Why “Classic” Agile Training Will Lead People Astray
Our work on Agile culture and transformation reveals that to “become Agile,” people need to,
Learn new ways of looking at things; and,
Learn and internalize new behaviors.
In other words, there is both “classroom knowledge” and experiential knowledge—the latter reflects internal changes in how one views things, how one behaves in reaction to events, and even one’s values to some extent.
Both are needed however. If you try to jump to #2 without having #1, then people will be guessing.
Think about when you learned to drive. There was classroom knowledge: the rules of the road, the controls of a car, the insights about staying far enough back from a car in front of you. Those things did not stick until you started to actually use them, but you could not skip them: you needed both the instruction and the practice.
Even better, you probably had someone drive with you, interpreting events as they occurred: “See what just happened? You pulled right into traffic from the on-ramp without looking behind you. Luckily no one was coming—I was watching. But if a big truck had been in that lane, you would be hamburger now.”
So really, effective learning requires classroom knowledge, experience, and the coaching of an experienced person to interpret things for you, so that your experiences build mental models for applying judgment.
But if the classroom training is not quite right, then when people experience things, and they try to apply what they learned, it will lead them astray. What then happens is that their coach—if they have one—says, “Well you learned this, but really that is not quite right. You really need to do something else.”
And people then become confused, and start to distrust everything they have learned.
It is one thing to teach people “basics” and add more detail over time. It is quite another to teach them ideas that are too simplistic, so that those ideas fail in the real world.
Agile 2 ideas are robust and represent the realities of collective human activity. They are not simplistic maxims. For example, rather than advocating self-organizing teams for every situation, Agile 2 explains that the right kinds of leadership are needed for each situation, and provides guidance about that. It says explicitly that it is not a cookbook or the last word on the subject, so people will know not to assume that. But the advice it gives is very “real world” and it will not lead people astray.
If you want to help people to learn about Agile, don’t make the mistake of assuming that “classic” Agile is “basic” Agile. “Classic” Agile is actually not quite right: it is too simplistic, and it is very incomplete. Those in the Agile community who think for themselves have moved on, but “classic” Agile training usually reflects the original overly simplistic ideas.
Agile 2 is the right starting point. One does not have to start with every part of Agile 2, but Agile 2 is definitely the place to start if you want to teach people how organizations can achieve agility.
