Rocking Chair Agile!!!
"Rocking Chair Agile", have you heard about that?
What is the connection between "Rocking Chair" and Agile ? What is the trait of a rocking chair? " It gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere!"
I coined this term to create awareness about certain anti-patterns I observed in agile adoptions, which I am directly or indirectly part of. Let us see, how many of you will be able to resonate with this thought!
Have you seen or been part of an agile adoption journey lately ? (not using the word transformation mindfully) What happened? Something which came and shook lot of things in your routine, lot of new practices, behaviour , tools, training, coaching, etc.. People gets busy with plannings, groomings, standups, reviews, retros, etc....
Did you notice a change in outcome or quality produced by the team? Did anyone check with the customer whether they felt anything about it? Did you notice the teams becoming small, cross-functional and self-oraganized? Did you see a visible change in collaboration inside and outside?
If your answer is negative to the above questions, most likely you are doing "Rocking Chair Agile". There are some new practices which are keep the team busy, but you are not able to achieve business agility.
Organisations started realising this. Read this interesting article by Steve Denning about Fake Agile. Many organisations recognised that they are not aligning the Agile Manifesto but to Halfarsed agile manifesto.
If you are able to resonate with the idea, please do whatever you can, to bring more awareness to the organisation on "Rocking Chair Agile" and help them to unleash business agility.
Agile Coach at GE Healthcare
5yThanks. It start's always with the question WHY you want to BE more agile ? Some organisation are very happy with just Fake Agile ! Sometime I end up advising them just to use another word ! Sometime Lean (especially the excellent book from Donald G Reinertsen principle of product development flow Second Generation Lean Product Development) would be great. and Agile is not even in the book.
Very well articulated Ebin John Poovathany. An organisation that reaches the #RockingChairAgile stage has adopted all the ceremonies/practices as a prescription rather a description. As Prateek said above, "it is ironic that agile mindshift takes a backseat"... They were doing agile rather focusing on being agile. So, my two cents will be to start and continue the #RockTheBoat agile instead. That will tell where exactly the squeaks come from that needs to be fixed. By #RockTheBoat Agile you will not just identify waste to eliminate/reduce it, but will also reach your destination faster and deliver quality to your clients... Keep Rocking! 😊
An engineer whose management skills are being put to test by his kids!
5yCreate a team that care about the product they are building. Agile or no agile, result will happen.
Life Coach ✦ Transformational Coach ✦ Inside Out Coach
5yVery good analogy Ebin John Poovathany My few cents for this example.. Organizations don't have pain points, like the rocking chair does its work well, make people take rest and enjoy their time. I can visualize an organisation who is doing BAU very well, how ever continuous improvement is not there.