A Tale of Agile

A few years ago an Agile coach engaged a business Director. He got the Director to see the value in moving her entire business department to the same floor as the technology department and they consequently implemented a new initiative across several competitive international markets faster than expected and to great success.

Where Do We Want to Go?

Our current priorities come from a different age when organizations and their workers had been treated as parts of a structure, as machines, or computers, but not as people. Agile implores us to put human concerns (collaborations and teams) over processes and tools, but the only way we have learned to effect change is with more processes and tools.

A Tale of Agile continued… the Other Face of Agile

Following its successes in the international markets, the same company attempted to rollout the same initiative across the domestic American markets. The resulting efforts wasted almost $1 million across 6 months only to be shelved without delivering anything of value.

Where are We Now?

The reality is that Agile methods and frameworks do not ensure agility. Organizations view Agile as a process to be installed rather than recognizing that it requires a fundamental shift in how we think, work, and organize. Human collaborations are plagued with competing priorities, and reinforced by our limited perspectives. We are blocked from developing those collaborative abilities that aren’t outlined in our job descriptions, we are discouraged from leveraging our unique individualities, we are unable to see our impact on the big picture, while being penalized for investing in the long term.

How do we get there?

Organizations need to think differently about how humans organize. We need a way to connect the entire system of parts so individuals can understand their value and impact across the organization and in order to align the efforts of the entire system in a meaningful way.

Every individual, team, and group within an organization has a unique culture and their own priorities within the system. This diversity could be a strength when the organization is aligned toward a common purpose and able to understand the value of their contributions toward that purpose.

Organizations need to stop getting in in the way of people and their unique qualities and inherent complexity and make it the organization’s responsibility (as well as an ability of theirs) to help workers unlock the best version of themselves.

But better processes does not mean better organizations.

Where Can We Go from There?

Humanity is facing unprecedented levels of complexity in addition to pervasive uncertainty. Organizations of the future will need to be healthy in their entirety in order to exhibit the resilience, robustness and cohesiveness needed to adapt in response to the unknowns. There will need to be flexibility and autonomy to continually reinvent themselves on the individual level, team level, and on all other organizational levels. The Integral Agile Approach is demonstrated to can achieve these long term goals.

A Brief Introduction to Integral Theory

Integral Theory is an attempt by the philosopher Ken Wilber to integrate research across many fields into a unifying theory that can bring insight to the human experience. It features six core concepts (Holons, Quadrants, Levels, Lines, Types and States).

Holons

Much of our universe is made of inherently complete things that are part of something larger while also having their own smaller parts. Holons means whole-parts. People are whole, but also part of teams which are themselves whole, while also being part of a company, which is part of a community, etc.

Holons in Agile

Dunbar’s number (the cognitive limit to how many people we can maintain relationships with) shows us that organizations are not uniform wholes but instead groups of smaller networks that form fluid complex systems. This ‘systems view’ allows us to see and address collaboration, impact, and health at every level and in the way humans actually operate.

Holon mapping permits us to see the system and to understand how value flows within it.

Holonic Value Streams are more effective and sustainable than traditional value streams.

Aligning the Cadences of the holons allows value to flow more freely in every direction.

The health of the holon from the individual to the enterprise level becomes critical, visible, and attainable.

Quadrants

Most things in the human experience can be categorized as Individual or Collective, and as Subjective or Objective. The resulting 4 Quadrants are represented in almost every language as I, We, It, and They/Those.

Quadrants in Agile

By making sure that everything from OKRs to Working Agreements address the 4 Quadrants, we ensure that they are more complete and more effective. By using the 4Qs in analysis & problem solving we address the whole problem, and more readily account for biases and blind spots.

The 4Q Analysis is an easy tool to use but very powerful when mastered. It can be applied at every stage of product development from planning to evaluation.

Agile Roles & Processes are more comprehensive and effective when assessed using the 4Qs.

Levels

Humanity has evolved through a pattern of values reflected across all societies through their culture, governments and organizations. These Levels each build upon the ones that came before and each offers new tools, new perspectives, and new challenges.

Levels in Agile

With an understanding of Levels it becomes possible to communicate more effectively across groups with different and often competing priorities. By addressing the core priorities in plans and projects, leaders can align all the groups and individuals within an organization toward a common purpose.

Levels assessment enables us to incentivize groups more effectively, and to encourage a common organizational culture.

Lines

Individuals (like the teams they form) will be better at some abilities than they are at others. These developmental variations are called Lines.

Lines in Agile

We look at which abilities are important to an team, to its broader organization and to it’s members. The development, or lack of development, of these lines can hinder the team, the organization, their health and their goals.

Lines assessments make many of these often qualitative skills clear and measurable. They can also reveal when development along a given line might be healthy, unhealthy, or simply good enough for the current circumstances.

Types

Humans have limitless forms of expression. Some of these expressions are patterns that are unlikely to change over time such as Introversion/Extroversion, Risk Aversion/Risk Tolerance, etc.

Types in Agile

Understanding the typology of ourselves and of the members of our teams teaches us how to be more empathetic, and more effective team players. It improves our understanding of ourselves and each other in actionable ways while affording us greater insight into our resulting dynamics. Typology does not limit the roles we can take, but it can determine the style with which we express a given role, and the ways in which we can make our roles more rewarding.

Type assessments reveal our typology and can help us identify the ways in which we can be uniquely valuable and critical members of our teams and the broader organization.

What is the Approach?

The Integral Agile Approach begins by viewing the entire organization in terms of holons. We address and improve the health of each of these. Any dysfunctions are resolved from the quadrants that are actually causing the dysfunction. We use the some of these tools to effect better leadership, more effective communication & planning, the alignment of all groups (holons) to enable value to flow more easily between them, and much more.

The tools used here are continually evolving and growing.

Transformation roadmap The Approach is adaptive rather than prescriptive so its implementation will be just as unique as every organization and its particular circumstances are. The roadmap accounts for the goals and culture of the organization, and those of all of its individual parts.

Understanding A Tale of Agile

The success story demonstrates many Integral values such as alignment, systems thinking, and collaborative communication across different priorities. Still there is room for growth, and valid criticisms concerning the resilience, and sustainability of these methods, can be raised.

Understanding Where Do We Want to Go?

Today’s organizations are the product of cultures that may not reflect the Levels of the groups they try to serve or the leaders, the talent, or the ideas they try to employ.

The Approach values collaborations and teams (Left side Quadrants) over processes and tools (Right side Quadrants), because organizations are organic systems. However, its skillful use results in a balance of the Right and Left side Quadrants that is ultimately more effective, more comprehensive, more flexible, sustainable and healthy.

Understanding the Other Face of Agile

Following the international success, the company failed domestically to align the priorities across the entire system. Leadership was largely absent, communication defaulted to an ineffective ‘business-as-usual’ state, and the process was largely Waterfall with Agile terminology. The people empowered to make (or impede) the change could see what was happening but were helpless to make the kinds of changes that would have resulted in a different outcome.

Understanding Where Are We Now?

Agile is powerful but on its own it is incomplete. Agile frameworks are too heavily biased toward the Right (objective) side of the Quadrants, while the cultural and behaviors that need to change exist on the Left (subjective) side. Our competing priorities (Levels), biases (Quadrants), and inability to see the whole system (Holons) hinder our efforts to make sustainable change, especially at scale.

Understanding How Do We Get There?

A systems view allows an organization and its parts to see the entire system and their impact. This elevates our understanding of the value of health at every organizational level. The unique culture of each individual and group is an asset whose diversity leads to more robust plans, and powerful outcomes.

Organizations can help workers unlock the best version of themselves and address deficiencies in a complete way, while avoiding the creation of new problems with a comprehensive 4 Quadrant approach.

Understanding Where Can We Go from There?

Integral-minded and aligned organizations are resilient, adaptive, and healthy enough to face the complex challenges of tomorrow; but these tools are also skills that takes time to develop. Integral thinking is a growth mindset. Much like the science of organizing, we are capturing only the current state of something that is in continuous evolution.