Challenges of Agile coaches and scrum masters - part 3 – Teams in resistance

How do you deal with teams that do not want to work in the Scrum way and the organization still expects that.

Lately I often hear from organizations that they have difficulty getting teams on board with the agile, or so to speak, Scrum way of working. What often turns out is that the teams have developed their own way of working that appears to work well for them. But that is not accepted by the organization. The question is whether you should force such a team to start working Scrum. If a team does not see or feel the benefits of Agile working, you may wonder whether you should want that. If you ask why they have to change, the answer is… we work agile and everyone has to participate. What they actually mean is that we work Scrum or Safe and everyone has to participate.. I personally think that is a wrong approach. Agile working must have added value and that is only possible if people can really feel the added value of the agile mindset and thus become convinced of the added value. When they feel and understand this, they will see the value of Scrum and Safe elements.

The question is of course what that agile mindset actually is. And let's just add... that's not Scrum!! Scrum is a working method. A set of rituals and way of working that could help to implement a Agile way of working. But that is not it.

What were the principles of Agile again:

• Individuals and interaction are more important than processes and tools.

• Added value takes precedence over documents.

• Collaborating with customers is more important than contract negotiations.

• Responding to changes takes precedence over following a plan.

And who says that these principles are not honored in a team that has developed their own way of working!

But the world has changed a bit since 2001... yes... that's how old the Agile Manifesto is now! It's 23 years later.

Not much later, Daniel Pink published his motivation theory. "The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us".

The three elements of intrinsic motivation are: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Autonomy here refers to the human desire to lead one's own life. Mastery is the desire to improve something that matters, and purpose is about the desire to serve something greater than humans themselves.

So realize very well what it does to the people and the team if you force them into a certain way of working.

In his theory, Pink actually argues that organizations and organizational leaders need to adopt a new, self-determination-based approach to motivation. Organizations should focus on people's drive to be autonomous, self-determined and connected. They can do this by developing environments for employees in which they can manage their own lives, learn and do new things in order to contribute to the organization and the world.

So it's about:

- Actual collaboration

- Continuous learning

- Flexibility

- Achieving customer value.

If you combine this with Pink's principles, I think you will get “High performance” teams. By “High performance” teams I mean teams that are able to get the best out of themselves.

So if you have a team that you feel is resistant because they do not want to go along with the Agile way of working, consider the following:

In any case, it is a team that speaks out. Encourage this behavior.

Discuss the value of Agile with this team and not the method.

Investigate where the team needs help regarding:

• Independence (for example,  Can it deliver independently, or is it dependent on other teams. Also consider CI/CD and the self-services that go with this.)
• Collaboration and knowledge sharing (does everyone get along well with each other, is there sufficient trust and does everyone know each other's capabilities)
• Continuous learning (at process level such as individually).   Is the learning and feedback process well organized and in a "blameless" manner. Blameless postmortems can help with this. Ensure that people can continue to develop even if delivery is under pressure)
• Flexibility, Are they able to respond to changes. Is that well organised? Too many changes in a very short time can often be very frustrating.
• Are they working meaningfully? Are they motivated by their own results. Is there sufficient contact with the business?

And then based on this need you can introduce certain elements of an Agile framework, such as Scrum.

But the most important thing is that the team feels taken seriously. Reward them for their effort and self-developed work method. Let them discover for themselves where they can improve and facilitate that.

And as a fellow Agile coach always says... If you want to improve something... call it an experiment... Agree with the team to try something for a few weeks... If it doesn't work, we'll stop or maybe something else improve.

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