Adopting Agile in an Organisation for Productivity – Think again

Adopting Agile in an Organisation for Productivity

Assumption Managers make while adopting agile

Sometimes when organisational leaders &  managers think about adopting agile in an Organisation, some managers tend to assume that the objective of moving to agile is to make teams faster and improve their productivity.

Agile is about responding to change faster or improving time to market for your product BUT what happens when we move to agile with focus solely on improving team productivity?

Now there is nothing wrong with improving team productivity, if productivity is measured on the value created and the focus is on creating value.

However if productivity is about utilising every capacity available or if the push to improve productivity is controlled or managed by managers outside the team, it can cause significant side effects on agile teams.

Let me share some of the patterns in behaviours in managers that I have noticed when they start thinking about adopting Agile in an Organisation and how those behaviours have impacted the teams.

Behaviour patterns in managers

• They start tracking the team’s velocity numbers sprint on sprint.
• Teams are compared based on their velocity numbers and pressured to compete with each other.
• Teams with better velocity numbers rewarded directly or indirectly.
• Dip in velocity is considered bad news and questioned
• They chalk out sprint on sprint detailed plan based on certain velocity numbers and projections.
• There are attempts to boost velocity numbers by adding more people after certain sprints
• Focus shifts to track productivity at individual level
• Heavy focus on utilising every hour available, instead of creating valuable increment

Noticeable behaviour shifts in team members

• Team shifts their focus on getting their velocity numbers high instead of meeting sprint goal or delivering releasable increment
• Quality is compromised in order to meet the velocity numbers
• Team starts to compete within themselves and across teams
• Reduced teamwork within and across teams
• Team members get under pressure to show that they have utilized each of their hours productively.
• Teams start to fake velocity numbers
• Defects start to pile up
• Refactoring and tech debt items are ignored and it usually piles up
• Teams fail to see big picture – product goal and get too focused on sprint on sprint looking good

Impact of Adopting Agile in an Organisation

High amount of tech debt, high number of defect leakage, poor code quality – these eventually end up putting a break on the team’s ability to deliver working software and respond to change faster.

Focus of such teams shifts from being good to looking good. Dysfunctional behaviors of the team will start to show up. Lack of trust across members, commitment level goes down, team members start to feel psychologically unsafe to openly talk about defects or quality issues. People develop a strong need to be seen right, which eventually results in members resistant to experimenting or taking risk.

So essentially the core objective of agile, which is to deliver incremental value to customers as early as possible, improve quality incrementally and ability to respond to change faster gets lost.

Why do we tend to associate agile adoption with team productivity?

With a background in traditional plan driven mindset, delivering faster by improving productivity seems instinctive. To me this very sub-conscious assumption seems to be rooted in a traditional plan driven mindset, as opposed to a value driven mindset, where the focus is the incremental value delivery.

What to do when you observe any of the behaviour patterns within your team?

If you are noticing any of the behaviour patterns, to me this is an opportunity to pause and reflect with your team. Behaviours of teams are usually influenced heavily by the way they are led.

Ask more deeper questions

• What is/are the business outcomes you would like your organisation to accomplish by moving to agile?
• What are the current practices that are obstructing your teams from accomplishing those outcomes?
• What changes are needed in my own leadership in order to empower your teams to accomplish those business outcomes?

Invite your team for an open conversation. If you are a manager, you may want to invite an agile training facilitator in Pune who can facilitate conversation in a psychologically safe environment. Creating the space for conversation, will probably help teams open up and create learning opportunities for teams as well as for management.