Things to do to increase or reduce agility

@Henrik Ståhl -

I agree with the first list, and I’d have added “take a systems view” to the list. I mostly agree with the second list, but not necessarily the first item. Planning is not a bad thing - it’s when the horizon for planning exceeds our confidence in our plans that we get into trouble. After all, a daily coordination meeting/Scrum is a micro-planning session.

In terms of my priorities:

1. Reduce WIP to 1 - I endorse Don Reinertsen’s advice to do this to get a system under control
2. Trust the workers - agile is people first
3. Reduce feedback-loop time - both for the product/service/result and the process used to deliver it

Kiron

Interesting. I don’t agree that “Plan ahead” should be in the “reduce agility” section. “Agile” doesn’t mean No Planning.

If I had to only pick three from the list that I’d consider absolute musts, then they’d be:

• Reduce feedback-loop time 
• Trust the workers to make the decisions 
• Collaborate. Converse (with each other, customers, management,…). Work as a team 

@Henrik Ståhl - I agree with the first list.

For the second:

• Plan ahead 
  • I agree with both @Kiron Bondale & @Paul Snedden - Some planning is okay, even required - just don’t try to plan every detail before you start doing something.

My three to-dos to increase agility would be:

1. Work small 
2. Reduce feedback-loop time 
3. Collaborate

@Kiron Bondale @Robert Johnson @Paul Snedden I agree with all of you – agile doesn't mean “no planning.” To be fair, I believe the author of the post meant excessive planning, but it's way too vague.

There's one thing in the first list that I don't fully agree with: Eliminate, don't manage, dependencies. I guess it depends on what kind of dependencies, but still. I think the obsession with eliminating dependencies is exaggerated. The more you collaborate, the less of a problem dependencies become.

My priorities:

1. Collaborate. Converse.
2. Think strategically.
3. Reduce feedback-loop time.

@Henrik Ståhl -

Agreed - solution dependencies will always exist as we are creating a coherent whole. However, what they usually are talking about is external dependencies - reliance on teams who many not align with our ways of working or have a predictable availability to help us when we need them.

Kiron

@Kiron Bondale You're right, that's probably what he's referring to. I've met too many “purists” though so I always get a little bit cautious when I see those kind of vague statements. 😅