Agile Mindfulness: A Lesson in Putting People First

Agile has become perhaps one of the most common corporate buzzwords in recent memory. In today’s fast-paced business landscape, every organization wants to be more agile, but enabling agile transformation is easier said than done. In the classical sense, agile methodology is a project management style that utilizes incremental sprints and reiterative design to improve software design and deployment. However, the ethos of agile is much deeper than that.

Penned in 2001, the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” focuses on principles of flexibility, customer collaboration, and functional software products that put individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Today, dozens of project management books and platforms promise to help organizations become more agile, but one piece of the puzzle most often overlooked when embarking on an organization’s agile transformation journey is perhaps the most foundational of them all – its people.

In a recent episode of “Collider Convo,” hosts Rhyan Robinson and Jacob Smith chat with agile transformation experts to discuss a lesser-known phenomenon in the agile world: agile mindfulness.

What is Agile Mindfulness?

Agile mindfulness explores how organizations can shift their collective mindset to best align business and technology teams to deliver the right products to the right customers at the right time. Unlike the daily sprints and stand-ups that are often touted by ‘agile’ teams, an agile business needs to consider the attributes of each of its employees and how they contribute to the whole. “An agile business model empowers people to be their authentic selves,” stresses Elsa Simspon, system and agile people coach. “It tries to utilize everyone’s strengths and gifts to collaborate in teams that help each other rather than compete with each other.” But what does agile mindfulness have to do with agile transformation? A lot, apparently. “In the past, agile referred more to what technology is doing to build solutions incrementally,” says Carol May, head of agile transformation at Altimetrik. “We take a step back from that, and we want to look at it more from what the business is trying to achieve.” Experts like May and Simpson start this process with clients by performing a ‘discovery’ of the status quo of the organization. This practice often involves asking rudimentary questions, including:

● Where are the big challenges?

● What hurdles need to be overcome?

● What’s working? What’s not working?

● Where, as an organization, do you want to be?

● And what gap is occurring in the middle?

By identifying where ‘the gap’ is, May and her colleagues at Altimetrik build a roadmap of changes that need to take place, both within the business, within the technology, across people, processes, and tools. After the initial discovery phase, May focuses on implementing changes and managing expectations. May’s process includes initially working with a team or department and uncovering lessons to act as proof of concept for the larger organization. Depending on the organization's size, this can occur from the top down at an organizational level, or it can focus on a specific department. Only once there’s a clear understanding of an organization’s goals and what milestones must be uncovered to get them to their destination does the focus turn to people. That’s where Simpson steps in.

“If you can understand the current mindset of the people where they're actually at, then you can help them to change from there,” says Simpson.

A People-Centered Approach to Agile Transformation

So, why is agile transformation so difficult for organizations? According to May, organizations often understand where and what needs to change – but how, especially in the context of individual personalities and opinions, is often much stickier. “They know what they need to do in terms of changing tools,” says May. “They're experts within their domains. Where they struggle is how to change the organization's culture to align with agile practices and how to bring the people along on this journey to get better employee engagement and better employee satisfaction.” Although everyone contributes to the organization’s goals, May and Simpson often work one-on-one with managers and leadership to coach agile mindfulness. In one example, Simpson shares about a charismatic team leader who was talented at motivating employees to collaborate and produce at a high level. However, when the organization began its agile transformation journey, this particular leader fell behind, and upper management wasn’t sure why. Simpson worked one-on-one with the team leader to assess and coach her to discover why there was a disconnect. What Simpson uncovered was that there was a missing component.

The team leader needed to explore and take risks but was stuck in old ways because it worked so well in the past. The team leader thought that the answer to performing higher under the new organizational structure was to work harder, which can be antithetical to agile transformation. “We opened what I sometimes call a ‘window of awareness,’ says Simpson. “When they opened the window, they understood they needed to pivot in a new direction, which was challenging for them. Only when they understood that they needed to learn new ways of thinking and doing did it become very exciting.” This example highlights how supporting and guiding people through change management is a crucial step in agile transformation. By introducing mindfulness to the agile equation, experts like Simpson and May can help organizations bridge the gaps between where they are and where they want to go.

“Please don't forget the people,” shares May. “It's the most important component of what we do; if we're biased towards our process and technology and not our people, you're gonna hit those challenges. So put the people first.”

Want to learn more? Check out the full-length podcast here, or contact the Altimetrik team to help you get started on your agile transformation journey.