“Doing” versus “being” Agile

Many very large, established companies have struggled to pivot to an Agile mindset, because they mostly focus on the wrong thing: “doing” Agile. That is, focusing on the methods, instead of truly understanding the mindset shift that must happen. They are either unwilling or unable to fully embrace the cultural, organizational, and political changes that must occur when it comes to “being” Agile. Or, in other words, embracing its core values and principles.

The truth is that smaller and more nimble organizations are out-competing more established companies. The rise of startups over the last two decades and recent breakthrough success stories from companies such as Facebook, Zappos, Airbnb, and Spotify has ushered in a second wave of disruptive innovation. This new wave is characterized by embracing and focusing on putting the customer at the front of the development process to develop and deliver customer-defined value.

Agile delivers customer value

With so many options available today, products and services must be developed with customer value in mind. Customers are more demanding than ever, expecting exciting new products and services to be introduced to the market on a regular basis. Development efforts must be value-based and offer today’s customer something they want, fill a need, or satisfy a desire. There are way too many alternatives out there nowadays, and companies must produce value-based products and services to survive in the keenly competitive markets that exist today.

Also, Agile organizations understand and employ the concept of a minimum-viable product (MVP)—that is, one with just enough features to release out to the market so that customers find value in it. Once the product is released, companies can understand customer preferences, behaviors, and desires in real time, which minimizes risk and ensures they are working on the “right stuff.” By employing these fast feedback loops and learning cycles, Agile methods offer effective ways to continue to evolve their products with the customer in mind, resulting in higher customer satisfaction. By incorporating these learnings back into the development cycle, the company validates that it is developing the right products and services.

Agile supports revenue-based thinking

Many companies have stayed afloat during the 21st century by reducing costs. However, there comes a time when there is nothing more to cut, and revenue generation becomes a must. This shift is going to be hard for many, but doing so may mean the difference between remaining a going concern versus perishing alongside some of the biggest and most well-known companies in the world, such as Eastman Kodak, Blockbuster, Nokia, and Borders.⁶ Each a giant in their own industry at one time, all are now defunct. Shifting customer demand and not keeping up with the changing times resulted in the death of these companies. Netflix killed Blockbuster, Borders fell to Amazon, Kodak and Nokia were done in by Apple, and on and on. At some point, all of these companies had an opportunity to respond to changing customer demand, but unfortunately made the choice to continue with the status quo.

Progressive companies are using Agile methods to move away from thinking that reducing costs is their only option, to focusing on increasing revenue by satisfying customer needs and delivering innovative new products out to the market. This shift has ushered in the age of revenue-based thinking, focused on satisfying the insatiable appetites of their 21st-century customer base and their cravings for the “next big thing” to hit the market.

Agile requires holistic enterprise alignment

Agile doesn’t work in siloed organizations. To introduce Agile methods into an organization means that product management, portfolio management, technology, and business operations must all be holistically aligned, which represents a completely different operating model. Information must move freely across the entire enterprise value chain, and every part of the organization must work together to produce value-adding, customer-focused products and services.

To break down the siloes, companies must reevaluate their operating models and consider how value creation and delivery moves through its enterprise value chain. Identifying this path, and then restructuring the organization to break dependencies, is crucial. Once this is accomplished, organizations can capitalize on Agile methods focused on iterative and incremental product development techniques.

Agile fosters innovation

The need to innovate is pushing the envelope. To survive and thrive in today’s business climate, companies need to embrace innovation. Agile methods allow for iterative, rapid development that focuses on quickly determining what doesn’t work, adjusting, and trying again. This loop continues until products and services that add value are brought to market, based on customer wants, needs, and desires. This is a radical departure from more traditional methods, where senior executives dictate product direction. In Agile companies, customers are invited in and treated as first-class partners. The old saying that “The customer is king,” is true and engrained in the very fabric of an Agile organization.

Agile fits the 21st-century company

Agile offers the solution to developing a digital mindset and focusing on creating and delivering customer value by:

• Making satisfied customers the highest priority

• Welcoming change to harness competitive advantage

• Delivering working software in a couple of weeks or months

• Stressing collaboration, autonomy, simplicity, transparency, and trust

• Providing a supportive working environment that fosters innovation and a motivated workforce

• Supporting continuous improvement through a culture of adaptation and reflection that periodically pauses to learn from its mistakes and adjust

• Following the mantra “Fail fast, and adjust,” so that you figure out what doesn’t work—and determine what does as fast as possible

Now, let’s address the “why” behind our current crisis in leadership, as well as the issues associated with effectively engaging this new type of workforce, before moving on to discuss how Agile can solve both issues.

Agile looks like the Wild Wild West

Agile methods are perceived as chaotic or even anarchist. To an unschooled eye looking into an Agile organization, it appears very disorganized. A Tayloristic manager would immediately ask, “Who’s in charge?” Because to them, it looks like the answer is no one! This is a perception issue, because the teams appear to be working on their own.

Agile stresses “just-in-time” planning instead of the long, upfront, and drawn-out planning cycles employed by more traditional methods. It happens in cycles throughout the organization, instead of being concentrated at the top. Agile methods stress strategic, product, release, and development planning sessions in the same manner and level as more traditional methods. The difference is in who does it. The teams are involved in planning to a level that is not present in traditional methods.

Instead of having program and project managers figure out and plan the work, the team is empowered to do the heavy lifting when it comes to planning. It looks anarchist, because the teams are self-organizing. Many confuse self-organizing with self-led and that is not the connotation being discussed here. Self-organizing means the teams figure out how to get the work done. They self-select what they work on from a predetermined backlog. However, they still have a leader in that the product owner figures out the priority and what the team works on and in what sequence for each development cycle, known as a sprint in Scrum.

Agile is not a “silver bullet”

Agile cannot fix all the issues within an organization, and if you ask most senior leaders why they want to adopt an Agile mindset and implement Agile ways of working, it’s not about empowering teams, creating feedback loops to build better products, or even creating customer value. More times than not, it’s about missed commitments and not delivering on time; poor quality; lack of visibility and transparency into what is going on within their organizations; and lowering costs. Adopting Agile methods will solve most of these issues, but it is going to take a lot of time and effort to reap these rewards.

Transforming an organization costs money and requires the entire organization to change its structure, culture, and ways of working. Change agents embarking on a journey to agility face an uphill battle, no matter how progressive the company. Change is a scary thing, and requires concessions and discomfort at every level. Also, support must come from the top. Senior leaders must be the first to be retrained and embrace an Agile mindset and ways of working.

Half-hearted buy-in attempts result in low digital literacy and a splintered organization. Oftentimes, this leaves the organization worse off than it was before the transformation started, because returning to the way things were is frankly impossible. Because of these botched attempts, statements like “We’ve tried Agile here and it just doesn’t work for us,” can be heard in the hallways and meeting rooms as the organization struggles to find its way out of the black hole it created for itself. The seriousness of the decision to adopt Agile should not be taken lightly, and the implications to the organization should not be underestimated. Agile is a journey and you must be realistic about what you are committing to: that is, a never-ending journey of continuous improvement.

Servant leadership and “being Agile”

Moving to Agile means embracing a servant leader’s mindset. Without completely making this shift in leadership style, companies are only paying lip service to “being Agile.” The lack of the right type of leadership within companies trying to adopt Agile, in my opinion, is the biggest reason for the failure of many Agile transformations. When leaders lead from a position of serving first, their followers reward them by giving them their trust, respect, and the willingness to follow. In judgment, values, competence, and sustaining spirit in support of the tenacious pursuit of a common goal: working software.

Leads by example

One of the most famous quotes in the classic book by Sun Tzu, a Chinese general who lived around 500 BC and wrote a treatise entitled The Art of War stated, “A leader leads by example, not by force.” That is, a leader demonstrates and supports his or her beliefs through action. They must model the behavior they desire from their followers that most benefits the collective good of the organization. Then, back it up with consistent and predictable words that reinforce the behaviors.

As a leader, whether you realize it or not, you are being watched. Your followers look for inconsistencies, because being predictable is actually very comforting to them. The fastest way for a leader to lose credibility and the trust of his/her followers is to be inconsistent and unpredictable. Leading by example elicits trust and respect from a leader’s followers. It displays the leader’s integrity and conviction to the path he/she has chosen, because a true leader would never ask anyone to do something he or she would not do themselves.

When a mandate to “go Agile” comes down from senior leadership, it must be reinforced through your behavior as a leader. Embracing the characteristics of servant leadership must happen within the organization. Without it, you’re just going through the motions, and real and lasting change will not be achieved.

Inspires action through vision and purpose

Vision is the future state the leader is attempting to create. It is something that he or she can see so very clearly in their mind’s eye, that it gives them purpose and defines who they are and what they are about. And when they share it with their followers, it becomes the driving force that rallies the organization in its quest to fulfill its mission (why it exists). A leader’s vision is a call to action for his or her followers. Action that is both genuine and purposeful, by building a vision and setting goals, then working toward their achievement, gives those that follow a sense of purpose, as well as great fulfilment when the goal is achieved. To paint a picture of where the organization is going and what it is trying to accomplish, forms a mutual sense of purpose. A leader whose vision is so clear concerning what he or she is trying to create, is a very easy leader to follow indeed.

Fosters innovation and creativity

Servant leaders encourage those they serve to experiment and take risks. To color outside of the lines. To tap into and unlock the vast amounts of creativity inherent in all of us. Many a great invention would never have seen the light of day if their inventors had played it safe. They challenged the status quo and didn’t look for the easy way out. They fostered an environment for innovation by encouraging collaboration and originality, as well as thinking outside of the box. Servant leaders lead through openness and a willingness to ask for ideas. They don’t shut people down when new ideas are presented. However, people must be given the time to be creative and innovative in order for the organization to reap the rewards. That means the organization as a whole must buy in and support this process as well.

Exhibits empathy and acceptance

The old saying that states, “You really don’t know what a man has gone through until you have walked a mile in his shoes,” is a very true statement. However, empathy is one of the most greatly misunderstood qualities of humankind. To put yourself in someone else’s place and truly understand what they are going through is the difference between sympathy and empathy. To be a leader that people want to follow, you must exhibit empathy. It makes you genuine and real, as well as accessible. An empathic leader accepts people for who they are and what they are about, as well as being realistic as to what they can achieve and how much they can be challenged, stretched, and grown. However, pushing someone beyond their limits or setting unrealistic expectations is a sure way to push your followers away.

Developing empathy is not an easy thing to do. It means first taking stock of yourself, and truly evaluating who you are, what you are about, and what strengths, weaknesses, and talents you possess. It means understanding your vulnerabilities. To be strong, sometimes we need to be or appear weak; not weak in the sense of ineffective, actually just the opposite. Empathy is about showing your followers that you can be vulnerable, which accentuates being approachable. It is the very essence of what makes a leader want to serve. To empathize drives us to want to improve the followers’ state of being, for the good of both the individual and company as a whole.

Empathy means acceptance as well. When you say, “I understand and accept you for who you are, right now, right here,” you are acknowledging that everyone is not created equal. You accept them for who they are—their authentic selves. Cookie-cutter molds don’t exist for people and diversity abounds in today’s workforce. Everyone is not created the same and people process the world around them through their past experiences, which makes us unique. Servant leaders embrace that uniqueness and understand the gifts that each of us possess.

Bringing out the best in people is about empathizing in the here and now concerning what they can and cannot realistically accomplish, which ultimately builds trust. Set your people up for success, and support and nurture them as they move through their careers. Come from a position of service, and you will build relationships that last a lifetime, as well as experiencing the immensely fulling feeling of serving others as you help them find their way.

Embodies humility and tolerance

Tolerance is born out of failure and suffering. You can only empathize with someone if you put yourself in their shoes. If you’ve never failed at anything, then you haven’t pushed yourself hard enough. The only way teams can grow is by trying new things. Not every initiative will be successful, and how you react to failure is crucial to your people. Work with them to figure out why the failure happened and adjust. Encourage learning from mistakes and failures as a positive thing, building the understanding that succeeding every time is not realistic. And, do not employ the “win at any cost” mentality or sacrifice your morals and values. When you come from a position of genuine humility, you will be viewed as genuine, which amplifies your credibility.

Practices mindfulness

Servant leadership focuses on serving the common good. It means releasing your ego and letting go to tap into the collective consciousness and wisdom of the team. To give a voice to everyone as equals, havingthe same potential to contribute and influence the direction of the team. It means the unification of individuals into a common whole for the collective good. Mindfulness is about being in a state of heightened consciousness or awareness. It means being in the here and now—or, in other words, being present! In our fast-paced society of sensory overload, mindfulness can be hard to achieve. There is so much stimuli coming at us every waking minute of the day that even focusing in for five minutes at a time can be difficult for many. Being still in mind so that you can focus is extremely important when it comes to being an effective leader.

For example, when I am at a client site working with my team, I must be present in mind, not just in body. I owe it to both my client and my team. As a leader, I must constantly be perceiving and interpreting the interactions and events that are happening all around me, and unconsciously synthesizing them to understand what my team and client need to solve the problems that brought us there in the first place. At times, especially as I grapple to understand the problem and make logical sense of it all, admittedly it is sensory overload. If I start from a place of chaos, that is my point of reference and my effectiveness is diminished. If I start from a place where my mind is still, and I allow my unconscious mind to engage, my intuition and perception experience a heightened sense of awareness. I put aside all the clutter in my mind that adds little to the tasks at hand, so I can focus on the immediate problem.

Athletes call it “being in the zone,” and as an avid runner and cyclist, I know this feeling well! My ability to serve in the moment is greatly magnified, because I am present in the moment. I experience greater clarity, creativity, perception, emotional intelligence, empathy, and compassion. The end result: I am much more effective and more capable of leading from a place of calmness and mindfulness. What I am able to accomplish is elevated, because I am deescalating the chaos, and both internally and externally focusing on developing the solution.

Also, be mindful of what you say and do. As discussed earlier, your followers are watching and listening. Remember, you lead by example through both your words and actions. Case in point, if your company is undergoing an Agile transformation, and you don’t fully support it, this is going to come through loud and clear in what you say and do. Merely going through the motions of support will seem artificial, false, or ungenuine. It is better to voice your concerns and objections by laying them out on the table. Tap into your unconscious mind by understanding where your objections are coming from, and truly explore what is motivating your words and behavior. Challenge yourself to dig deep and ask the tough questions, wherever they are coming from. Then, find the person in your organization that can address them. If you are questioning the transformation, others are probably doing the same thing.

As a transformational change agent, I’ve heard some very valid reasons and blockers around transforming to Agile ways of working. And it has helped my team and I address those things right up front. Serve the common good and get to the bottom of why it is unsettling for you. Then share your journey and the end result with others. If your points are valid, then work to solve them for the collective whole and greater good of the organization. If not, face your fears and change your mental model. In my experience, leaders don’t silently undermine change initiatives, but managers do. Make the choice to be ahead of the change curve, once you deal with your own objections and understand why the change is necessary. Then help others accomplish the same thing.

To calm your mind and elevate yourself above both the internal and external chaos present in the world today, you must find time to be reflective and introspective on a daily basis. Take the last 30 minutes of your day to still your mind and ground yourself through meditation and reflection. Overall, you will find it gives you greater clarity and calmness of mind. When the going gets tough and tough decisions need to be made, you’ll be able to focus in and make better decisions, because of this calmness.

It’s hard to explain until you experience it for yourself. Personally, I didn’t much believe in this technique until I tried it for myself. I was having drinks with a colleague one evening and was explaining to her the anxiety I felt about all the things I needed to get done and how stressed out it made me feel. She recommended this meditative technique to me. At first, just a few minutes was really hard for me to accomplish. Then, little by little, I was able to work up to 15 minutes, then 30, and eventually to 45 minutes; not daily of course, but when I have the time, I do the longer increments, usually on the weekends. About six months later, I had dinner with her again and she actually noticed the difference in my personality and presence. I was more “posed” and there was a sense of calmness about me that wasn’t there before. It worked! I did feel calmer, less stressed, and more in tune with my mental and emotional states and abilities. My mind felt sharper and less chaotic than it did just six months ago.

Then, take the next 15 minutes to do a daily retrospective and ask yourself:

• What worked well today?

• What didn’t work so well?

• How can I improve on things tomorrow?

Just like a Scrum team, practice inspection and adaption on a personal level to continuously evolve your leadership abilities. Build your own impediments backlog and work to solve what is blocking your forward progress and how you can learn and adjust to make improvements to become the best leader possible.

Leverages common sense and intuition

Common sense and intuition are the intangibles of leadership that aren’t measured from an academic perspective. Our past experiences and who we are affects our ability to serve and lead. Locked away in our unconscious minds are vast amounts of knowledge, that if accessed, allow us to function at a much higher level. Science calls these cognitive schemas that help us process the events that happen to us in the world. Based on past experience and events, your degree or ability to access your common sense or take advantage of intuition hinges on what you learned from those past events. That is what we call common sense and intuition. That is why practicing inspection and adaption is so important to serve well. You must learn from past experiences and recognize their potential to affect your present situations.

Leaders sometimes must make decisions on hunches or with less than 100 percent of the required information. In these situations, servant leaders need to rely on common sense or intuition at times to bridge that gap. What “feels” right to them based on past experience or a feeling of somehow “knowing” the right course of action. Or, in other words, to employ their best judgment. To some, this will come naturally, to others, not so much. Practice being conscious and aware as you go about your day. Practice meditation and reflection to still your mind and learn from your daily interactions. Learn from the past, live in the present, and always seek to improve on your future. That is how you will develop the common sense and intuition that will establish you as the type of leader who people will willingly follow.

Faces challenges head on

Servant leaders encourage risk taking in themselves and others. To think outside of the box and put themselves in challenging situations. To accept both failure and success as a natural part of the process. To embrace a willingness to experiment and fail, then pivot or experiment again until there is a breakthrough. Or until the realization that the effort needs to be abandoned, because all the options have been exhausted.

There is no shame in cutting your losses and it takes a lot of courage to separate yourself from something that at one time you thought was a great idea. Wise business people do it every day, addressing failure as a learning experience, and not beating themselves up or dwelling on it by going back over it in your mind time after time. Don’t let the fear of failure get in your way. Take both the risk of failure, along with the chance for success, as possible, realistic outcomes. Then accept whatever happens and believe you gave it your all, whether it succeeded or failed. The point is, recognize that you challenged yourself in the first place and took the risk head on, instead of playing it safe.

Possesses decision-making capabilities

Making well-informed, objective decisions is one of your biggest responsibilities as a leader, and the most demonstrative way of leading is through your decision-making capabilities. Not making the tough calls doesn’t mean they don’t get made. It means that someone below you will have to make them. Someone who possesses less information than you, but must make the decision so that the team can move forward.

Not making decisions displays a lack of conviction. Leaders must have conviction, and not be conflicted. It’s OK to collect facts and others’ opinions to build consensus so that your decisions are fact-based, objective, and unemotional. However, if you think you can just float along, wing it, push out taking a stand, or skip making a crucial decision, think again! It doesn’t work that way. You don’t get the luxury of passing the buck, and through this behavior, you’re letting both your team and yourself down.

Passing on making decisions builds a culture of indifference, as those who observe your behavior follow your lead. Remember, your people are watching. When crucial decisions are pushed too far down in the organization, many relevant data points could possibly be unavailable. This means major errors in judgment could occur, sending the team in the wrong direction.

There is no place for ego in the decision-making process, so leave it at the door. Servant leaders truly develop the skill of being direct and expressing their point of view. Not in a forceful or threatening way, but through collaboration, concise communication, active listening, and facilitation. It’s better to be clear, and sometimes wrong, then indecisive. Having a point of view and expressing it to gain buy-in or to work through the problem with your team, establishes trust and a track record of collaboration and respecting others. I always tell my direct reports if you make a decision and it turns out to be an incorrect one, as long as you can back it up with the thoughts and reasoning behind why you went in that direction, I will support you to the end at whatever the cost. At least you made the decision, and in some way, the team moved forward.

If this happens to you, it’s your opportunity to exercise compassion and self-restraint. Turn it into a learning opportunity, and view it as a teaching moment. Coach your people and show them how the decision-making process works. Course corrections are not the end of the world and no one is expected to be right all the time. Perfection is an illusion that you must not buy into and support within your corporate culture. It sets people up to fail and causes finger pointing. A “culture of blame” is a very destructive thing and extremely anti-Agile.

Leaders must also be able to confidently deliver both good as well as bad news. Not all decisions will be popular with your followers. Being a leader is not a popularity contest. Remember, you are making decisions for the collective whole, not a small group of individuals.

Understands the importance of being proactive

Stephen R. Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, stated that if leaders want their teams to behave and respond in a proactive way, they must be constantly synthesizing the present to anticipate the future, by learning from the past.²³ In other words, to be proactive and confront issues before they become major errors in judgment. Knowing when to act is just as important as how to act.

Being proactive is even more important today because of the rapid rate of change. Information travels at the speed of light within our society. Leaders must stay current with social and economic trends on a global level. The stakes are very high, because a failure to act may result in the loss of competitive advantage that could cause the demise of the organization. Sitting on yesterday’s successes just doesn’t cut it any more. Either be green and growing, or ripe and rotting. Those are the only two choices in today’s disruptive business climate.

Practices active listening

Servant leaders automatically respond to problems by listening first. To truly solve a problem and not just look for someone to blame, you must effectively identify its root cause and solve for that, not its symptoms. Listening instead of immediately reacting also differentiates servant leaders from other types of leaders, because they take the time to fully understand the problem and how people are affected and impacted by it. They care about what others think the problem might be by listening to them. This builds respect and trust on both sides.

Actual communication is about both listening and speaking. Many leaders are under the impression they are supposed to speak more than listen, which reinforces their authority and expectation that they “have all the answers.” In Agile environments, leaders are not expected to be omniscient. It is the collective wisdom of the team that elicits the best problem-solving methods. A servant leader taps into this collective wisdom and solves problems through consensus, instead of mandate.

A servant leader also realizes that silence is an option that allows others to voice their opinion, as well as ask questions and come up with solutions. Living in that silence can be one of the hardest things a leader must learn to do. They must let go of the notion that he or she needs to be the one that is always speaking. Communication is a dialogue, not a monologue. A servant leader listens, understands the power of asking questions, summarizes, and then forms a conclusion. There is a general misconception that the one who is speaking is in control of the conversation. That is truly not the case, because the one asking the questions is actually leading the conversation. So, becoming a great asker of questions hones your listening skills, and allows you to collect information and observe behavior. When exercising critical thinking skills during the decision-making process, keep in mind that a lot of times it’s not what people say that is important—rather, it is how they say it that counts.

Understands the art of facilitation

Servant leaders understand how to facilitate conversations to get the best out of people. They facilitate the bringing together of individuals that can collectively solve problems together. They moderate conversations through asking open-ended questions that spark true conversation, as well as building mutual respect. They arbitrate disagreements and handle differences in opinions in respectful and proactive ways by validating others’ viewpoints, instead of trying to push their point to create a personal win. Validating and really listening to contradicting opinions, instead of discounting them just because they aren’t your own, creates a “win/win” situation for everyone.

It also means asking “What can I do to make my team’s work easier?”, then going about the task of solving whatever impediment that is blocking forward movement. As a servant leader, you are there to facilitate resolutions to issues and remove impediments for the team. In short, to make their work lives better, no matter at what level you lead within an organization. Servant leaders constantly seek out opportunities to facilitate and achieve greater work/life balance for their followers.

Acts as teacher, coach, and mentor

Acting as a teacher, coach, and mentor goes hand in hand with being a servant leader. The intention of each is to help people become better at whatever they do, as well as to help develop themselves. All involve spending time helping people improve through sharing knowledge, wisdom, and life experiences to help overcome challenges and obstacles. Servant leaders give freely of their time and genuinely care for those they serve. The passion to be the best person possible, as well as helping others develop themselves, comes naturally to servant leaders.

Engages in lifelong learning

Dr. Edward Deming, the father of Quality, in his book Out of Crisis said²⁴:

Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment.

Deming’s words say it all: being a lifelong learner is a must for a servant leader!

Learning, especially through reading, plays a crucial part in a leader’s development, because it generates a constant flow of new ideas, spurs intellectual thought, and keeps the mind sharp. Albert Mohler in his book The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters states, “When you have found a leader, you have found a reader.” He goes on to say that, “there is no substitute for effective reading when it comes to developing and maintaining the intelligence necessary to lead.”²⁵

Maintains a sustainable work pace

Just like Agile teams, leaders need to maintain a sustainable work pace. Always being on high alert—or worse yet, creating fires, is a sure way to quickly burn yourself out (as well as burning out your followers). Limit your own work in progress (WIP), and don’t overcommit. If you are constantly running full out, ask yourself “Do I have the energy to handle an unforeseen emergency or problem?” If the answer is “no,” then you need to seek a better balance. Make whatever changes are necessary to bring your WIP down, until you can achieve a steady work pace that you can maintain in the long run.