The most enjoyable part of every agile transformation is the time spent with people during one-on-ones. They bring their realities and difficulties to the conversation. We sort out what’s going on. They allow me to share insights and provide alternatives for their consideration. They leave the discussions appreciative with ideas to consider for next steps. The best compliment that I can receive is when they thank me for allowing them time to think.
An often asked question after we’ve wrapped up a discussion is, from my perspective, what’s the most critical step in an agile transformation? They are always surprised that my answer doesn’t appear to conform to the Agile Manifesto. They expect something like, establish Scrum rituals. Or, do agile training. Or, define individual and teams’ roles and responsibilities. Or, define the SAFe or S@S hierarchy. Or, establish a maturity model with a clear definition of done. And to be fair, these are important items to establish during an agile transformation, but they aren’t the most critical.
My answer is simply to establish a Learning Organization. That is an organization that values curiosity, change, experimentation, inspections, introspection, education, teaching moments, trends, root cause analysis, improvement, and innovation.
I have found that many organizations are in an unconscious competence state where they do what they do because they have documented processes for how they do everything, but they have forgotten why they do these things, or they are in telling leadership style where they expect to ‘just tell the organization what and how to do everything’.
The urgency of needing to fix a bad agile transformation gone wrong, to move quickly to mature agile development, and/or the onslaught of business conditions reinforces the leadership’s expectations to do what they do faster or just tell them what to do now. There’s no time to learn. Absolutely no time for experimentation. If there’s any failure, there’s only time to punish.
At the core of agile thinking is empirical inspections, or the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle. The core is reinforced by Sprint Review meetings, retrospectives, burndowns, velocity and root cause analysis. How can any of these be done without a Learning Organization? Sadly, none can be done correctly. Those organizations that do these rituals without reasoning, or do Scrum in name only aren’t improving, growing or learning.
When staging an agile transformation, my first act is to set up as many cross-functional, multilevel one-on-ones as possible. The one-on-one frequency varies based upon particular needs of the individual. They are always confidential and designed as a safe place for exploration and learning. I always focus on root cause analysis in my questioning to help raise curiosity as to ‘why’. I have never been disappointed by the 5 ‘whys’ questioning method that quickly guides our one-on-one to a deeper understanding of the situation and presents alternatives to consider. I explain how PDCA, retrospectives, etc are aspects of learning and experimentation, and how those must be done to achieve improvements, albeit initially on a small scale.
What I’ve noticed is after a number of these meetings, that those involved in my one-on-ones start to set expectations with their leaders and teams for root causes, deeper reflections, incremental improvements and seeking information on concepts they don’t understand. Learning is valued. Time is set aside for discussions. Experimentation is planned. Results are inspected. Adjustments are made.
As leaders mimic, teams start to learn and pick up on the value of Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives. Teams become curious about ‘why’ the various rituals, metrics and roles are defined. They become open to the role of the Scrum Master guiding the team to maturity. This opens the door to more learning and improvements.
A Learning Organization that only remains within a single function like engineering, can make good progress on an agile transformation, but one that does it across multiple functions can make amazing progress on agile transformation and the velocity of business value delivered.
The difficult step in a Learning Organization is to learn together across functional groups and across teams. This means understanding that the role of leadership in an agile organization is different from what they may have grown accustomed to. Functional leaders and their functions play important roles in agile organizations. Setting up and enabling the role of architecture that empowers teams to act and gain velocity. Building a value chain from specification to builds to validation to deployment to enablement to sales to support. Defining a product backlog that is built on continuous increments of capabilities that are continuously deployed.
I liken creating a Learning Organization across functional groups to that of nurturing a human being. When the human is a child, we nurture and educate them on the basics with an expectation that they will eventually grow and mature. When they reach their teens, we help them understand the deeper, abstract nature of the world around them. We can demand more from them, but they remain immature in other ways. When they reach their twenties, we help them understand the interconnectedness and interdependence of complex systems. We demand professionalism and perfection.
I have found that a functional organization is well aware of their shortcomings, however, they expect and demand perfection from all of the other functions. I have to point out that while the individuals and organizations may be highly experienced and successful, they too are in the midst of an agile transformation both within their organization and their relationship with the other organizations. We need to realize that together we operate more like a child that needs nurturing and education together. This is far better than demanding a child to do something that they are incapable of doing and expecting adult results.
As we grow being a Learning Organization, we as a whole organization will become teens and adults. As mature adults, we now understand the complexities in delivering value and continuous improvement. We innovate. We teach. We are consciously competent together.
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