Leadership Lesson: 

It was never about Agile

It seems like dark times are upon us in Tech

Every day it seems another company is announcing a new round of layoffs

Twitter, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and most recently Zoom

But this time, something feels different

Included in those companies were Agile darlings CapitalOne and Spotify

Two high profile companies who had their names linked with Agile

Tech has had downturns before, but previous tough times meant it was time for businesses to 

• “Be Agile”

• “Transform”

• “Embrace Agility”

Not this time

Agile, once seen as the solution in down turns, is now treated like everything else

Cut, cut, cut

CapitalOne targeted Agile roles, laying off over 1,100 “agile” positions

Agile could not save Spotify, the creators of “The Spotify Model”, from cuts

What happened?

Let’s look at some patterns that may have played out here

Success Makes Everything Look Good

In my last newsletter, I mentioned asymmetrical problem solving teams

Done well this can result in massive success

The problem with massive success is that it can cover up a significant amount of problems

Everyone wants to know the secret sauce

When we want to learn how a successful business operates, we look and say

“They’re successful and they work like this…”

And believe

“They’re successful BECAUSE they work like this”

And yet, we never say

“They are successful EVEN THOUGH they work like this”

When you have a successful product, you can get away with working any way you like

Could you be more successful with a better way of working?

Sure

Could a bad way of working come back to haunt you?

Definitely

And we’ve seen this happen many times

Does this mean Spotify was successful because of their Agile approach?

Or was it because they had the right product at the right time?

Does this mean Spotify is laying off people because Agile failed?

Or because the market was no longer favorable for their product?

You Need To Be Able To Connect Your Improvements To Business Outcomes

Without measuring changes and seeing how they improve the business, there’s no real way of knowing

And that brings us to CapitalOne

They’ve been at this for a long time

Many coaches have said that a transformation like theirs could between 10 and 20 years

That’s a great deal for an army of coaches looking for some long term engagements

Waiting 10-20 years to see results isn’t great for the client

The number one thing you have to keep in mind when you’re looking to change the way a business operates is:

What problem are you trying to solve?

This has to be crystal clear for everyone involved and should drive any changes that you make

It also makes metrics easy

What metric should you measure?

The one that shows progress against the problem you’re trying to solve

Is This The End For Agile?

I once had a call with an Agile group within a very large organization

The first question I asked them on the call:

What problem are you trying to solve?

The answer?

Silence

They’d been at this for at least 3 years and no one in the group had a clear idea of the problem

 All they knew was they were “Going Agile”

If you think your goal is to “Go Agile”, you’ve already set yourself up for failure

We don’t do Agile things for the sake of being Agile

We adopted these practices because they solved problems we were experiencing

CapitalOne decided the “Agile” team members were no longer needed

This is one of The Old Model optimization anti-patterns that I pointed out in my last newsletter

Is this the end for Agile?

Maybe

My Agile Isn’t Your Agile

I’ve been in Agile for quite some time now

And what I see doesn’t look anything like the Agile I got involved with

My Agile is about getting results

My Agile is about not burning out team members working on death march projects

My Agile is about creating environments that are effective for businesses and people

Back when I first started coaching Agile teams I could count the number of Agile Coaches I knew on my hands

And they were all excellent

They had been through hard projects and tough times

They saw good people suffer under bad systems

They saw bad leaders cause great amounts of suffering

They saw the dysfunctions first hand and wanted to help fix them

They wanted to “uncover better ways of working”

They understood why and when a particular technique would be appropriate

Now maybe I’m just an old man yelling at clouds

But I don’t see these kind of coaches as often as I used to

Now I see

• “You’re going to have bring in more coaches”

• “You have to follow the process exactly”

• “If only we had management support / buy-in”

• “Which certification should I get next?”

• “I’m studying to be a life coach…”

The last one in particular annoys me

It’s like a bunch of life coaches discovered Agile

And since they can’t get hired as life coaches they figured they’d get businesses to pay them for “Agile Coaching”

These coaches are doing the activities they want to do instead of focusing on the mission

And the mission is:

Helping the client solve their problems

Instead what we get is:

Coaches pretending to help businesses while they convince people to quit their jobs

I’ve seen this more times than I’d like to admit

This isn’t the only coaching anti-pattern

Agile Coaching Was A Temporary Role

Every single Agile Coach I knew back in the early days was an external consultant

Why?

Because our job wasn’t to stick around and become employees

Our job was to build capability into the business so that it could become self-sufficient

The problem was people wanted to know:

What was the career path?

If you were a Scrum Master, then what?

Stay a Scrum Master forever?

People wanted to feel like there was somewhere they could move up to

And there was a strong demand for more Agile Coaching

So what happened?

• Take a 2-day Scrum Master certification course

• Spend a minute being a Scrum Master

• Start calling yourself an Agile Coach

What was missing?

The journey

Going through hard times with teams as a team member

Finding solutions to your problems or coming up with your own

Now we have an industry flooded with “Agile Coaches” who act as process police because that’s all they know

They learned the “rules” but haven’t built up the wisdom or creativity yet

There are bright spots

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with quite a few bright spots in organizations

They differentiate themselves because they understand

• We’re trying to solve problems here

• We learn what we can to solve our problems

• No one book or course has all the answers to our problems

• We’re going to have to work to come up with our own solutions

People often talk about “Doing Agile” vs. “Being Agile”

People forget about the most important one

Creating Agile

In the early days you didn’t learn Agile by “Doing” or “Being”

You had to do both and then some because many of the practices didn’t even exist yet

It took people testing and trying things out and sharing what worked and what didn’t

“We are uncovering better ways…”

It’s right in the manifesto

And that’s what I’m hoping to do

I’m looking for bright spots

Those who understand that change isn’t about bringing in a bunch of coaches

That it’s not about getting a bunch of certifications

It’s about understanding how change happens

It’s about working every day to

• Build influence

• Run experiments

• Dust yourself off after every set back

• Find solutions to the problems in your business

• Building problem solving capability into your business

If this resonates with you, let’s work together

For the first time, I’m going to be offering a limited number of coaching packages to the general public

I’ll be working one on one with you to help you solve the problems you’re having in your business

If you’d like to work with me and get your abilities to the next level here’s your chance

Book a free introductory call with me and let’s solve some problems

https://calendly.com/toddcharron/introchat