Agile Disrupted

It’s not discovery. It’s discoveries.

If you were asked, how does the company you work for make money? Break it down. Whether it’s an early startup living off of seed funding or a corporate empire running multi-billion dollar enterprises across the globe, what part do you play in helping your company thrive as a business? 

Some responses might be, “Beats me. But who cares? I’m getting paid.” For how long? It all comes down to that, doesn’t it? Money. 

What better way to end 2021 than the much anticipated Season 2 Finale: Disrupters Assemble. With nothing short of profound introspection and prolific disruption.

Agile Interviews. Enough said. 

When it comes to the organizations that carry their own perception of what being Agile means, in accordance to their own business model, their own operating model, their own cultural values & principles and ultimately their own brand, how can we be certain that we are being matched appropriately?

We don't. 

Until the actual interview begins with our hiring manager, it is an uncertainty we sit with. The uncertainty of what this manager is going to do with our future as soon as it's in his/her hands. The uncertainty of joining an organization without actually knowing what you signed up for, despite what you learned within a few hours of having a conversation with a stranger, or perhaps a couple of strangers.

If the argument is to embrace change and embrace impermanence of any present state we are in, are we hiring people as they are now? Or are we hiring for the inevitability of who they will become? Are we hiring to help others feel confident in their own future, because we, as leaders, see the future with abundance and absolute clarity. 

• What happens when an organization is uncertain about the future they are hiring for and can't speak to it in an Agile interview?
• What happens when an organization is uncertain about the role descriptions they are hiring for while being in the process of a Fragile Transformation?
• What happens when an organization's misperception of Agile results in hiring the wrong Agile professionals?
• What happens when an organization's misperception of Product results in hiring the wrong Product professionals?
• What happens when an organization hires for a specific culture fit that ultimately leads to culture cliques?
• What happens when a hiring manager prioritizes filling a gap versus investing in talent retention?
• What assumptions and biases exist in the hiring process for Agile professionals, especially from the hiring managers?
• Do we really uncover the organization's values and principles in the interview alone?
• Have you ever been ghosted by a recruiter?
• What happens when a recruiter sets up a candidate for failure at a prospective organization?
• When does a recruiter really go above and beyond?

Are we at the mercy of an organization's open requisitions and their recruiting agencies, or can we change the narrative by uncovering the belief systems that support the organization's values & principles by asking the right questions? 

Two words: Hard. Conversations. 

When comes to all the professional & personal relationships that fill our lives with fulfillment, or perhaps even dread, do we really accept the responsibility of conflict management? Do we live by the values and principles we carry, especially when conflict arises?

• Do people avoid hard conversations out of cowardice?
• Do people avoid hard conversations out of complacency?
• Do people avoid hard conversations out of convenience?
• Do people avoid hard conversations out of privilege?
• Are we in denial of the problem that exists in order to avoid a hard conversation?
• Are we always ready to provide or receive a hard conversation?
• Do we statistically remember the worst fights over the greatest milestones in a relationship due to the emotional scars it left behind?
• When you avoid a hard conversation, does anyone really win?
• What element of risk and uncertainty holds us back from having hard conversations?
• How regularly do we practice trust in ourselves in order to value the trust in others?
• Do we overestimate how well we communicate and promote transparency?
• Do we inflate the hard conversation to be bigger in our heads than it actually is?
• Does the relationship carry any substance without prior experiences of conflict?
• Are we compromising more often than collaborating in our relationships?

We are truly tested as humans by the decisions we make and its impact to others. We live with our decisions each day. So, is the hard conversation intended for someone else, or is it intended for ourselves? 🔥

Tis the season to be horrific and ghoulish, let's talk about corporate horror & trauma. Have you ever been ghosted by a company before

Corporate ghosting is when a company completely cuts off all forms of corporate communication with you without prior notice or explanation. Plot twist: this can happen to absolutely any professional in their career.

• Why does corporate ghosting happen?
• What stopped a supervisor from having one hard conversation to their employee and sparing them a lifetime of trauma?
• What happens to all the relationships that an employee built in the organization after being ghosted?
• How does being ghosted by a company affect an employee's ability to trust their next hiring manager again?
• How does being ghosted by a company affect an employee's ability to build relationships again at their next company?
• Does one supervisor's decision to ghost an employee not affect the rest of the employees reporting to him/her?
• How does ghosting one employee ensure the psychological safety of the peers of that employee?
• Can a company's culture be salvaged when ghosting employees becomes an acceptable norm?
• What precedent does corporate ghosting set for new hires at a company?
• Where is the trust, integrity, transparency, and courage that companies seek from their people, if it's not shown by example?
• How is corporate trauma any different from the personal trauma that results from being ghosted?
• How does the human mind respond to a trauma it cannot process or find closure in?
• Is there awareness of the damaging consequences that corporate ghosting brings to an employee or is it not that important?
• To what magnitude do you start questioning yourself and your self worth to fully process the very act of being ghosted?
• Does the memory of being ghosted by a company truly fade away or does it stay with you until the test of time?
• Would you have changed the narrative of your time with a company knowing that you were going to get ghosted in the end?

Is a company's decision to ghost their employee a necessary cruelty that could've been avoided by providing one exit conversation? 🔥

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Alice. She discovered a world that disrupted her entire perception of reality. It was called Wonderland.

If we look at Alice as this beacon of hope and the personification of curiosity & courage, do organizations exist in the Agile world that we live in or are they hidden gateways to Wonderland?

• What happens when an organization doesn't fundamentally know why they are transforming?
• What happens when an organization has a reorg and puts their people into new roles without understanding the responsibilities required of those roles?
• What happens when the infrastructure doesn't support the scaling framework stood up by leadership?
• Will an Agile Transformation alone fix the problems an organization has been experiencing in their operating model for years?
• Will an Agile Transformation alone fix the problems an organization has been experiencing in their business model and market domain?
• When an Agile team follows the process in the ecosystem designed for them to deliver a product that no one uses, is that a true measure of success?
• Are executives willing to make the hard decisions and be open to the changes required of an Agile Transformation?
• Is an Agile Transformation an organization's last attempt to save the business and the jobs of their people?
• What happens when executives carry their own assumptions & bias around a strategy for the future by avoiding the actual challenges that exist in the ecosystem?
• Does an organization ever stop transforming in a market that is constantly changing?
• Are we allowing the people of an organization the security to make decisions as well as mistakes in order to make progress?
• When we show patience and grace for children to mature into adults, are we providing that same courtesy to the people of an organization maturing in their own principles & values during an Agile Transformation?
• When consultants are hired to support the organization's Agile Transformation, are we really collaborating for an abundant future or are we hiring a service to make the hard decisions for us?
• Are we really measuring changed behaviors of a culture that's been fundamentally disrupted?
• Is the future we envision abundant and full of hope or is the fear of failure keeping us from it?

So, how good are you at prioritizing what you need to get done at a sustainable pace? How often do you realistically say "yes" to last minute commitments that come up and how often do you say "no" to promises that you know you can't keep?

Do you find yourself saying the following:

• I'm going to sacrifice sleep, to get all this done. 
• I'm going to sacrifice meals, to get all this done.
• I'm going to sacrifice time with my friends & family, to get all of this done. 
• I'm going to leave this partially done, so that I can get everything else done.

Now, flip that to Agile teams using WIP limits:

• Can WIP limits expose an Agile team's inability to prioritize?
• What happens when an Agile team blindly follows WIP limits and starts cheating their way around them?
• What happens when Agile teams run the risk of pulling in too much work against their rate of predictability?
• Can WIP limits alone help undone work?
• Can WIP limits implicitly encourage collaboration for a fragmented team?
• How comfortable is an Agile team saying "no" to work that is past their available capacity?
• Are we really embodying a Work/Life balance if team members are allocated at policies are disregarded by leadership?

WIP limits encourage a culture of work that is done before pulling in more work. The tool(s) we use doesn’t guarantee the culture we seek, but the people do.

Are we setting the example of the culture we seek from others?

How can we be inherently done, if we didn't understand what readiness was in the first place? At what point does the obsession over output, efficiency, predictability, and misguided deadlines overpower our actualization of readiness to begin with? 

• Is the Agile Team ready to be launched?
• Have we done our due diligence to determine if a product is worth pursuing or not?
• Is the market even ready for our product?
• Are we ready to release?
• Is the organization actually ready to transform?
• Are we ready to accept the roles that are being asked of us?
• Are we ready to confront ourselves and have the hard conversation to turn this ship around?

When we fail, will our conviction and drive lead us to try again?

What happens when a social media app goes viral and suddenly hours of your day have disappeared?

What happens when a virus hits an entire species and you find yourself getting acclimated to regular video calls in your home?

What will happen to us when we figure out our future residence in outer space?

Our lives will fundamentally change. One person's vision impacting the masses. The psychology behind radical products is not foreign to us and demands to be recognized.

What happens when you go through eight powerful episodes with different speakers on controversial topics that often get overlooked in the Agile space? Well, what you don’t do is wait for opportunities to manifest on their own. You create your own opportunities for meaningful change when and where you see them. 

How would you describe your typical work day? Honestly. Is the work that you do each day actually meaningful? Or is your current role sucking the life out of you? Have you become complacent & unmotivated? Do you feel underutilized? Do you feel unappreciated?

If so, was it always like this? No, of course not. Your first day at any organization is the glorious day where your inner battery of hope, excitement, and curiosity is at full capacity because everything is new and exciting. You’re about begin a new era full of possibilities.

But does the organization feel that way, too? Does your hiring manager share the same sentiment that the future is bright & full of possibilities? Or were you hired for a temporary gap that needs filling? When an organization envisions a future that’s full of hope, so does its people and the people they hire to bring along with them. 

But are most organizations looking into the future or obsessing over the present? Are organizations treating people as resources or beacons for a better tomorrow?

What if I told you that tomorrow is going to be a day of radical & tragic change?

Tomorrow is the day you experience a horrible stroke, and are now navigating through a wheel chair, while you undergo intense physical therapy to regain your sense of mobility again. You'd feel profoundly devastated.

The same set of stairs that you climbed a countless number of times now gives you feelings of helplessness and anger. But are you angry at the stairs or at the problem? The stairs are intently designed for humans with mobility. The elevator behind the stairs now holds new meaning and a space for gratitude that you didn't have before.

As humans, are we physically & emotionally designed for such radical change? Maybe. Are there humans out there who's very passion is dedicated around human centered design? Yes. It's called User Experience (UX). We are all humans surrounded by products that we specifically chose because they were specifically designed for a customer persona that we identify with.

People create products to serve the people, but is it designed in a way for them to use it?

How do we come up with ideas?

Think about your last memory of experiencing recognition, or even ridicule, from someone about your particular idea. Was it a fleeting thought or the result of a perfectly packaged set of circumstances?

The very definition of an “idea” has countless interpretations. When you hear the opening question for a remarkable Founder, “What you’ve created is ground breaking, how did you come up with the idea?” A long winded story begins, but the same question remains: How do we really come up with ideas?

We imagine them.

Our ideas are born in our imagination, and unless we do something about them, they live there, too. The evolution of an idea, or even a belief, turning into a successful Product always circles back to its origin story: Minimum Viable Product.

When an idea is born, it commands a hypothesis to drive an experiment. But what exactly requires that hypothesis to become a viable Product vs. something that has “Minimum Viable Potential?”

What is an experiment without its scientist plagued by a hypothesis that commands an answer?

Where is our conviction of the problems we sign up to solve?

As professionals in the Agile realm, how do you explain your role to your friends and family?

When you share your official title as "Scrum Master, Product Owner, Developer, Agile Consultant, etc.,” people who don’t currently work in an Agile space won’t understand what you're talking about. So, we pause for a brief moment, to gather ourselves and figure out a way to explain what our role is in a way that is meaningful. One way or another, you find yourself explaining the Product or the business you support and that's the kicker.

We all have a role to play when it comes to the multi-dimensional realm that is Product Management.

Every single human being on this earth serves a role in Product, whether you're a founder, a builder, or a customer. Perhaps, not everyone in this world has experienced what it takes to be a founder and/or builder.

But there isn't a fortunate soul on this earth that hasn't been a customer to an existing or former Product.

So, when does that customer obsession begin for the Products we design in a market that competes for the same cause: Products designed by people to serve a need for the people.

If I had to ask you how many times you’ve been betrayed? Could you come up with a number? What’s the first memory that comes to your mind? That leap of faith you took in trusting someone, and ended up feeling foolish in the end. Did you recover? Did that relationship recover?

And isn’t that the irony of trust? The only way to know if you can trust someone is by trusting them. It’s the beginning of every relationship you’ve ever had in your life.

Flip that. What about when someone starts trusting you? That transition period of being someone’s after thought to being someone’s priority. It’s scary. It’s a big moment that doesn’t get the attention that it deserves...until it’s too late.

Now amplify the magnitude of such a responsibility of individuals to teams, specifically, Agile teams. How often are we braving through connection? When trust falls apart, what do you do? When trust is salvaged, what happens?