5 simple yet powerful ways to build Agile Culture

“Agile” is a very powerful culture to bring success to the organization (& even in personal life). At the same time, it is the most difficult thing to practice. The fundamental reason behind this is one key statement of this philosophy – “Agile is a Mindset”.

Mindset is nothing but the set of values of a person. & developing the value does not have a straightforward recipe.

Most of the time, VALUE is either

1. Inherent to the person OR
2. It develops with experience

The absence of Agile Values, hence mindset – is the most important reason behind the struggle while adopting AGILE.

However, there are some key actions that could contribute to developing these values in the team.

1. T shaping culture

People come with different levels of skill sets. They might have one key skill as a primary skill.

As a leader or a coach – It is essential to motivate & support individuals to enhance their skills in other areas of interest. This is nothing but “T” shaping. It could be done in multiple ways – Like shadowing each other, pair programming, Peer As A Mentor etc. Whatever the way could be, this is a very powerful way to enhance the skills, reduce dependency and create a culture of bonding among the teammates.

2. Brown bag sessions

“Brownbag sessions” are nothing but informal discussions with a cup of coffee or a plate of snacks by the entire team. The discussion could be anything – trending technology, tool, or even a very generic topic. This enhances collaboration and transparency in the team and contributes to a healthy culture.

3. Diversification in team

There is a saying – “There won’t be an innovation if everyone thinks alike”. Diversification helps debate, manifold thinking and hence innovation. If the team is diversified in terms of demographic traits or skills – it helps a lot. It should be one of the most important aspects while building the team.

4. Promote visual thinking

User stories and meetings are good but might not prove effective until the team can visualize the outcome. There could be prototyping, process flows, a usable application from the market or even a simple dummy sketch – Anything could work if it helps the team to think and visualize the outcome, which they are trying to achieve.

Especially, the product owner should come up with innovative techniques to make sprint goals more visible for the team.

5. Trust & Give Ownership

Hiring a candidate with the lengthy process to test – skills, and personality traits and then telling him/her what to do and how to do – leads to a very negative culture. Trusting the team and giving them ownership is the best way forward. Let them understand the outcomes of the success and learn from the failures.

Delink the failures from the appraisals and motivate them to retrospect better.

There could be many ways other than these. These are some of the ways which I experienced and found very effective to nurture the Agile culture in the team.

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

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