{"id":1,"date":"2019-01-30T17:26:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T17:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.agilesense.co.za\/discussion\/blog\/?p=1"},"modified":"2025-01-30T19:24:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T19:24:17","slug":"secret-sauce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.agilesense.co.za\/discussion\/blog\/2019\/01\/30\/secret-sauce\/","title":{"rendered":"Agile’s Secret Sauce"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Agile – The rose and its thorns<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many times Agile adoption and transformation are approached in a very clinical, mechanical way, and the deep change aspect, where people are concerned, is not considered to the correct levels, leaving people in a confused and uncertain state. These transformations missing Agile’s secret sauce, become stale and leads to all sorts of negative outcomes (retention issues, lack of innovation, wasted time and money, etc.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Main Article<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My journey\nas a student of Agile started about seventeen years ago, just after those\nseventeen visionaries signed the Agile manifesto at the Snowbird ski resort in\nthe Wasatch mountains of Utah (Beck et al., 2001). Through the years, as I\nbecame proficient in the various Agile principles, practices and methodologies,\nthe answer to one question kept on alluding me. Why is it that some companies\nstruggle so much in adopting Agile, whereas the other seems to take it on in\ntheir stride? Of course, I was always ready with answers like Management\nresisting change, a company\u2019s culture at odds with Agile values, lack of Agile\ntraining, previous bad experiences, co-location issues, etc. (Dikert,\nPaasivaara & Lassenius, 2016). These challenges even though quite important\nto know and to understand, is typically not the true root cause of these\ncompanies\u2019 issues. Understanding the true root cause will help to understand\nthe secret sauce that makes Agile work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once\nwhile attending a backlog grooming session at a very large payments firm, the\nsoftware development manager became very emotional when a senior leader kept on\npushing the teams to deliver more. One of the things she blurted out affected\nme profoundly. She said, \u201cYou just do not understand the heart of Agile!\u201d This\nwoman became arguably one of the most successful Agile coaches South Africa has\never seen. During a Lean coffee event at the 2015 national Scrum gathering, one\nScrum Master made really insightful contributions. At one point, she declared,\n\u201cI really care and am passionate about people.\u201d That was her secret sauce, but\ncould it be that this was the answer I was looking for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agile transformation or Agile adoption is something that most companies either aspire to or are busy with. VersionOne (2016) states that 94% of their respondents indicated that their organizations are practicing Agile, even though large parts of these organizations are not Agile. We are quickly getting to a saturation point. The question will then not be; \u201cWho is implementing Agile?\u201d but rather, \u201cWho is implementing Agile best?\u201d The question companies then need to ask is, \u201cWhat secret sauce is making the one implementation better than the other?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAgile is far more than the latest buzzwords we\nhear all the time, e.g. devops, velocity, MVP, release train, MoSCoW, Kano\nAnalysis, planning poker, epics, BDD, TDD, mob development, etc. (Miles, 2011;\nSolutionsIQ, 2017). I realized very early in my career why I was attracted to\nAgile. It is because the heart of Agile cares about the customer and the people\nworking to make the customer happy. This, in essence, is what sets Agile apart\nfrom all other methodologies. Agile encompasses a number of methodologies and\nserve as an umbrella to them (Alam & Chandra, 2014:39)\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Three of the four Agile values (Individuals and interactions, customer collaboration and responding to change) speak to the caring nature of Agile (Beck et al., 2001). According to Kairi (2011:16) principles 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 all speak to caring, responsibility and motivation. That is a massive 50% of the principles! Kairi (2011:45) observed further in his case study that caring did not fare well among the people, in respect to other practices and principles. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Why\nis there so much retention issues, even in \u201cAgile\u201d companies? Kotz\u00e9 and Roodt\n(2005:50)  warned that people leave\nmanagers and not companies and that what employees want the most is fair\ntreatment, care\/concern and trust, and better communication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nhas been proven that the shift towards Agile and Agile methods is quite hard (Hajjdiab\n& Al Shaima Taleb, 2011; Hundermark, 2015). What makes Agile so hard? Agile\nmethods are generally quite simple; the practices are quite straightforward.\nWhy is it that even though half of the principles and 3 out of 4 values speak\nto caring, that we still fail to care? Caring, is at the heart of the Agile\nmindset and philosophy. Caring, is where the real mindset change comes into\nplace, the real reason why and how culture is impacted. Some Agile\nimplementations fail because it is rushed and not enough time is spent in\ntransforming to a caring culture. Similarly, if the transformation is not\nassisted by highly experienced and caring Agile coaches, the implementation\nmight have less than optimal results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People\nneed to make a conscious decision to come out of their shells, their seclusion,\nbe humble and make a decision to really care about the needs of their team\nmembers and for leaders, their subordinates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMany leaders already realize that and see the\nfa\u00e7ade of caring as a competitive edge. They will speak the words, but in\nessence, the drive is still for money. The mentality is to do whatever it takes\nto win the next client or deal. This fa\u00e7ade, unfortunately, is for many people\ntransparent and these companies will keep on having retention issues and Agile\nimplementations will fail. In general, the Millennials and Gen Z have proven\nthat they will not stand for fake behaviour. They long for and desire authentic\n\u201creal\u201d people. What these leaders fail to realize, is that the money will\nfollow true caring. If you really care about your customer and your people, the\nmoney will follow.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of\ncourse, the balance also needs to be struck. Marchenko and Abrahamsson (2008:6)\nindicated that there is something like too much caring as well. Agile values,\nprinciples and practices need to be perceived as a full package and not as a\nshopping cart, selecting what I am graving after for the day and leave the\nrest. Unfortunately, it is the caring elements of the Agile values and\nprinciples that are mostly left on the shelves and hence many companies will\nkeep on with poor implementations of Agile and a workforce that do not reach\ntheir full potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nis Agile\u2019s secret sauce then? It is truly caring about people. Not that it is\nso much of a secret, but more of a purposeful neglect, as to really care about\npeople, means moving out of our own comfort zone and giving of ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alam,\nS.S. & Chandra, S. 2014. Agile Software Development\u202f: Novel Approaches For\nSoftware Engineering. 36\u201340.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beck, K., Martin, R.,\nCockburn, A., Fowler, M. & Highsmith, J. 2001. Agile Manifesto<\/em>.\nAvailable: http:\/\/www.agilemanifesto.org [2016, May 30].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dikert, K., Paasivaara, M.\n& Lassenius, C. 2016. Challenges and success factors for large-scale agile\ntransformations: A systematic literature review. Journal of Systems and\nSoftware<\/em>. 119:87\u2013108. DOI: 10.1016\/j.jss.2016.06.013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hajjdiab, H. & Al Shaima\nTaleb. 2011. Adopting Agile Software Development: Issues and Challenges. International\nJournal of Managing Value and Supply Chains<\/em>. 2(3):1\u201310. DOI:\n10.5121\/ijmvsc.2011.2301.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundermark, P. 2015. Do\nBetter Scrum<\/em>. Cape Town: InfoQ. Available:\nhttps:\/\/www.infoq.com\/minibooks\/do-better-scrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kairi, T. 2011. Coaching\nagile software development teams\u202f: A case study from mentoring viewpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kotz\u00e9, K. & Roodt, G.\n2005. Factors that affect the retention of managerial and specialist staff: An\nexploratory study of an employee commitment model. SA Journal of Human\nResource Management<\/em>. 3(2):48\u201355. DOI: 10.4102\/sajhrm.v3i2.65.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marchenko, A. &\nAbrahamsson, P. 2008. Scrum in a multiproject environment: An\nethnographically-inspired case study on the adoption challenges. Proceedings\n– Agile 2008 Conference<\/em>. 15\u201326. DOI: 10.1109\/Agile.2008.77.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miles, C. 2011. Agile Buzz\nwords<\/em>. Available:\nhttps:\/\/www.christianmiles.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/agile-buzz-words.html [2018, May\n01].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SolutionsIQ. 2017. Agile\nGlossary<\/em>. Available: https:\/\/www.solutionsiq.com\/agile-glossary\/ [2018, May\n01].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VersionOne. 2016. The 11th\nannual state of Agile report<\/em>. Available:\nhttps:\/\/explore.versionone.com\/state-of-agile\/versionone-11th-annual-state-of-agile-report-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abstract Many times Agile adoption and transformation are approached in a very clinical, mechanical way, and the deep change aspect, … <\/p>\n

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