Agile: Make a Movement, not a Goal Line

Tord Overå, Scrum Master & Agile Awareness Speaker, Telenor

Tord Overå, Scrum Master & Agile Awareness Speaker, Telenor

Turning your organization around is a cumbersome process no matter what you define as your end-state. In recent years, agile way of work has become the go-to-solution for organizations and companies in increasingly rapid-changing industries. However, top-down push bears many risks, including failing to translate the basic agile principles into successful operations, and in turn not having a large scale effect.

Doing it right

I work in a company with more than 20,000 employees, spread across Europe and Asia, divided by the borders of 8 countries, and a multitude of cultures. Here, I have worked in teams with both highly agile principles and values established, and teams where those values are less accepted and understood. When it works, it spreads. When one team is truly successful in applying the agile values, others around it will start asking what they are doing since they seem both happier and more effective. They will want to join in what is the agile journey, and it will become a self-reinforcing movement.

Friction: the price you pay

Deep acceptance of the agile values and principles takes time, and can potentially cause a fair bit of friction along the way. Middle managers start dragging their feet because they realize that their mandate is more effective if it’s distributed down to employees closer to the customer. Finance departments become nervous as long term detailed plans and budgets do not exist.

“Career chasers” have a hard time accepting the ambiguous definition of a career ladder laid out before them, because the way to the top is less obvious than before. It’s important to be aware of these potential friction points before embarking on your agile journey because if you really want to reap the fruits of agile, you will have to endure and resolve these challenges.

With both the pros and cons of my experience, I have reached three absolute truths.

1) Mature agile processes, principles, and values in and outside a team, is by far a superior way of working, but you must be willing to pay the price to get there.

2) I don’t believe in the successful adoption of agile as a result of a large scale push from above, but rather organically growing it from specific teams.

3) Agile maturity will vary over time. No team is agile, but rather they are at some stage of the agile journey

So how can you, if you’re willing to pay the price, start your agile journey in a way you know will bear fruits for your entire organization further down the line?

Creating the movement

You need to succeed in one unit before it spreads. The initial success in this team requires commitment; experienced agile coaches, liberal opex and capex funds to experiment and explore new opportunities, and aligned top-level management buy-in. Have you ever seen the Youtube video “How to make a Movement” by Derek Sivers? It very well depicts the same point: The initial effort can seem strange and ridiculous when it’s not set in the context of the movement it creates. The movement itself is tremendous.

As the initial team starts to become self-sufficient, the agile coaches can move on to teams that in parallel have been intrigued by this new way of working and now have bought into the idea. Management starts to see that the first teams are exceeding their peers in results and supports scaling the efforts. Management will also have made some key learnings through the pilot phase and starts working as a "de-blocking" team, making sure that their teams can focus their attention on what they do best, be it marketing, software development, or infrastructure maintenance.

But first, you have to plant a seed and ensure it flourishes and spreads in your organization. It will work, it will bear fruits, but it will hurt. People will be frustrated, you will doubt yourself at some point, some people might even leave in protest, but you will have successfully navigated your organization towards an inevitable future of organizational culture and setup. And remember; agile is a movement on a journey, and there is no final goal line.