Disciplined Agile Applied

I was recently a panelist on a webinar about enterprise agility.  One of the issues that we explored was why organizations were struggling to improve, and we heard from a range of people about the problems that they faced.  Sadly, many excuses were offered up, and they basically boiled down to:

1. I'm on an agile team, we'd love to improve, but the PMO (or the governance team, or our executives, or...) will beat us up.
2. I'm in a regulated environment, we'd love to improve, but the auditors will beat us up.
3. I'm an executive, we'd love to improve, but the board of directors will beat us up.

Here are some insights that will hopefully help you to work your way past these sorts of excuses:

1. These people that will "beat you up" face similar challenges.  They may have a different point of view than you, and that point of view is valid and should be respected.  They also face a similar dilemma in that they're likely afraid that someone else will beat them up if they change their way of working (WoW). Recognizing that we have this in common can often provide a basis from which to have a more meaningful discussion.
2. Work with them.  Discover what their concerns and constraints are.  What risks are they worried about?  How can you work more effectively while still addressing those risks?  What minimum viable change (MVC) can we experiment with safely to determine whether it is possible to improve?
3. Treat them as allies, not enemies.  I've had great experiences working with PMOs to identify how my team can work better and thereby provide increased value to the organization.  I've substantially reduced risk by working with auditors early in the game to discover what they're actually concerned about, to identify how my team can address those concerns in a streamlined (and often automated) manner.  I've had great discussions with board members, particularly those who are executives at other firms, when I asked them if they're dealing with similar challenges in their organizations (and they always have similar challenges).  Bottom line is that you'll be amazed at how the people whom you thought wanted to beat you up are really there to help you to succeed.
4. Regulations are obligations, not prescriptions.  I'm working on a detailed blog about this topic right now, but too many people believe that regulations state "work this way" or "produce these artifacts."  That may be your organizational interpretation of the regulations, but if you choose to go to the source you'll often find that the regulations aren't as prescriptive as you've been led to believe.  When your bureaucrats are allowed to interpret regulations you will end up with a bureaucratic WoW, whereas if practical people interpret the regulations you'll end up with a pragmatic WoW.  And both approaches will still conformant.
5. Other organizations have chosen to overcome similar excuses.  I have to say it - while you're standing there complaining about how tough you have it, someone else is stepping up and doing what it takes to improve.  I invite you to join them.

My hope is that this blog has given you some food for thought.

Related Resources

• Disciplined Agile Scrum Master (DASM) - Learn how to improve
• Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) - Learn how to lead improvement within a team
• Disciplined Agile Coach (DAC) - Learn how to facilitate improvement across disparate teams
• Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant (DAVSC) - Learn how to guide improvement throughout a value stream and across an organization

I was recently part of a business agility webinar for PMI's MENA (Middle East and North Africa) chapters.  At the very end of the webinar we were asked a question that was along the lines of "How can you apply DA when you're unable to adopt new technologies?" which I answered quickly as we were out of time.  My answer was a bit harsh at the time, which I share below, and in hindsight I wish I'd had time to answer more thoroughly.  Hence this blog posting which presents a more thorough answer.

First, improvement doesn't always require new technology. Many of the techniques referenced by the Disciplined Agile (DA) toolkit are technology independent. For example, consider the Coordinate Activities process goal diagram of Figure 1. Many of the techniques are manual in nature, such as Agile Modeling sessions (OK, you require the "technologies" of whiteboards, markers, and sticky notes), architecture owner teams (a cross-team group of people), and release windows (scheduled times when it's possible to release/deploy something to your customers). On the other hand, some improvements may require new technologies. For example, the strategy of adopt collaborative tools to coordinate between locations explicitly requires the adoption of agile management tools such as Atlassian's Jira or Zoho's Sprints. The point is that your organization's potential inability to adopt new technologies doesn't completely prevent you from making improvements to your way of working (WoW). As always, it depends.

Figure 1. The Coordinate Activities process goal.

Second, it's not that you can't adopt new strategies, it's that organizationally you choose not to. Stop looking for excuses to not improve, to not do what needs to be done for your organization to survive in the new competitive landscape that you face. Really. You need to stop making excuses. Your competitors are finding ways to adopt new technologies and so can you. You need to start making some hard choices now. My recommendation is that choose to succeed, and then choose to do the hard work required to do so.

Third, if you can't respond and improve quickly in the age of COVID-19 you're not likely to survive. This was pretty much my answer in the webinar. If there are groups in your organization preventing you from making the improvements that you need to compete and better serve your customers then you need to remove those blockers now.  This may mean that you educate those people as to why you need to improve, help them find budget to support the changes, or even ask them to get out of your way. Yes, that final strategy may require leadership within your organization to rethink whether those people should still be employed by your organization - even if that includes some of them.

Fourth, helping your organization improve sounds like a great opportunity for your project management office (PMO).  Earlier in the webinar PMI's Srini Srinivasan had addressed the issue of what role PMOs have in an agile organization.  He understandably indicated that PMOs must offer real value and be seen doing so. If your organization is struggling to make the changes it needs to improve, that sounds like a pretty good opportunity for a PMO to add tangible value.

I can't tell you exactly what the "new normal," or perhaps more accurately the "new abnormal," will be in the COVID-19 and post COVID-19 environments. But I know that it will be much more competitive than what you've been used to up until now.  I also know that it will require you to be able to better sense and respond to the changes in your environment. The Disciplined Agile (DA) tool kit can help you to do exactly this.