Could Agile be a Trojan horse for a bottom-up business transformation?
In February 2001, a small group of software developers met at the Snowbird resort in Utah to explore better ways of developing software. They came up with the agile software development manifesto and it changed their field forever. Fifteen years later, the publication of two articles in the Harvard Business Review (1) is a landmark demonstrating that Agile has come of age.
But for many executives, Agile is still an obscure concept more relevant for other industries than theirs, or at best to certain functions within their company (Information Technology).
Despite undeniable successes, Agile is still flying under the executive radar, and as a consequence its potential as a powerful tool for behavioural change is not yet understood.
In this article I explore why Agile has been so successful, and at the same time why its full transformative potential will not be realised until a shift in leadership practices occurs.
From better software to happier workplaces
In the information technology world, Agile methodologies are an alternative to waterfall, or the traditional development approach, that helps teams respond to unpredictability through incremental, iterative work cadences, known as sprints. All Agile methodologies were built on the principles of the Agile manifesto (see enclosed picture).
In the field of software development, where Agile originated, its successes are now beyond debate. But over time, Agile has moved from the IT domain to symbolise a different way of working.
Scrum, one of the most popular Agile methodologies, defines itself as “a simple yet incredibly powerful set of principles and practices that help teams deliver products in short cycles, enabling fast feedback, continual improvement, and rapid adaptation to change.” Not a word about software development anymore but a strong foothold in product development. By enabling speed and customer-centricity thanks to short iterations providing regular feedback, Agile has become instrumental in delivering products and services customers want.
The ScrumAlliance, an organisation that encourages and supports the widespread adoption and practice of Scrum, defines its mission as “to guide and inspire individuals, leaders, and organisations with practices, principles, and values that create workplaces that are joyful, prosperous, and sustainable.”
Wow, from better software development to creating more joyful workplaces! That’s a big stretch, especially with a body of knowledge (corescrum) that fits in an 11-page document and many executives who don’t yet know of its existence.
Will Agile and the dominant leadership culture converge or clash?
The reason why Agile has been so successful with software development and product development until now is hidden at first sight.
Of course, it might be partially due to a proven methodology with defined roles (ScrumMaster, Product Owner, team), artefacts (product backlog, sprint backlog, product increment) and rituals (daily stand-up, sprint review, sprint retrospective).
However, its success might actually have a lot more to do with the context created for the team delivering the work.
By design, an Agile team is self-managed. No more manager or leader to take orders from. Every team member is empowered to make the decisions required to deliver the work, and within the team, the ScrumMaster is the incarnation of the servant leader whose role is only to remove obstacles for the rest of the team, enabling them to focus on work and only work.
By design, an Agile team is giving up planning 12 months ahead and then delivering to the plan. With the learnings from each iteration, the team adapts to the emerging reality and can shift priorities for the next sprint in order to deliver, not what was planned, but what has the greatest value for the customer.
By design, an Agile team is focused on delivering value early and regularly, showcasing a product increment at the end of each iteration to its key stakeholders. So the corporate overhead of progress reports, endlessly refined PowerPoint slides and long Steering Committee meetings can almost entirely disappear.
For the teams operating in an Agile project for the first time, it is often a breath of fresh air compared with the constraints of a typical command-and-control environment. Team members’ engagement and happiness at work usually increase dramatically, while the team gets into the habit of delivering high-quality outcomes on a regular basis.
« Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés » (“To live happily, let’s live hidden”) Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian
In many instances Agile teams have enjoyed flying under the corporate radar, protected by the temporary nature of projects and initiatives, or under the protection of an already convinced executive in the technology or product development areas. It would be easy to extrapolate and dream of introducing a few Agile teams in every organisation and let them start bottom-up cultural revolutions.
But how would most executives react when faced with the spread of self-managed teams using a different rulebook? How far and how high in the hierarchy could the bubble spread and grow before triggering a violent system response? Sooner or later, the dominant culture will protect itself, fight back by trying to destroy the emergent new one.
That’s why many localised transitions to Agile have fallen short of transforming the culture across the board. All the bottom-ups transformation attempts would eventually fail if not enough executives make the shift Agile requires from:
1. command-and-control to servant leadership
2. contractual relationships formalised in business cases and service level agreements to trust-based relationships
3. planning 12 months ahead and delivering to the plan, to sensing and adapting to the emerging reality.
I realise that there might be a chicken-and-egg type of situation here, but I have not yet heard of examples where the introduction of Agile has triggered this leadership shift.
So if you are in a company where an initially small Agile community, growing from the bottom, is transforming leadership and culture up to the top, I’d love to hear from you.
I recently worked on the introduction of Agile in a company with a clear mandate to change the culture of how projects are delivered. Within this perimeter, benefits are quick to be delivered. How this could reshape the company culture beyond projects is still to unfold.
Could Agile be a Trojan horse for a bottom-up organisational transformation?
The question remains open, but with the growing interest in Agile let’s hope we will reach a tipping point in the near future and open up a new business transformation pathway towards more joyful workplaces.
Footnote
(1) “Embracing Agile” by Darrell K. Rigby, Jeff Sutherland, Hirotaka Takeuchi in Harvard Business Review published May 2016; “Toward a more Agile future” by Adi Ignatius in Harvard Business Review published May 2016
