Why Classic Agile Cannot Make Your Organization Agile

When we launched the Agile 2 LinkedIn group, we were encouraged by how many C- and EVP-level people joined. It is clear that “Agile” has reached the executive suite. In fact, in many of the organizations where I have consulted, Agile was on the lips of senior leadership, including the CEO.

But what does “Agile” mean to those leaders, and why do they care about it?

There are really three value propositions for Agile: (1) decreasing time to market, (2) better matching your product to your customers, and (3) improving quality. Cost reduction is not a benefit of Agile. Agile’s benefits are on the top line.

Typically when senior leaders seek advice about Agile, they reach out to senior staff at big consulting firms, and the result is often advice that leads to a large transformation engagement with lots of consultants placed onsite. The problem is that something is missing—the crucial piece—the learning that the senior leader needs to do in order to understand the scope and nature of becoming more agile.

A few of the differences between “classic” Agile and “new” Agile (Agile 2)

Agile is often mistakenly perceived as a purely tech thing—something that impacts only product delivery teams—but that view of Agile doesn’t work, because for Agile ideas to work, the way that the entire organization interacts with development teams needs to change. Otherwise, those teams will be hamstrung.

Another problem is that standard Agile narratives are actually not quite right. The industry is starting to differentiate between “classic” Agile, which is the beliefs and methods that got layered on top of Agile’s original ideas during the early years, and a “new” set of Agile ideas that have come to the fore in recent years and that are more nuanced and mature. In fact, Agile 2 was created precisely to capture and synthesize these new Agile ideas.

For example, classic Agile emphasizes that teams should self organize. Agile 2 emphasizes having certain forms of positive leadership. Classic Agile advocates that everyone should sit together to encourage collaboration. Agile 2 emphasizes that collaboration is a process over time that includes conversation, writing (and reading), and thinking, and that we need to provide environments in which those different activities can be effective: in short, people need to be able to focus as much as they need to converse, and at different times. The open team room does not support this.

Classic Agile also said nothing about data, and so today it is common that Agile teams send data into the organization’s data lake, and that data is undocumented and unusable by machine learning teams. Agile 2 emphasizes the need to manage and document one’s data in an agile manner.

The problem is that if you obtain advice from a consulting firm, you might get classic Agile or new Agile. It depends who you talk to. I would venture that you are more likely to get classic Agile, because there are well-established models for resourcing that: placing Agile coaches onsite.

But here’s the thing: You won’t have a model for what kinds of leadership are needed to get the teams to coordinate. Frameworks like SAFe try to solve that by defining roles and workflow processes. That can help, but it is kind of rigid, and what really is needed is certain kinds of leadership in the right places. Agile 2 explains that.

Also, it is common today that issues arise that cut across multiple products. When that happens you need to create a team on the spot to address that issue, and that team needs leadership, but it needs to be the right kind. A lot of the decision-making today is cross-product and about issues that pop up unexpectedly. A rigid workflow will address these in a plodding way, by escalating the issue way up the chain to some kind of portfolio level.

The core issue with agility is, in fact, leadership: what kinds to put in place, and where—and when. Agility requires that leaders be a lot more proactive, and a lot more informed about the day-to-day issues that arise. Waiting for rolled-up status reports doesn't cut it in the Agile era. You have to ask questions and skip levels. Rather than dictating from up on high, you have to go around and ask what people think, in an open way so that they will be honest. 

Classic Agile does not address the many roles of leadership.

To become an agile organization, you need to learn what it really takes. Agile 2 speaks to the issues, but in the end, you need to develop your own understanding of how agility manifests in your own particular organization. You cannot outsource it or delegate it. Nor can you leave it to traditional Agile coaches to execute unless they are trained in Agile 2.