The Agile Mind-Set: Making Agile Processes Work

Gil Broza, author of The Agile Mind-Set: Making Processes Work, spoke to 120 agile coaches gathered at the monthly meeting of Agile New England in Waltham, MA, on April 7. Gil posed the following question to the audience: "How many of you have coached teams that have adopted the practices and processes of agile development, but have achieved mediocre (or worse) results?" Well more than half us (myself included) raised our hands.For the next 90 minutes, he worked us through the thesis of his book: that teams can adopt agile practices and processes, but unless their underlying beliefs and values are consistent with the agile mind-set, the team's results will likely not meet expectations.A few of Gil's definitions are in order:1. Values: What you consider most important in the current situation2. Beliefs: What you hold to be true in that type of situation3. Principles: Which standards guide your choices, decisions and actionsAccording to Gil, Agile is anchored in four foundational values - meaning if you choose the Agile approach for the work at hand, your top-ranked values include (and don't contradict) the Agile four:Agile Values1. People come first, before product and before process. Those people are everyone with a stake in the work, not just the team that produces it; customers and managers are people too. This value is known in the Agile community as "individuals and interactions."2. Adaptation. Opportunities and need for change - of mind, of understanding, or of circumstance - will occur; embrace those changes that are worth embracing (e.g. for competitive advantage). Adaptation encompasses the readiness, ability, and willingness to respond to change. The change may apply to people, process, or product.3. Early and frequent value delivery. The work has some customer, perhaps even several. They might be paying, or not, and they might not be the end users. The workers out to focus relentlessly on doing valuable work and making a difference, so their customers see an early and frequent return on investment.4. Customer collaboration. The producers of the work ought to collaborate with their customers for the result to truly delight them. It is a spirit of partnership, not of vendor-buying or winner-loser.Gil goes on to status that Agile has a set of beliefs about people, the work, and the work's customers:Agile Principles• People. The Agile mind-set is congruent with Theory Y, which says that competent, motivated, trusted, and supported people will do well. Pragmatically, though - the Agile thinking goes - as human beings they will get some (or even many) things wrong. Even when they're right, they're not perfect, but working closely together enriches the outcomes that they could achieve individually. In light of the four values, people with an Agile mind-set believe that the best model that manages the downside and elevates the upside is the self-organizing, collaborative team.• The customer. Two of the Agile values are focused on the customer - the entity that wants the results of the work (the other values, a little less so). However, the Agile mind-set does not assume that the customer is always right. in fact, its basic belief is that customers can't - and, being adaptive, shouldn't - pinpoint future needs and wants. Moreover, even if they have a good handle on what's needed now, delaying implementation will make those requirements go stale. The sensible thing to do, therefore, is to focus intently on the what the customer needs now, and not commit too far in the future. Knowing top need and fulfilling them is being effective, which from an Agile standpoint matters more than being efficient.• The work. Even if the four Agile values are indeed your most important values, and even if you agree with the beliefs mentioned so far, what is true of the work? The Agile mind-side is formulated particularly for complex work. As such, it's based on a particular belief: emergence, or evolution - rather than planning - is an appropriate response to complexity. And what's the best enabler of emergence? The short feedback loop. Since feedback, emergence, and adaptation imply frequent change, a key Agile assumption is that the cost of change can remain low. When this isn't the case - for instance in some civil engineering projects - Agile will probably not be a good fit.Regarding agile practices, Gil has refactored the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto into twenty-six, organized into three categories:Agile Principles1. Principles Regarding People: respect, transparency, trust, personal safety, focus, sustainable pace, self-organization, collaboration, communication, consensus, and leadership2. Principles Regarding Work: outcome, effectiveness, deference of decisions, simplicity, experimentation, cadence, reliability, cost of change, shippable increments, results, quality, and time-boxing3. Meta-Principles: feedback loops, continual learning, and continuous improvementAlthough I had not seen the fundaments of Agile presented in quite this way, this all seemed like motherhood and apple-pie to me. The ah-ha moment for me was when Gil contrasted these values, beliefs and principles to some deeply held waterfall (or - as I prefer - plan-driven) values (e.g. plan the work and then work the plan, minimize cost and schedule, make accurate commitments, or be able to adjust the resources quickly) and beliefs (e.g. if we do the all the design before starting implementation, we reduce risk and avoid rework, or if we sign-off on requirements now and the team will finish developing them six months from now, the requirements will still be valuable and relevant).Values and beliefs are deep-seated and hard to change. If the people associated with an agile endeavor (team and/or stakeholders) harbor conventional, plan-drive values and beliefs--and we coaches only teach the principles and practices of agile, then we are at risk of only getting mediocre (or worse) results.Now (as an old-time project manager), how do we mitigate this risk? Gil says that in his two-day agile training, he spends 3/4 of the time on agile values and beliefs--and the remainder on principles and practices.I've agile coached in multiple contexts. In general, the least effective for me has been attempting an enterprise-wide transformation with general education and training offerings, followed by what I call "in-situ" coaching of individual teams - meaning observing a team in their current project and offering suggestions for incremental improvements.Getting the entire team out of their project context for a couple of days, if that is possible, affords the opportunity to help the team explore their values and beliefs in contrast with agile values and beliefs. This is definitely an improvement.But I've experienced the best results with companies that have established agile solution centers which are founded upon agile values, beliefs, and principles and behave in accordance with agile practices and processes on a day-to-day basis. These companies can then rotate employees through extended stints (e.g. 6 months or longer) in the agile solution center--and then have them return to their home context as agile evangelists.

As Jim Highsmith says at the beginning, "Many organizations fail to reap the benefits of Agile because they adopted the practices but not the mindset". Finally, here is a guide and an exploration on the other side of the Agile coin (being Agile - not just DOING Agile!) - the Agile mindset. Doing Agile is easy (install framework, spin up the meetings and events, create the artifacts etc) but if the mindset isn't addressed, your Agile transformation will fail. Gil breaks down what the Agile mindset is, what it means, and how to apply it across the full spectrum of your organization to fully reap the benefits of Agile. Make no mistake, the mindset shift to Agile is HARD and takes dedication, patience and buckets of time. But with this book as an informant and guide, you have a good chance of shifting it in all sorts of wonderful directions and making your org and your teams really flourish with Agile.

This is a “must have” resource for Agile coaches to educate clients struggling with an “Agile transformation”! Recent books on “Agile” are often cookbooks, describing sequential steps for implementing some “Agile recipe”. Gil says “While there is no single recipe for Agile to succeed, this book will show you what ingredients you, as and Agile chef would need for your recipe…” So, just as yeast is needed for bread to rise, an Agile mind-set is the essential ingredient for Agile to “rise”. Some other books on Agile gloss over the need for an Agile mind-set, in effect ignoring the need for yeast to bake bread properly. Other sources presuppose that an Agile mind-set (the yeast) is already in-place. This is a colossal assumption that’s incorrect more times than not. Compared with other Agile “how to” guides, Gil’s book instead reveals the raison d'être behind Agile. Gil dives deeply into Agile’s complex underpinnings and misunderstood nuances, reaffirming Agile’s powerful potential when properly understood, embraced and supported across the entire organizational fabric. The Agile Manifesto begins with the statement that “we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over process and tools”. This crucial Agile pillar is missed by many organizations. Gil’s section titled “People Are Not Resources” shines a very bright light on this fundamental concept, helping us to realize that people comprise teams that evolve organically. Gil provides the same insight into the rest the Manifesto as well (because this author really “gets it”). This is also a Lean book that’s easy to read, providing much benefit in return for a small effort (and no waste). Gil clearly explains (and convinces us) why any Agile seeds planted won’t germinate until the organizational soil bed is properly amended with the abundant nutrients an Agile mind-set unleashes. Highly recommended.

As an Agile Coach, I find that the words Scrum and Agile are used interchangeably too often. This book is a fantastic reminder that Scrum is merely one of a few different frameworks based on a mindset called Agile. Like Gil, I see Agile transformations fail primarily because companies are very good at implementing the process without adopting the mindset. The mindset is one of the hardest parts and getting it right seems to land in management's court more often than not.If we're going to succeed at bringing Agile to greater audiences through Scrum and other practices, we mustn't lose sight of the human psychology (as Gil puts it, values, beliefs, and principles) that drive our behaviors. If Scrum is a map, the Agile mindset is a compass that helps when we're making day-to-day decisions to adapt to the changing terrain.This book has now become required reading for the Scrum Masters I work with and the "if you have time for only one book" recommendation to the management teams. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Very good

I sat one of Gil's courses (Agile Software Engineering), so I had high expectations of this book. It's *very* conversational, so it's a quick read, but I'm getting the messages loud and clear. I am confident that this will make my life easier at work. Thanks Gil!

Excelente libro para los que inician en temas de agilidad, más allá del desarrollo de software. Exponen varios conceptos para entender y desarrollar la mentalidad ágil. Contiene buenos ejemplos de experiencias.

A really good read. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is starting out on the agile road. If you visit his website after purchasing the book, there are other materials available that will aid in your learning.

Book was as expected, and in new and good condition. Can't comment on the book content as it was for my wife.