Disciplined Agile

This is part of a six-part series that examines and explores how we might be able to use our personal and professional values the shape the future. In today’s blog we will explore RESPONSIBILITY. 

Please read this and share what are your perspectives on responsibility and how you use it to manage work, lead change and create the future.

The PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct describes responsibility as follows:
 “Our duty is to take the ownership for decisions we make or fail to make, the actions we take or ail to take and the consequences that result”

https://www.pmi.org/about/ethics/code

As we move into a post-COVID-19 world, being responsible for creating our future has become more critical now than ever.

Response-ability is our ability to respond and fulfill our accountability.

Our reaction arises out of a nervous instinct. A reaction shoots automatically from our subconscious mind with  no filtering or conscious choice. The reaction may trigger unintended consequences. This is why there is no such word as reactionability, as it would be a contradiction.

Our response comes from our intuition, it is the result of a conscious choice. When we respond we tap into our wisdom, we apply a chosen discipline. The choices we make may be intuitive, and subconscious as driving or riding a bicycle, but they are measured in terms of their impact on our lives and others.

The distinction between reacting and responding becomes particularly important in a time of stress and crisis because when there is danger, we are more likely to say or do something that is going to harm ourselves or others.

Our ability to respond is a discipline. The self-determination we apply is dependent on our maturity.

This is why Disciplined Agile is the foundation of requisite agility. It is not agility for the sake of agility but a conscious response to changes that are occurring in the environment and in business.

How response-able are you?

• Have you ever challenged or reported someone who is being unethical or doing something illegal?
• Have you ever failed to follow through or fulfill a promise or commitment you have made? 
• Have you ever taken what others say or do as personal rather a reflection of who they are?
• Have you ever blamed others for how you feel?
• Have you ever cut off, shamed or belittled others to feel good about yourself?
• Have you ever broken the law or taken advantage of a situation when no one is looking?
• Have you ever shared a confidence, knowing no one will find out?

Take a minute about how you felt when others irresponsibility has affected you and your work.

When people say values cannot be measured, they have not asked these hard questions of themselves.

It is important to feel what responsibility means is in your stomach and your skin, and why it is important.

The future is wide open, waiting for us to create it. What do you want to do with it?

How are you going to use your RESPONSE-ABILITY to create the future of your family, your work and your relationship with yourself?

How are you creating a context that allows not only you but those who you live with and work with to grow towards response-ability?

There are many things that we cannot choose in life, but our most important choices of all, who we are, how we show up, what we stand for and how we create the future through our values – these choices are in our complete control.

Please share in your comments your thoughts on the importance of values, so we can all learn from each other.

How are you going to use RESPONSIBILITY to create the future through the chaos and turbulence of your new realities?

Our values shape and define who we are. Our values are the sum of our beliefs, needs and assumptions. 

Some people go through their whole life unaware of the values that shape their judgments and relationships. 

When we are aware of our values, they guide us, they open our eyes, they enable us to sense what is going on in our own journey and how we relate to others and how they relate to us.

When we are not aware of values, it can be like changing lanes without checking our blind spot. We can end up in perpetual conflicts and breakdowns.

When get wrapped up in our own assumptions. When we get trapped in trying to explain everything through projections. When we get caught up in behaviors (who said what, who did what to who), not their root cause. Imagine a relationship that is a perpetual accident.

When we are blind to our own values and how they shape our thinking and actions. When we are blind to other peoples values. We call this values-myopia. Values-myopia will wreck not only projects, but also entire lives. 

This can mean the difference between success and project failure at work. This is why PMI has published the our core values of project management. 

This can mean the difference between the fulfillment of our intimate relationships at home or the most important personal relationships of our life being damaged for life. 

The difference is entirely up to us. 

When we are conscious of our values we can use them to as precision tools like a compass to navigate through vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

The four PMI Core Values are presented in the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct:

• Responsibility
• Honesty
• Fairness
• Respect

These four PMI Values “…describe the expectations that we have or ourselves and our fellow practitioners in the global project management community. It articulates the ideals to which we aspire as well as the behaviors that are mandatory in our professional and volunteer roles”

https://www.pmi.org/about/ethics/code

Values are the foundation of effective project and disciplined agile leadership.

Our shared values form the basis of the culture we inhabit.

Our values are the basis for change and how results are achieved. The same values can take on completely different meanings for individuals, given their depth of development and self-awareness. 

Values-driven leadership has always been important in project management. In an agile environment this discipline is crucial as the transparency across all roles and functions taps the potential that resides within each individual and between people. 

Dialogue about values is healthy. This clarity of communication can allow potentially destructive conflicts to be anticipated and turned into creative conflicts that drive creativity and innovation.

In other words, people working together may have different values, even conflicting values, but when these are understood and appreciated, they can allow for creative conflict that creates something that is greater than the sum of the parts. This discipline is not easy. But this can be the difference between failure and greatness. 

What are your driving values? Take a minute. Grab a piece of paper and write out the three or four values that are the most important to you in your home and work life. 

What are the shared values of the teams you work in? How close are these to the four PMI Core Values? If the shared values of the teams you work in are not defined, what if - as an experiment - you were to use the four PMI Core Values as precision tools for driving excellence?

These two steps will enable you turn your values into a precision tool, a proactive way of creating the future.

1. ASPIRED VALUES: At the beginning of each day, reflect on your three or four driving values. Capture in a journal or notebook how will you apply your driving values in the key encounters and decisions in the day ahead? Just thinking through these questions will alter the way you experience yourself  and how show up for others and how you are experienced by others. 
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2. ACTUALIZED VALUES: Through the day as you deal with people and make decisions, reflect in real time on how your values are being embodied or denied in your decisions and actions. At the end of each day conduct a retrospective. Journal how your values affected:

• YOURSELF: How true am I to my values?  
• OTHERS: How well are the values of the people around me aligned?
• ALL: How well am I aligned with the values of the institutions I belong to and vice versa? (e.g., marriage, family, community, association, business, etc.,)

It is important to ask others for feedback on specific aspects of the ways in which you relate and lead and to carve out quality time to provide constructive feedback to others. 

The more proactively you do this, the more your values will shape your personal brand. This will allow you to attune into how your leadership presence is experienced and valued by the world.

Being values-driven transforms how we navigate through the chaos and turbulence of our new realities.

How are you going to use your VALUES to create the future of your family, your work and your relationship with yourself?

There are many things that we cannot choose in life, but our most important choices of all, who we are, how we show up, what we stand for and how we create the future through our values – these choices are in our complete control.

Please share in your comments your thoughts on the importance of values in your work and life, so we can all learn from each other.

How are you going to use values to create the future through the chaos and turbulence of your new realities?

This is the first part of a six-part series developed exclusively for PMI Members.

The aim of this series is to explore how our personal and professional values can be used as a proactive, precision tool to shape the future, especially as we all prepare for the new realities of the post-COVID-19 world. 

Alan Kay invented the GUI interface used on all Macs, iPhones, iPads and Windows applications. Alan also invented object-oriented programming and early prototypes that supported the development of the mouse, tablets and laptops. 

Alan Kay was asked how he was able to predict the future year after year, with such precision and consistency? He responded:

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

He was paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln who had said “The best way to predict your future is to create it”

We can wait for experts to tell us how the future is going to unfold or we can use our professional and personal values to create our future.

Instead of treating values as simply standards to be adhered to, or characteristics of people or descriptions of culture in a reactive way, we would like you to think of values as precision tools that enable you to manage and lead change, proactively. 

Our character and reputation are defined by our values in action. Not by what we say we believe in but how we apply our values in all our decisions and relationships. 

Mahatma Gandhi said "Your habits become your values, your values become your destiny". 

Values are the lynch-pin between our habits and our destiny.

When we are conscious of our values it allows us to examine our habits objectively and shape our destiny permanently. We will not only be remembered by what we did in life, but also how we did it.

When our values are crystal clear, decisions, even tough ones in times of uncertainty, become much clearer. 

Through this series we are going to build on the foundation of the existing standards and definitions of the four PMI Core Values - Responsibility, Fairness, Respect and Honesty.

The aspired and mandatory standards for these values are described in the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

https://www.pmi.org/about/ethics/code

The six blog postings in this series are:

1. Creating the Future
2. Values as a Precision Tool
3. Responsibility
4. Fairness
5. Respect
6. Honesty

The world has already begun to change through the upheaval of this global pandemic. More change are going to come. We may as well apply our leadership capabilities to transform the future on our terms. 

There are many things that we cannot choose in life, but our most important choices of all, who we are, how we show up, what we stand for and how we create the future through our values – these choices are in our complete control.

Please share in your comments your thoughts on the importance of values, so we can all learn from each other.

How are you going to use values to create the future through the chaos and turbulence of your new realities?

Kashmir

One of the principles of the Disciplined Agile (DA) mindset is to "Be Awesome."  Who doesn’t want to be awesome? Who doesn’t want to be part of an awesome team doing awesome things while working for an awesome organization? We all want these things. Recently, Joshua Kerievsky has popularized the concept that modern agile teams make people awesome, and, of course, it isn’t much of a leap that we want awesome teams and awesome organizations too. Similarly, Mary and Tom Poppendieck observe that sustainable advantage is gained from engaged, thinking people, as does Richard Sheridan in Joy Inc. Helping people to be awesome is important because, as Richard Branson of the Virgin Group says, “Take care of your employees and they’ll take care of your business.” 

There are several things that we, as individuals, can do to be awesome:

1. Act in such a way that we earn the respect and trust of our colleagues. Be reliable, be honest, be open, be ethical, and treat them with respect.
2. Willingly collaborate with others. Share information with them when asked, even if it is a work in progress. Offer help when it’s needed and, just as important, reach out for help yourself.
3. Be an active learner. We should seek to master our craft, always being on the lookout for opportunities to experiment and learn. Go beyond our specialty and learn about the broader software process and business environment. By becoming a T-skilled, “generalizing specialist” we will be able to better appreciate where others are coming from and thereby interact with them more effectively.
4. Seek to never let the team down. Yes, it will happen sometimes, and good teams understand and forgive that.
5. Be willing to improve and manage our emotional responses to difficult situations. Innovation requires diversity, and by their very nature diverse opinions may cause emotional reactions. We must all work on making our workplace psychologically safe. 

Awesome teams also choose to build quality in from the very beginning. Lean tells us to fix any quality issues and the way we worked that caused them. Instead of debating which bugs we can skip over for later, we want to learn how to avoid them completely. As we’re working toward this, we work in such a way that we do a bit of work, validate it, fix any issues that we find, and then iterate. The Agile Manifesto is clear that continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Senior leadership within our organization can enable staff to be awesome individuals working on awesome teams by providing them with the authority and resources required for them to do their jobs, by building a safe culture and environment, and by motivating them to excel. People are motivated by being provided with the autonomy to do their work, having opportunities to master their craft, and to do something that has purpose. What would you rather have, staff who are motivated or demotivated?

An important part of agile culture is to be honest and forthcoming about your mistakes, so I'd like to share one that I've made in a key diagram that exists in both our courseware and in the book Choose Your WoW!  This blog posting is my "failure bow" regarding mistakes that I made in the flowchart for how to choose between DA life cycles.

Figure 1 presents the original flowchart as it currently appears in the book and courseware.  Don't worry, we're in the process of updating both.  I'm writing this blog now because I want to make this update publicly available as quickly as possible to support people's learning journeys.  There are two problems in Figure 1:

• The decision in the bottom right corner has two "yes" options coming out of it.
• The decision in the bottom-right corner is poorly worded.

Figure 1. Choosing a DA lifecycle (original diagram).

The update to the diagram is presented in Figure 2.  You can see that we've changed one of the Yes options to be No.  More importantly, we've reworded the decision point so that it's clearer.  We had several people point out that they didn't understand the original wording of the question about potential disruption.  I had written that question from the point of view of a team composed of people with a traditional background.  But, many teams now have an agile background, having gotten started with a framework like Scrum only to find it insufficient for their needs.  Such teams wouldn't be disrupted, at least not very much, by adopting the Agile lifecycle.  Thus we've reworked the question to instead ask about the team's agile background. 

Figure 2. How to choose a DA life cycle (updated).

An important point that I would like to make about the flowchart of Figure 2 is that this is the logic that we suggest you follow, but you may still decide to make other decisions.  For example, consider the decision point in the bottom-right corner.  You may be working with a team that is new to agile but still decide to adopt the agile lifecycle over the lean lifecycle because you're willing to invest in the time and expense of training and coaching them in agile ways of working (WoW).  Fair enough, that's your call.

I hope that this update has cleared up any confusion you may have had around this diagram.