• Agile & Scrum Basics

Scrum Academy: Set your world in motion!

Then we switch en masse to DevOps, SAFe or to some framework that is supposed to handle scaling. I’m the last one to be against any kind of progression, but I advocate that we don’t focus on models, frameworks or whatever. I think we are better off focusing on increasing the change capability of ourselves. Reinventing ourselves. Otherwise, all developments remain tricks that are applied briefly from a book and as soon as the next model presents itself, another new change program is started. And people in organizations get a little tired of that. And rightly so.

Why is it anyway that we go from change program to change program? And what is a good alternative to stop that, and also make progress? Within organizations, we are good at coming up with a blueprint and then initiating organizational change. Well “good at. We’re fanatical about it.

The effect of organizational change is often lousy and the results many a time even worse. Often the blueprint does not work in practice. People are not at all connected to the new organization. And the blue dot on the horizon turns out to be very different for customers than the one proposed on the drawing board.

It can be so much easier. If only you look differently.

Stop blueprint thinking

First, let’s stop the blueprint thinking. It has been sufficiently proven that this does not appear to work. And: the solution lies at our feet. After all, we are naturally much more agile than we think and pretend to be. We just lost our agility a bit along the way in yet another blueprint reorganization. But that’s not to say we’re not essentially so. For example: who is still doing exactly the same thing we did 10 years ago? Exactly … we have a different role in the organization, a different function, got married, or just split up, listen to different music, changed sports, no longer go to the same café or restaurant. As human beings, you are constantly changing. Why shouldn’t you do the same in and with an organization? See an organization as a living organism. A system that is constantly changing. Most of our changes do not happen all at once. But come about in a gradual process. Organically. You also don’t plan a change in taste in food, drink, music or life partner. That happens to you and you deal with it.

Start an evolutionary process

Often such a process starts unconsciously. Small-scale introductions are made to something different and then larger and larger introductions are made. And the great thing is that this process often goes on without – or at least with much less resistance. So why should we completely change course in organizations every 2 to 4 years and then expect everyone to wait for that change and embrace yet another blueprint? Right. People are often not waiting for that. Because we can adapt to our natural environment, but as soon as we get into larger organizational forms we don’t succeed. As soon as we as individuals have less influence on a change, disconnection immediately follows with only resistance as the outcome. And that can and must change.

Agile involves working with numerous frameworks of which Scrum is the most widely used. Super handy such a framework. It gives you something to hold on to. That is very welcome when the organization is shifting from a traditional way of working to an Agile way. Self-management, constantly receiving and giving feedback and adapting yourself is made tangible this way. But often, too often if you ask me, those frameworks are seen as the ultimate endpoint. Long story short: if the framework is implemented, then we are there. Then we are Agile. And so we’re not. What works is to start seeing organizations as living beings, constantly adapting.Just like many people do outside of work hours. Sometimes gradually and a little slower, sometimes twistedly fast because the environment demands it.

For example, when your personal circumstances suddenly change. Moving house, moving in together, becoming a father or mother, then it often turns out that we are best Agile.All the energy we put into organizations should go to initiate an evolutionary process. Evolutionary? Yes exactly, a continuous process of adapting to the ever-changing environment. Increase everyone’s ability to change. As Darwin put it “It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” And so it is. Establishing a process in which we keep progressively evolving and constantly reinventing ourselves. Therein lies the key to becoming and staying Agile. Both in terms of the service or product we create for our customers, as well as the way we organize ourselves. Like us, set your world in motion. Get your world moving!

Do you also want to know how to start an evolutionary process where organizations, teams and team members are constantly reinventing themselves? Take our Agile Coach Training course set your world in motion!