Agile in name only: What about the People!!!
Rebecca explores the correlation between the commoditisation of people in business, to organisation’s failing in their adoption of agile practices.
Catching up on ACN (#AgileCoachingNetwork) podcast episodes, I was inspired to write a piece after listening to their 20 May 2023 episode ‘What about the people!!!’.
I always find myself coming back to the issue of companies ‘doing’ agile but not being agile. I think this episode really highlights some of the less obvious ways this can manifest.
In this piece I’ll look at the way leadership teams think about their people can have a seismic effect on whether an organisation can truly adopt agile.
Not to be a downer but there are so many organisations I’ve come across where people have become simply bodies, with the commoditisation of ‘staff’ as ‘resources’, without a focus or investment in personal and team development. These companies focus on people as resources or units not talent. HR teams are viewed as administrators, not coaches, mentors, talent finders, talent keeps or change management leaders.
When you remove a focus on people it ends up being the raw numbers that dictate decisions made on the placement or workload of a company’s talent.
As discussed in the podcast, a major outcome tends to be individuals being spread too thin, across too many teams and projects, stuck in endless meetings without the time to execute their work effectively. In times of economic uncertainty, some businesses shift their focus to ‘headcount’ as they look to cut costs, at the detriment of their talent base and operational capabilities. These immediate financial gains tend to erode the possibility of future, long-term profitability, with the loss of strong talent and knowledge, and the burn out of key individuals and teams.
Another subject covered in the podcast is the ‘Command & Control’ model, which is still seen in so many organisations who claim to be agile. Command & Control being an approach to leadership which is authoritative, directive and inflexible by nature, and agile being an approach to product & service delivery that is flexible, responds quickly to change and provides teams with the ability to make decisions. Clearly these are two very conflicting approaches!
Even recently I encountered a team told to follow the new delivery ‘process’ without being given:
Adequate time for training or coaching
A clear understanding of what the process was or why it was set up the way it was
Time to work together and work out how to implement the new process
As an Enterprise Agile Coach this was pretty demoralising, but not unsurprising. If we look at the very first principle of the Agile Manifesto we can see that both the Command & Control approach and the commoditising of people does not set an organisation up to incorporate agile as part of its cultural DNA.
Individuals & Interactions vs. Processes & Tools
Without the following, organisations will not get agile to stick, whether they employ Agile Coaches, change job titles, create squads and implement sprint ceremonies, it will become wasted investment without a focus on:
Moving from Conventional Management to Transformational Leadership
Providing a clear company vision, values and principles which everyone can get behind
Sensitively implementing change, allowing the time, training & coaching needed to ensure it sticks
Empowering teams to lead with a plan-do-test-adapt approach to ways of working, in order to create a pragmatic agile approach which works for them
Nurture talent, provide time and resources for personal and team growth
It’s not all doom and gloom! There are many organisations out there providing training and coaching support to leadership teams to help with agile adoption. And, there are lots of companies who really do see the benefits of nurturing people as talent and not simply heads to be counted!