—Zig Ziglar

When moving to something as all-encompassing as Agile, it is important to state clearly the objectives and equally important to explain the motivations behind the need to change. This is one aspect of conditioning the environment toward Agile. Stating the objectives helps folks understand what you are intending to do, and explaining the motivations brings clarity to why you are trying to achieve those objectives.

In Chapters 4 and 5, I introduced two important objectives that should be considered when initiating an agile effort: customer engagement and employee engagement. Or, to turn these objectives into exhortations: “Engage customers!” and “Engage employees!” This chapter explores the benefits of communicating the motivations behind these objectives, the various types of resistance, the importance of adapting rewards, the various motivations for moving to Agile, the benefits of establishing a common definition of Agile, and the importance of storytelling to help achieve the culture you are seeking.

Communicating Motivations

On an annual basis, companies typically communicate objectives for the upcoming year. Communicating “why we are moving in this direction” gives employees a sense that the objectives have been carefully thought out. More important, discussing the motivations with your employees can help you adapt the motivations and gain buy-in for the objectives. Although getting employee input may be risky, it can help you understand how realistic the objectives are. Also, employees feel valued when you ask for their feedback. It can help get the most out of people.

If your motivations are compelling and honest and benefit employees, this can lead to employees being willing to participate in the change. A clear role in achieving the objective further enhances an employee’s willingness to participate in the change. The more meaningful the “why” behind the motivation, the more willing the employee will become to support the objective.

If you find that you haven’t established objectives and accompanying motivations behind your agile initiative, now is the time to do so. Consider discussing the objectives and motivations of your agile initiative with key employees to communicate direction and gain feedback as to what can help motivate them toward the change. This helps you understand the work you need to do for readiness as part of the RICH model. Ultimately this helps answer the question, “Are you starting in the right direction?”

Adapting Rewards

The objective and motivation should be accompanied by an aligned benefit to the employee. The benefit or reward could be in many forms and does not always have to be monetary. For example, the reward can be self-organized teams. “What’s in it for me?” is a common question about change. For employees, the benefit can be true empowerment. This is why it is critical to understand what drives your workers and weave these drivers into your objectives and motivations. When the change involves a shift in the culture, this typically means that the organizational reward system must be adapted to support the change.

The need to adapt the reward system is particularly relevant when moving to an agile culture. If the “hero” continues to be better rewarded (instead of the team) or if management continues to get rewarded for command-and-control attributes (instead of leading their team), this will become quickly evident to the employees and can effectively doom the change.

The reality is that employees notice the actions that gain rewards (and rightly so) and will adapt and “follow the money trail.” Any objective that is out of sync with the actual reward for the employee cannot be sustained and will ultimately fail. When you add the compelling reward of self-organized teams, employee empowerment, and some monetary incentives to support the objective of engaging employees, you will increase the chances for employees to become self-motivated behind the “what” (objectives) and “why” (motivations).

Managing Resistance

Resistance is a common reaction to a change initiative. As organizations attempt to grow, it is difficult to avoid change. Change can occur for many reasons. When moving to an organization that is embracing Agile, there is often a need for a significant culture change. Agile brings about a change in objectives, which affects both employees and customers. Changes can create new opportunities, but they will also meet with opposition. Many scenarios engender resistance:

• “Here we go again!” It is comforting when things remain the same. Employees have seen change efforts come and go without any true commitment and may attempt to wait the new ones out. Commitment to change must be visible with clear motivations and rewards.
• Lack of communication. Employees need to know what is occurring to them. As information trickles down from the top, the message can be lost. This is why a plan for continuous communications at all levels is important.
• Change in employee roles. Some employees like to retain the status quo and do not want to see their roles changed. When roles are vague, some don’t know where they fit in the new culture, making them feel excluded. When they have no say in their new roles, they can feel alienated. Discussing with employees the changes in their roles and adapting as appropriate are key.
• Competing initiatives. Introducing an agile initiative when there are already multiple initiatives occurring can lead to employees feeling overwhelmed, causing them to resist. Hardly an auspicious start to the agile initiative! It is important for management to prioritize initiatives and focus on the higher priority initiatives.
• Regime change. New leaders often feel they must show they are action-oriented. They may reason that the change that worked in their previous company should work here. Some know their term is short, so they are not interested in long-term change. Some are unaware of what it takes to affect culture. Employees who are used to this power-game scenario may resist.

Common Motivations for Moving to Agile

There are various motivations behind moving to Agile. Some are proactive and some are reactive (Figure 8-1). Proactive motivations tend to be accompanied by a greater understanding of the business benefits of Agile and the culture change it implies. However, this is not always the case. The reasons behind the motivation can determine your chances to achieve a real Agile transformation. Let’s take a look at some motivations for moving to Agile and what you can do to enhance your chances of gaining the business benefits of Agile.

• “It’s the trendy thing to do.” Agile is popular, so we should do it. This is reactive and not a strong motivator for change. When another trend comes along, Agile may be abandoned. Agile may be seen as a hollow initiative and some may wait it out to see if it will go away. It will be important to investigate the benefits of Agile to see if it is right for you. Then determine if real commitment can be gained.
• “The competition is doing it.” Others are doing it, so we better do it. This is reactive. Although it may provide a driver for change, it does not provide clarity on why Agile was chosen. Some will question why what a competitor does is good for us. What happens when they do something else? It will be important to investigate the benefits of Agile to see if it is right for you.
• “What we have isn’t working.” We’ve been using another process to deliver software and it isn’t effective. This is a reactive reason with little understanding of Agile, but it may provide an initial motivation for change. However, blindly moving to Agile without understanding what it takes may lead to a failed deployment. It is best to understand the root cause for the failures in the past, because this can affect your change to Agile.
• “We need an agile tool.” This is a proactive but insufficient reason. It sees Agile only as a tool to manage the work without realizing that it requires a change in culture. This is a very limited view of Agile and will not lead to its business benefits.
• “We need to reduce costs.” This is a reactive and insufficient reason whereby Agile is seen as a tool to cut costs and maybe the workforce. This will not lead to the business benefits of moving to Agile. Although it may be an outcome, other benefits of Agile may be gained if you are willing to adapt the culture.
• “We hope to increase employee morale.” This is a proactive reason based on an understanding of the importance of employee engagement and empowerment to improve morale. Validate that there is real commitment to empowering employees and self-organizing teams.
• “We hope to improve productivity.” This is a proactive reason when the goal is to empower employees and help them improve productivity. The danger is that management may believe that Agile is something someone else must do to increase productivity or the real intent is to make employees work harder. The other challenge is that productivity may come at the expense of sacrificing quality. It will be important to investigate all of the benefits of Agile, not just productivity.
• “We aim to decrease time to market.” This is a proactive reason in which Agile is seen as a way to shorten release cycles. If there is an understanding that this implies a change across the organization to get from market idea to release and it is meant to satisfy the customer, then this is a good starting point. It is still important to discuss the benefits of Agile to see if it is right for you.
• “We want to deliver customer value.” This is a proactive and genuine reason if Agile is seen as a way to engage the customer and understand value. Validate whether there is a real commitment to delivering value and an understanding of the need to change organizational behaviors and processes to get there.
• “We believe in the Agile Values and Principles.” This is a proactive and genuine reason where Agile may be seen as a positive change in company vision and behavior. Validate a drive toward continuous customer engagement and employee engagement that can help gain the business benefits that Agile can bring.

In all of these cases, you need to validate commitment to the values and principles and the culture change it entails. Once the initial motivation is understood, you can work to adapt it with the goal of better gaining the business benefits of going Agile.

Benefit of Establishing a Common Understanding of Agile

Establishing a common definition of Agile provides the organization with a singular understanding. Even if there is unanimity on the objective of moving to Agile, lack of consensus as to what Agile is will impede movement. Don’t assume that everyone has a common understanding. There are a wide range of thoughts on what Agile is, and often those are laden with misconceptions. As discussed in Chapter 6, many believe that Agile is a methodology, a process, or a set of practices and tools. But Agile is really a set of values and principles. This is a good place to start.

First, I try to find out what Agile means to the team or organization. Depending on the answer, I begin some education to ensure they understand the Agile mindset and in particular the Agile Values and Principles found within the Manifesto of Agile Software Development (see Chapter 6). This ensures that everyone has a common understanding of Agile after any misconceptions are discussed and discarded. Also, much of the “what is Agile?” discussion is an attempt to normalize the team on agile values, principles, business benefits, methods, techniques, and more.

Once a common definition of Agile is established, it is beneficial to enhance this with common terminology. I often get asked for a glossary when I am helping teams adopt Agile. This gives folks one way to learn and get introduced to new terminology. Terminology may be collected from the Agile Manifesto and various processes, methods, books, and articles. It is important to discuss the terminology with associates who will be initially working with Agile. You may adapt terminology to suit the organization if this is beneficial. For example, if the word sprint is more acceptable then using the term iteration to describe a time-boxed period, then use the term sprint. Through deploying agile processes, training, seminars, and workshops, the terminology can spread.

Aligning Storytelling with the Culture You Want

—Robert McKee

Storytelling is a technique that is used to convey a message. Stories can be used as the delivery system to reinforce the culture you are looking for. Stories are often much easier to remember than objectives and facts, which is why stories are very powerful. Stories also reveal what people are really thinking, which can motivate or demotivate people. There is the story that is told and the story that people walk away with. This is why it is important to align your stories with the culture you hope to achieve. There has been an increasing amount of focus of conveying information in the form of stories. Stories can either align with and strengthen a culture or reveal a misalignment and weaken the cultural message. Let’s look at several examples.

What story does the staff walk away with in this case? The manager had discussed the importance of respecting people’s time, and then his actions indicated to the team that the manager didn’t respect their time. This left the employees resentful and unhappy. Let’s look at another story.

What story do the employees walk away with in this example? Although the “objective” was to create a company culture of equality, the senior management team discussed things that highlighted that they weren’t equal at all, instead of things the average employee could afford. How many of those in the company could afford to go yachting? How many could afford to build a large house at the beach? This is an example of where storytelling can send the opposite message. The employees felt like they were being put in their place and stopped believing in the equality objective. Now let’s look at another case.

What story are the teams walking away with? The story employees walked away with was that Agile was no longer being taken seriously. It was clear that management was now only giving lip service to Agile, really didn’t believe in the Agile Principles, and didn’t really trust their employees. In addition, the story about how this management believed that reading a book on Agile made them knowledgeable became a common joke among the employees.

What type of stories are being told in your organization? Are senior managers telling stories that align with the objectives of Agile? Are middle managers sharing stories that align with the needs of their team? Are team members repeating the stories that strengthen the new culture or stories that are demoralizing? Leaders must keep in mind that when they are speaking to the people, they are effectively telling a story. Ensure that the messages in the stories align with the objectives and principles that you would like to see in your teams and new culture.

Building the Agile Culture You Want

Adapting an organization’s culture is effectively an effort in change management. For most organizations, moving to an Agile culture is a significant change management activity. Changing a culture is hard. People underestimate the difficulties of a culture change within their organization. I have seen large efforts get started with poorly stated objectives and motivations, a lack of employee involvement, and a lack of thinking through the effort. Also, most people are not educated in change management or how to achieve a cultural change. I have seen companies assign a member of senior management as the change agent, yet that person has neither education nor experience in change management. A better approach may be to hire an Agile Coach with change management experience.

Creating or adapting a culture is not done by accident. It must be considered a change initiative and thought through. As part of readiness within the RICH deployment model, start the process of adapting to an Agile mindset and the culture you are looking for. What are some activities that will help you move to an Agile culture? They include:

• Recognize that moving to Agile is a cultural change.
• Share the Agile Values and Principles (often).
• Establish and share objectives and motivations.
• Gain feedback from employees along the way.
• Adapt the reward system to align with the new culture.
• Identify techniques to help gracefully mitigate resistance.
• Evaluate management and lead employees to see if they have the personality that aligns with an Agile culture.
• Start living the values and principles that help you get to the culture you are looking for.
• Provide messaging or storytelling that aligns with the culture you are looking for.
• Identify and apply the agile processes, methods, practices, and tools that align with your objectives.
• Apply an inspect-and-adapt approach to gauge progress.