The Secret History of Agile Innovation - and a question for you

 

(First published at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8539263)

There's a great HBR article on "The Secret History of Agile Innovation" written by Jeff Surtherland (Scrum co-author) and Hirotaka Takeuchi ( “The New New Product Development Game”) - it started with Walter Shewhart and P-D-C-A in the 1930's which W. Edwards Denning took to Japan where it became  the Toyota Production System.  It's a great read (and what we have been teaching as part of the origins of Agile thinking in our courses for the past 4 years). You can read it here  https://hbr.org/2016/04/the-secret-history-of-agile-innovation.

They start the article with:

"You hear a lot about “agile innovation” these days. Teams using agile methods get things done faster than teams using traditional processes. They keep customers happier. They enjoy their work more. Agile has indisputably transformed software development, and many experts believe it is now poised to expand far beyond IT.

Ironically, that’s where it began — outside of IT."

This article is proof we are on to something with The Agility Series where we want to engage in conversations about beyond IT. In a way we will be helping take agility back to its roots.

With Leadership Agility as the next topic we plan to address in the series, here's my question for you:

If you could pose one powerful question of any leader whom you respected as an agile leader to get a better sense of what makes them that way, what would you ask?

To get you started, here's mine:

Which traditional leadership tendencies did you find to be the hardest ones to overcome in order for you to transition to someone who is now viewed as a person to emulate as an agile leader?

Let the conversation begin.

Yours in agility,

Larry Cooper