Feral Sunar // Allianz Türkiye - Agile Coach
Like everything else, our ideas and prejudices about agility are changing. Since we switched to the agile working model, the reservations in our minds have also transformed with us. Let's realize the change in ourselves together.
In my article titled “Biases Related to Agility”, which I wrote nearly two years ago, I said, “The agile working model may create some reservations at first glance due to the change which it proposes. But these reservations should not prevent you from taking the first step. Let's eliminate prejudices together,” I said. There was something I hadn't taken into account: the possibility that prejudices and judgments might change over time. When I looked at today, I thought it was time to say something new about what I wrote that day, and now I'm here with a continuation article.
In that article, I wrote about the six prejudices that I have been mostly hearing from the teams about agility:
"Agility doesn't work for us or agility doesn't work for our team; our jobs are different. This is a cultural business; We started agile working, but nothing much has changed in our life; but we are already working agile. Dailies are very mechanical; hierarchy does not leave our lives so easily.”
These were the reservations that came to my ears the most or that I encountered the most often as the agile transformations of the teams continued. I have witnessed up close that these expressions, which are also a form of defense against the unknown, disappear one by one as I experience agile transformation. As the time spent by the teams in agile working increased, I also observed that some patterns took their place this time.
Below are some of the phrases that remain in my mind from the agile teams we work with, and what I have to say about them.
"Agile coaches facilitate retrospectives”
True. As agile coaches, we are facilitating the retrospective ritual in agile teams. But this does not mean that the team can never do a retrospective without an agile coach. In fact, teams should be able to take and plan their own actions in any situation.
“There are 2 people left in the team today; let's cancel the daily”
To reduce complexity, the Daily is described in the Scrum Guide as “a 15-minute ritual performed at the same place and the same time every working day of the sprint”. Since there is not any restriction about the number of people, being/staying two people is not a very valid reason to cancel the daily. In order for two people to be able to provide information to each other, the dailies should continue.
“We don't need to do daily at a non-meeting time”
If daily was a meeting, I would give you the right. After all, not every meeting is a meeting either... We don't call this ritual, which lasts no more than 15 minutes, and sometimes we update each other on foot, a meeting anyway; we define it as “coming together for sharing”. It is critical to maintain the rhythm of this team meeting, which increases the level of internal-team communication and information sharing, and allows the rapid detection of possible obstacles.
“There is no time left for retro; should we postpone it until after tomorrow's planning ritual?”
Every sprint is a work cycle, and this cycle is a meeting where the process is evaluated, development areas are discussed, and the team comes out with at least one action. Therefore, it is a better approach to perform a retro session of the sprint that closes before the planning ritual of the new sprint.
“This job is critical; let's do this first”
One of the critical success points in the agile working model is to create a structure of thought that is free from hierarchy. Because new ideas come out more easily in working environments where everyone can share their ideas freely. One of the important supporters in creating such an environment is to adapt our language to this situation. So, “This job is critical when we think about the Squad's goals; let's prioritize it” seems to be a statement that supports the hierarchy-free thinking structure much more.
There are certainly others similar to these, but don't worry, the explanations for all of them and more are in your Agile Coaches.
P.S. You can contact us by clicking here to share your experiences and ask questions about the agile working method.
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