This first step is often the most challeging one, because there will be a lot of change and change can create the impression of dusruption. Not business disruption, but disruption of the people in a conpany. One always must keep in mind, that a company is based on the people. People are indiduals and individuals have diverse mindsets, a different point of view and different perceptions. And also, and this is very important to consider and realise, different charackters. Some people are open to innovation( innovators & early adopters) and some people are more scepting when things are changing (laggards).
An agile way of working enables companies to develop better products faster. This makes employees and customers happier. Many large companies such as Miele and C&A have therefore already partially or even completely switched to agile. Many others are currently planning to introduce agile working in their organisation.
The biggest challenge here is the cultural change within the company. This was stated by 70 per cent in a study by McKinsey. They do not know how to formulate an agile culture and bring it to life. It is therefore no wonder that only very few companies manage to introduce an agile working culture. This was the finding of the annual 14th State of Agile Report 2020. https://www.qagile.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/14th-annual-state-of-agile-report.pdf.
These 6 principles characterise an agile culture
An agile culture ensures that the mindset, behaviour and processes in the company are fully aligned with these principles:
Purpose:Employees stand behind the company’s vision – and therefore experience their work as meaningful. They live the values of their employer authentically. This affects both their actions within the company and their contact with external partners. And: employees know how their commitment contributes to the organisation achieving its goals.
An agile way of working enables companies to develop better products faster. This makes employees and customers happier. Many large companies such as Miele and C&A have therefore already partially or even completely switched to agile. Many others are currently planning to introduce agile working in their organisation.
The biggest challenge here is the cultural change within the company. This was stated by 70 per cent in a study by McKinsey. They do not know how to formulate an agile culture and bring it to life. It is therefore no wonder that only very few companies manage to introduce an agile working culture. This was the finding of the annual 14th State of Agile Report 2020. https://www.qagile.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/14th-annual-state-of-agile-report.pdf.
These 6 principles characterise an agile culture
An agile culture ensures that the mindset, behaviour and processes in the company are fully aligned with these principles:
Purpose: Employees stand behind the company’s vision – and therefore experience their work as meaningful. They live the values of their employer authentically. This affects both their actions within the company and their contact with external partners. And: employees know how their commitment contributes to the organisation achieving its goals.
Trust and transparency:Managers practise open communication and work methods based on feedback. They proactively share knowledge and resources. In this way, they create a positive culture in which everyone can express their opinion openly and honestly. This creates psychological safety.
Open error culture:Employees can openly address errors. Teams then focus on the cause of the error – and not on looking for someone to blame. This helps to uncover problems or unproductive procedures at an early stage. Errors are a source for learning.
Innovation and willingness to learn: An agile culture is also an agile learning culture at all times. This means that companies encourage their employees to think outside the box and look for innovative ideas. To do this, organisations need an environment in which failure is recognised as an opportunity to learn – and ultimately achieve better results.
Adaptability: The transformation to an agile culture requires organisations to react proactively to changes in the business environment. In practice, they quickly adopt new ideas and check whether they are feasible. Employees have the authority to take risks to an appropriate extent.
Managers practise open communication and work methods based on feedback. They proactively share knowledge and resources. In this way, they create a positive culture in which everyone can express their opinion openly and honestly. This creates psychological safety.
Focus on customer added value: The mindset and processes in the company are aligned in such a way that the end result is high added value for customers. Customer benefit is therefore at the centre of all agile behaviour based on a supporting conpany culture. As I like to say “happy teams, happy customers”
Establishing an agile culture in a company is a complex process that takes time. It can be broken down into 5 essential steps:
1. develop a vision!
To develop an agile culture like Spotify or Netflix, you need to know exactly where you are with your company and where you want to go. For example, you can define three to five ways of thinking and behaviour that you want to change. Pick out the ones that are likely to make the biggest difference in achieving business results. To give you an idea: McKinsey, in the study mentioned above, worked out possible mindsets and behaviours that companies can change:
You need a vision for the path between start and finish. You should formulate this as briefly and concisely as possible at the beginning. It will serve as a guideline for your further development. The vision should not be a rigid concept that you follow. Instead, you need a flexible construct that you can constantly adapt and optimise over time. This will ensure that you are always heading straight towards the goals you have set yourself.
2. start with a select group!
You can’t work on agile transformation with your entire organisation from the start. Instead, you should start with a group of people who are not obviously visible to management. You need opinion leaders who support the change towards an agile culture. All you need is a leader on board who trusts you and provides budget.
For example, the telecommunications company Spark, which has over 5,000 employees, started its cultural change with a group of 70 volunteers. At the beginning, they set themselves the task of promoting acceptance and understanding of the cultural change within the company.
3. make it personal!
To make the change towards an agile development culture personally meaningful for employees, you need to bring it from an organisational to a personal level. This means that employees need space to define for themselves what an agile culture is for them and how it can work. This is the only way they can relate to the agile culture.
This will vary depending on their personality and position in the company. However, it is crucial that employees embrace the idea of an agile culture and define it for themselves. If they then share their personal experiences and problems with others, a transformation dynamic can emerge and release transformation energy. This accelerates the creation of an agile culture enormously.
However, this process should not be exclusively top-down. It should start from both the top and the bottom. The leadership in the company merely acts as a coach for the teams and provides resources. In this way, teams can find their goals and their approach. This allows the agile culture to grow organically.
4. design the architecture of the agile culture!
You have now managed to create an understanding of the agile mindset in the minds of employees. To manifest this, you need an agile culture architecture. For this, you need to redesign structures, processes and technologies in such a way that they support the behavioural expectations.
Agile frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban or, in a scaled agile context, the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe can help you with this. However, you don’t have to choose just one framework. You can pick different parts of different frameworks and combine them. The only important thing is that you create an individual framework that suits your organisation.
To choose the right components for your framework, you need to know the pain points and goals of your organisation. Only with this knowledge can you select the right elements. And: The frameworks must fit the value stream of your organisation and increase customer benefit.
5 Monitor and learn!
An agile culture will not be implemented in your organisation overnight. And: Be prepared to make mistakes in the search for a suitable culture. However, this is important in order to learn and continue to develop the culture in the right direction for you. Some teams will be able to implement the new way of thinking and behaviour quickly. Other teams will need time to adapt to the new way of working. But that doesn’t matter. The learning process is essential to further strengthen the culture.
To monitor and evaluate your progress, you can conduct regular retrospectives. These will show you where the agile culture is already working well and where you need to make particularly strong adjustments.
‘If you adopt only one agile practice, let it be retrospectives. Everything else will follow’
Woody Zuill (Agile Pioneer & Evangelist) https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodyzuill
Agile transformation is a challenge that requires companies to innovate all pillars of their organisation. The creation of an agile culture is particularly important here. Only with this can companies change their elementary structures, processes and technology in such a way that they actually work agilely at all levels.
No need to say, that ChatGPT offers speical GPTs (topic based spealist Asssistants) for many Agile Tasks. That’s why ile to call AI Assistig Intelliegnce instead of Artificial Intelligence 😀 Below, I some examples are presented.
The Role Agile Coach (In a Scrum environment there are no positions but roles which all works together on exe-leven, fiting the agile culture, wich is needed to practice Scrum Successfully) is very ofthen misunderstood and underestimated. There are countless job-ads with “Agile Coach/Scrum Master” whic signaliises, that the company beliefs that a Scrum Master and a Agile Coach are the same.
This not true. I have witten a posting on my blog about the differences https://robvanlinda.digital/the-difference-between-a-scrum-master-and-an-agile-coach/.
Ther URL to the GPT https://chatgpt.com/g/g-1GXrG7Nwr-agile-coach
The only ones who decide what and how much is done, are the developers. Even when a Product Owner prioritises stories, when doing Product Baclog Management, the developers are the ones who decide. Another charactersisitc of agile: aotnumous working. I like to use this GPT, to offer a proposition as a base to make discussios easier and it often helps the devopers as a kind of guidance.
