Shifting Perspectives: Embracing Agile Leadership Beyond Operational Teams

One tends to think of Agile being only for Teams.

One couldnt be more wrong, but thats the affect on industry that Scrumwashing & Spotifcation has had led by the big consultancies and the infighting amongst Agile Peak Bodies cashing in, particularly from mass sales of low quality, cheap, fast training business model to satisfy HR and Managers, that fund these peak bodies.

Using our Pattern of Dualality - aka Stability with Agility as part of our Enterprise Agility Way Thinking we can start to see why, how, when & where things have gone wrong in the bottom up approaches taken by most "Agile Transformations"

To get Agile behaviours instilled/embedded in Teams, those Teams must emulate someone. That's someone is the Leaders.

Those Line Managers as well as Senior Management & Executive - including the Board & Chairperson themselves.

Lets use our introspection, powers of retrospection to adopt/apply lessons learned, to improve/adapt going forward.

Why Does Agile & Agility Start at the Top?

Great question...the answer is because most Agile Transformation focused on process driven by HR, Change and PMOs focusing again, on process - project management process.

What they all oversaw/failed in, was fundamentally understanding that Agile & Agility is a Cultural Movement.

What that means is that they completely overlooked the Behavioural Change elements because they are harder to see/spot/understand if you don't have the right background as a practitioner/master practitioner leading these sort of implementation initiatives.

Organisational Culture

Culture is what you get when behaviours, attitudes, values, principles & actions collide.

Lets use an example in context of why Agile & Agility starts at the top and I have had to explain too many times too Fiancial Services Organisations.

FS seem to think they are the most heavily regulated, complaince and audit XXXXX

I watched the MD of a Big Bank's Agile Transformation sit in the corner, & hear the Stands Up he demanded be put in place. He demanded a Project Manager be in charge of each Scrum or Kanban Team. He also demanded the PMO to provide oversight & ultimate control.

So as soon as Team Memeber from the Squad started to speak, immediatley you would hear from these leaders mumblings in the background, when will this be done, how many man days, whose responsible, how much does it cost, why aren't the issues on the log etc The Scrum/Kanban Masters would reive follow up vists from the PMO, asking why the logs arent complete, why they didint know about this. We use JIRA, liek the Manual says we have to as our System of Record for all work and changes. THis is what we are supposed to do to be accountable, repsoiilty, traceable, adutiable. The Teams who depsperately wanted to go Agile using Scrum or Kanban were immediatly facing the Wagile Wall.

The culture hadnt changed becuase the tools used to reinfrice the new ways of working were not being used by the PMO and Managers and Leaders wh thought they wer ot for them. The Scrum Masters and Project Managers - bless them - had filled in JIRA with the details asked.

JIRA automated Status Dashboards, providing the Sprint Updates, Stand Ups raised the Bloks, Barriers to be escalated for resolve by Managers, sprint planning, reviews, show & tells provided the risk managment, waste, cost managment, quality managment etc but the command and control, project/programme driven culture hadnt adjsuted, nor saw the benefits of less meetings, more automation amd more time building what customers/end users wanted to meet the busienss case, targets etc.

What was happening,and si still atypical, is they are eslaved in beacraracy and in meeting becracracy bells and whsistles, that they werent changing the org culture from this - to being relentlessly customer and market focused liek the busienss is, so they could do better business by supplying more of whats in demand, and by irngin out the bugs, to iprove of prodcut Bs perfomance.

Why doesnt Cultural Adaptation Occur?

Two big causes really.

1. PMOs/Change/HR - all focused on process not outcomes or even outputs, just milestones of fake nothings, meaningless moments, to feed dash boards and get ada boys.

   
   

2. Becuase peopel are taught to think people don't like, are resistant/incapable of/to change

   
   

3. Because of the Agile Method & Framework Wars

   
   

   Let me explain this one in short. The Agile Community has been its own worst enemny, a result of the low quaility, poor quaility training.

   
   

It fundamentally disagrees with its own processes,methods, practices and patterns. Thye are prescriptive, they are this, that, dont work here, wont work there. This is all bulldust, bull dust from the inexpereinced, the ill infored, and ill practising.

How you learn is through play, you immitate actions or sceraios - youve got a shovel and bucket, you move sand with your JCB Bucket Digger/shovel from outside left leg to your right leg, but the sea water keeps washing away progress - building on sand/building on sandcastles...its ok for adults to play, that why weve so succesful using Lego as a licesne to let adults pay through simualtion games, aking out the stigma that busiens speple dont have emotions, or shouldnt have fun at work.

An example. Daily Stand Ups/Scrums...where a behaviural modification deliberaly to kill the bad do as i say or esle command and controls of Project Managers who wwore boots a few too many sizes than there role auhtority allowed for. Instead of yelling, short sharp, noise, the Scrum Master was introdcued to facilaite communcatioon, understanding and resolve first time, by the self managing, selg orgnisaing, self regualting team help one another. IN Scrum and eslwhere this si refred to as servant leadership,, a style that can come from anywhere and anyone, however, the hot head PMs only undertood Authoeorty, as they emulated thier Managers whhokicked thier backside when thier Leaders kicked thier backsides. So Agile's goal by designs was to change this type of lead by Autoeoty behaviour, by decentralsing it to the team who was closest totwrk, clsoest to the customers, and clsoest to the bisness, with the Scrum Master interacting with the Business Owner as the real lead - no the PM, PMO or Line Managment of HR.

THe Water - Scrum Fall, Wagile lead to the cobsulsiions that Agile doesnt work.

Every Model is assumed Broken - there is no such thing as Best Practice.

Not only is Scrum and Kanb, do we have built in measures, controls, ways to audit, ways to change prioeorrty without all the paperwork, cost of face to face by committee meetings, these things are in the training packages to qualify ou as a Scrum Master.

Agile assume everythigis borken, we take from Lean, the Conutous Improvement Mindset, Find Better Ways of Doing/Working, taking a scinetific appach, proving the hyposthies/idea, right or wrong, learning from the expereiment to improve.

Why Agile and Agility Starts from the Top Echelons

People mirror other people who thye find to be inspirational, motived by, share common interests and emualte them. Call it role modelling if you like.

If the Chapreson says/writes/speaks Anit-Agile, what willl the Board speak - show in thier behours/responsess.

If the Chair and Board are Anti-Agility, then their Managers are going to be.

This is were the process of Agile Transforation forge the People, and pfcused only on the Technologies and Processes.

If i am bluntly honest, most of th epeopel oding Agile didint know, dont get this - that Agile, like Lean, like DevOps is a cultral movment that changes peoples behious through its aptterns and ways of working for the better. They are not simply new project mamagment process for the sake of them,, sawpping waterfall for Scrum - what youre rally doing is changing the Operating Model and its embdded DNA from Becrcracy to Generative.

Why arent we working Faster, Smarter, Getting Better Results, Making More Money?

Cries the Board, its Shareholders, its Invested Pensions Funds....youre doing Agile right?

Well Agile sint a silver bullt or pancea as we've seen, becuase they Org Cultrr hasnt changed not has the Organisational Desing, OP Model, business Moldes, Sysytems Platforms, Tools and Process, Patterns, princepls and Values.

The Board doesnt know what the Agile Maninfesto is, why it was invented, what it aimed to solve.

Agile wasnt never about really about Speed/Faster toMarket - it was and still is a benefit of a flatter, simpler approach. SMall Team werent about head count redcution, they were aout better communication and collaboration. Sprints/Timeboxes were about rsk, quality, waste amangment.

The Flatterarachy of Agile/Agility is missing.

We still have PMOs running Portfolios, not the responsible Business Leaders.

We still have PMOs telling Value Streams what to work on, when, how, despite them being experts.

We have Scrum Product Owners who think they are Product Leaders/Managers, yet have no fincial or commercial repsosibility in market for sucess/failure

We have Scrum Project Managers overuling the Product Mangers/Leaders.

Everyone is a Prodcut, Service or Tech Company, but arent really

These a re jsut oa few of the Sytemic Fauures we can catalogue that have failed to create the Agile Orgnisation that has true Entperise/Busienss Agility - the very thing CxOs, Chairs of the Board and the Board are all screaming for, but seemilngly it still illusive to them.

Whats the Secret to Sucess then?

Change your Ord Design - be conneceted, be circualr

Change your Org Culture - decentralise, empower, trust

Blend in the right, properly configured Tools, Platforms & Systems - to sustain this cultural shift from process, from mandatory information & material flows

Use Coaching at all flight Levels - to catch bad habits, and course correct them

Start from the Top to Affect the Bottom - Be a Role Model, a Mentor, a Guide

You are building a holistic end to end Organisation, assess, review, evalaute it against the Traits & Charactertics of an Agile Orngisation - stop dragging people into the office is they don't need to be there 100% time

Create, Share and Update your Manifesto for Agility - the document that seems unimportant, but is a the centre of your whole Values System, Chain, Streams and Teams

Remove Complexity, Beacracy, Demotivating Policy & Procedures - Aim for Guardrails, Worked Examples/Stories to drive innovative/generative thinking, patterns & practices