Let’s take a look at dictionary.com’s definition of transform: change in form, appearance, structure. In our previous posts we covered the misuse and abuse of the word “Agile”. In this final post in this series, we will explore how leaders lose even more credibility by not only misusing the words Agile or Scrum but Transformation also.
Agile approaches such as Scrum require structural change and behavioral change. We hear from countless students that their leaders have declared undergoing an “Agile Transformation”. When we ask about restructuring into cross-functional feature teams the answer is consistently “no, we’re still in our component teams of analysis, design, programming, testing, database, etc.”.
Have you heard the old definition of insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You are not a credible Agile Leader if you declare that you are in a Scrum Transformation or Agile Transformation and the only thing that has actually changed is that you are now misusing additional words. Saying Agile won’t make you deliver faster. Saying Scrum doesn’t enable responsiveness to changing priorities. Structural change is required to eliminate hand-offs, wait states and waste.
The reality of any “Agile” approach is requiring not only structural change but behavioral change. Principle 11 in the Agile Manifesto doesn’t declare that individuals perform only 1 activity. Quite the opposite. It notes that the best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams: agilemanifesto.org
That means that people are expected to work together. If people serving the organization refuse to learn any new skills and only want to perform a singular activity that matches their old job title, what have you done as their leader to set expectations? If there has been no training and no expectation setting, is it any wonder that people are behaving in the old way? And if the structure supports their old way of behaving, the only thing people are hearing is the word “agile” and not really doing anything differently.
If you now understand why your credibility as an “Agile Leader” is pretty low and you’re wondering how to fix it, we’ve provided tips for each dysfunction in previous posts. For your convenience those are recapped here along with 2 new tips for addressing your misuse of the word “transformation”:
· Tell people why the organization is making structural changes
· Set expectations with people about what behavioral changes are required
· Dedicate teams of people 100% to respective work
· Order or rank the work (it all can’t be “priority”)
· Define clear, measurable, goals and objectives
· Define the overall framework or approach to doing work at the organization but…
· Let the people closest to the work own their own process for managing that specific work
Notice that the recapped tips do not require you to use the words “Agile” or “Scrum”. Leveraging these tips will help you be a better leader for the organization and because they are aligned with Agile and Scrum they will also increase your credibility as an Agile Leader.
For education or coaching on being a credible Agile Leader, contact us at: info@coleadteam.com