“Agile” is not the end goal, it’s the journey

The fantastic four foundational techniques to being agile

When Todd begins working with a team, he incorporates four go-to techniques to becoming more agile:

1. Holding a daily stand-up: One of the most commonly used methods of agile. Though seemingly a small thing, a 15 minute stand-up can have a large impact. It’s where problems can be identified and paths to solutions can be found. A checkpoint on everyone’s workload can help shift priorities so that nobody is overwhelmed or overworked.
2. Visualizing your work: Kanban is the Japanese word for a visual signal, and the Kanban method quite literally means just that. It’s about creating a visual of the work process (most commonly through post-it notes on a board to track the progress of tasks) that allows a team to keep track of how the work progresses through its stages. At the same time, it helps to identify what areas require more attention than others, for example, noticing that perhaps the approvals stage is where things get delayed, and then addressing that directly. With this visual aid, work is unhidden and its transparency to the whole team facilitates working in the open. The Kanban method can now also be replicated online via various programs.
3. Conducting retrospectives: The most important meetings in the scrum process are the ones where feedback is given. In a retrospective meeting, the team assesses how they work together and try to improve their workflow. This is where members of the team can also question things like: what do you like doing, what’s lacking, what do you want to do more of, and what do you loathe? All equally important questions to address. How often a team wants to conduct feedback on themselves is tailored to the specific team’s needs.
4. Recording the start and finish time for all items: Elementary metrics, my dear Watson. Recording the time it takes to complete each step gives you meaningful data to then change how you work. The bottlenecks become clear, as do time issues. The data speaks for itself.

“But” vs “and”: one little three letter word can make a world of difference

Todd tells me that learning never ends for him. He loves that he has the freedom to structure how he works so that he can build learning into his own routine, by consistently reading books on being agile. He excitedly shares with us a tidbit he just learned from a book he’s reading called Radical Candor, by Kim Scott. “It’s all about giving and receiving feedback, and making an environment that’s psychologically safe for everyone to contribute,” he summarizes. The idea of psychological safety is to encourage people to speak up about what they notice, a key component of being agile. Rather than responding to someone with a “yes but,” saying “yes and” builds on what is being said rather than tearing it down. And when everyone feels safe to speak up, that’s when new ideas emerge around the room that can have a huge impact on the work.

When everyone feels safe to speak up, that’s when new ideas emerge around the room that can have a huge impact on the work.

Todd’s day-to-day job is about experimenting with different techniques he reads about to see what works. “It’s very empowering to apply what you learn, and see what impact can be made,” he says, “and ironically, that very process is what you’re trying to get others to try as well.”

Ultimately however, Todd’s favourite part of his job is being able to create a better environment for people, and helping them solve problems. Serendipitously, as he tells me this, an elderly woman with a walker comes up to the door of the café, and Todd immediately rushes up out of his chair to open the door for her.

At the end of our chat, Todd says, quite matter-of-factly, “Agile is never the end goal. The goal is to have better outcomes. Agile is simply the means to achieving that.” There is a method to the madness of the ”agile” trend, and I couldn’t have concluded it better myself.