This Sounds A Lot Like...

Stop me if you've heard this...

I recently heard from a fellow coach how the company they were working with didn't like the phrase "Agile Transformation". Somehow, this had garnered a bad taste in the mouth of the executives, so they were calling their transformation something else. Some of you might be chuckling, but there is a really large percentage of you who are nodding your heads because you're experiencing the same thing at your company.

To some degree, this is people being afraid of something new. People naturally avoid change. We get comfortable in our routines and reject any changes that might disrupt that comfort. Another reason for this is previous experiences with Agile and/or Scrum. Either at previous companies or the same company, where a transformation has been attempted once or more and failed and people are looking for ways to separate this new attempt from previous failures.

We could debate the hows and whys of why Agile transformations are so difficult and hard to achieve, but what I'd like to take a look at is what about Agile is so familiar and yet so seldom mentioned.

What does Agile say...

Let's start with some of the twelve principles:

1 - Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2 - Simplicity - the art of maximizing the amount of work not done - is essential.

3 - Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

4 - At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

5 - The best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

6 - The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

And the 4 values:

1. people and interactions over processes and tools
2. working software over comprehensive documentation
3. responding to change over following a plan
4. customer collaboration over contract negotiation

What does Scrum say...

Now let's look at some of the tenants of Scrum:

1. Iteration
2. Transparency, Inspection & Adaptation
3. Providing value
4. Prioritization
5. Focus
6. Planning & reviewing work

Scrum is an evolution of Plan, Do, Check, Act - an iterative four-step management method used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products which has been around since the 1950's.

While Scrum and Agile have primarily been associated with software development, they are by no means limited to this field of work.

Isn't that just like...

Let's look at some other terms:

1. Prioritize Ruthlessly. Recognize that you can't get it all done. Learn to say no. Make a to-do list.
2. Find out Where You're Wasting Time. Overcome procrastination. Avoid fake work.
3. Realize Time Management is a Myth/Learn to Delegate and/or Outsource. Take care of your health (get sleep, exercise, healthy eating). Let perfection go. Work a set number of hours a day.
4. Create routines. Study in a regular pattern.
5. Don't Waste Time Waiting. Your Time Belongs to You. You can be in control and accomplish what you want to accomplish.
6. Iterate. Break work into smaller chunks you can complete easily.

These fit right in with Agile & Scrum conventions yet they are recommendations straight from productivity gurus. You can take these tips right off the web, implement them and improve your productivity and production. What they don't come with is roles, certifications and giant contracting firms eager to roll it out into your company.

So why isn't it easier?

Any of us can take these tips, apply them to our personal lives and see immediate results that make us feel like we're accomplishing things - getting done the things we want to get done and wasting less time. Once we step into the office though, things get much more complicated.

As explained by Dr. Michael St. Pierre in his article "The Unspoken Truth About Productivity Gurus", the office environment involves more people and more interruptions which are quite simply out of your control. This doesn't mean that change can't happen, but it does mean you will not have the control you are used to in your personal life.

A transformation to Agile is so much more than implementing Scrum, DevOps or any other framework. It involves people changing how they think about work and how they actually work. This might sound like a simple, win-win concept, but as mentioned previously, we naturally reject the change. When you add years of built-up habits and then top it off with the risk of failure at work, who wants to jeopardize what is providing their safety and security?

It takes a certain mindset to be willing to take that leap. To risk failure in the pursuit of improvement. And not everybody reaches that point at the same time. Getting dozens, hundreds or thousands of people to synchronize in this activity is what makes transformation such a complex endeavor.

Is it futile?

Transformation is a journey, not an event. Improvement implies the passage of time and if you haven't figured out working with people is complex, challenging and unpredictable, perhaps you have some things in common with Christopher Thomas Knight.

My recommendation is to implement productivity habits where you can personally first, implement them professionally where you can and don't be shy about sharing your successes with others. All grand changes start with the smallest movement and everything Agile, Scrum & Productivity seek to accomplish are to make us our most happy and best selves. Why wouldn't we want to continue to strive for that?

If you're interested in learning more about productivity hacks, tips and advice, there are several guru's in the link above with their books referenced as well as here are a few folks on Youtube with some interesting discussions on habits and tools to help us be more productive.

Thomas Frank

Productivity Game

Keep Productive

Simpletivity

In addition to those, there are numerous other single productivity videos by dozens of others who have discovered some tip or hack that has worked well for them. As Dr. St. Pierre had indicated, most of these come from folks at small companies who don't have to deal with getting thousands or even hundreds of people on board with new ideas, so your mileage may vary.