Beyond agile: why agile hasn't fixed your problems

We can’t deal with the increasing world of complexity and unpredictability by doing more controlling, planning and prediction — even if we’re “doing agile.” We have to let go of our linear, reductionist mindset and instead aim for self-management enabled by servant leadership.

In my latest article, I give an overview of why most agile transformations fail, and I look at what you can do to achieve agility across the whole organization. 

Click here to read more.

Because of its origins, agile continues to be seen as the latest tool that we can use to execute IT projects successfully. The agile manifesto simply lacks the language to get what we desperately need: a mindset shift in the way we organize work in the 21st century.

To bridge this gap, my colleagues at The Ready have articulated new agile principles in a broadly relatable language:

Vulnerability over Professionalism - Bring your whole self, call it like you see it, stay open. 

Trust over Verification - Give your colleagues the benefit of the doubt (or get new colleagues). 

Consent over Consensus - Make decisions “safe to try” and move forward. 

Progress over Perfection - Have a bias for action, learn as you go, iterate. 

Doing the Work over Discussing the Work - Go try something, get some data, come back. 

Participation over Power - Seek cognitive diversity, perspective taking, engagement. 

Open over Closed - Embrace transparency, let information flow, work in public. 

Sprints over Big Moves - Take small bites, timebox, steer continuously, commit to a cadence. 

Click here to read more.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, please let me know if you have any feedback. Feel free to forward this e-mail to whoever might be interested. To get in touch with me, simply hit ‘reply’.