• Agile & Scrum Basics

Agile and Scrum: from hype to new norm

Gert-Jan applies Agile & Scrum & Lean to the growth and development of the Scrum Academy. He likes to put his finger on the strong spot. Gert-Jan ensures that Agile & Scrum will work within organizations. Originally, Gert-Jan is Lean & Scrum expert and Agile coach with change expertise.

“You win some and learn some.

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In the IT sector, Agile and Scrum are now commonplace. In other sectors, there is plenty of switching from PRINCE II traditional project management to Agile and Scrum. Sometimes as a conscious choice to focus on the customer and innovate faster. But sometimes also to go along with the hype. Then you can easily hear a manager say: “We will be agile as of 1-1-2018!”. They haven’t understood much about agile. After all, you don’t plan an end date for a culture change. Of course, you can start your agile journey on 1-1-2018.

How do you ensure that Agile does not become the next hip hype, but a new trend, or rather, the new norm that makes the difference between successful organizations and those that are falling further and further behind?

Agile is not new, but it is innovative

Agile is actually not new at all. People who work in a start-up may have never taken Scrum training, but they are heartily Agile to the core. They work closely with customers and are super agile when customer requirements or market conditions change. Agile is a combo of a number of management trends (including Lean, self-directed teams) and new elements. You could say the best off of what we currently know plus some very useful extras. Agile is an answer to the entrenched dogmas of many organizations that can no longer keep up with the speed of change in the world. Where control and top-down direction demolishes any attempt at innovation. This is no longer in keeping with the spirit of the times, as the world is changing faster. In the process, the talented job market does not let itself be curbed, but employees are looking for autonomy, professionalism and the will to contribute something unique. Most (larger) organizations are built with an emphasis on command control and manageability and hardly at all on the left side of the Agile Manifesto: the statement on which successful organizations base their choices.

When does it go completely wrong?

Things go wrong when we suddenly call everything Agile, without giving meaning to it substantively. HR is suddenly called Agile HR. Marketing becomes Agile Marketing and so on… Agile is hype when you apply it to everything as an empty shell, while no one has a clue what impact Agile actually has on the entire organization. Agile affects your planning, budget, hr, marketing, in short your whole club is really going to take notice.

It goes even more wrong with Agile and Scrum when we fail to realize that we are working on a culture and structure follows. A culture that is mostly at odds with the current culture of many organizations. It goes wrong when we want to introduce the model of Spotify as a structure, without realizing that Spotify is not talking about structure but about Spotify Engineering Culture. You don’t just copy that culture. That culture is worked on continuously, every day, year after year. Remember: culture eats structure for breakfast.

From hype to new norm

Agile and Scrum are hip, that’s for sure. But it becomes the new norm and part of a successful organization when the true Agile Mindset gets between the ears and the walls of the organization. When you realize that it is working on a culture. This is where Scrum as a method helps very well. Like the roles of Product Owner and Scrum Master that enable the team to deliver products faster and more valuable. The events to ensure there is routine in working together. With inspect and adapt as a common thread throughout the collaboration: what goes well? What can be improved? And act accordingly. Then customers, organizations and teams benefit from Agile and it becomes part of the culture with a structure (scrum as a method) that you can always adapt if necessary. After all, that is very much Agile.

Agile is certainly not old wine in new bottles, nor is it an experimental mixed drink full of sugar that we’ll find out in 5 years that it’s heartily unhealthy. No it is like a good glass of beer simply with barley, hops, water and yeast, but brewed in such a way that it tastes refreshing. And tastes like more. So a keeper in the range.

Wondering how an agile transformation works?

Do you want to guide your organization to an Agile Mindset?
During our Agile Coach Training you will learn how to put agile principles into practice. You will develop a toolbox that guides teams to an ultimate agile mindset and ownership, so that with agile working their talents are used to create the best for the customer and end user. Read more on the Agile Coach Training page.