of Agile? I hope you are not expecting the body to function without its soul.  I will let you answer for yourself “Where is the Agile you were promised”.

Also, do I still need to talk about Option 1?

PS: Special thanks to my mentor Steve Sanoff to always motivate and guide along the way.