Humility In Agility

As I’m looking at the evolution of Agile practices over the last few years, something strikes me…

Agile is getting bigger. I don’t just mean in the sense of ‘more people are doing it’ or ‘there are more variants of agile than before.’ Agile, as I’m seeing it now includes:

• Design and product thinking;

• Leadership;

• Finance;

• Technical craftsmanship;

…and I’m sure with more thought and reading, I’d be able to come up with a few more things.

Here’s a question – and I’m in no way challenging the value of these things – are we overstepping our bounds? Is some element of this both intellectual hubris and a certain commercial incentive to be more valuable that drives us to drag these things into our tent?

Let me explain. Better, let me sum up…

Every one of these things is important to the success of organizations. Organizations that do them better are ‘fitter to thrive’ and that’s a good thing. I’d say that all of them fit under the umbrella of ‘organizational leadership’ or what is often called, more simply, management.

And I think that some of the conflict I see within the agile community may just be between folks who believe passionately in ‘staying in the agile lane’ and those who view agile more expansively, as a kind of universal filter that we can look at all of management through.

As a disclaimer, I have an innate distrust of universal filters. In Isaiah Berlin’s typology, I’m much more a fox than a hedgehog (the fox knows many small things, the hedgehog one great one).

Let me draw a quick line that I want to make clear – I do believe that what we do in agile touches all these things, and that it’s better to be more familiar with them than not. But I’ll point out that bookkeeping touches almost all of them as well… And what if a better way to look at what we do is more humbly – more like a bookkeeper, who has specialized knowledge and a specific domain – and accept that we are a part of a larger construct rather than the hinge that it all swings on?

How many of us can say with honesty that we have the breadth of experience to lead people across all the domains that agility touches today? And if we can’t, how do we structure our roles so that we can be a valuable contributor through participation?

If we see organizational fitness as the goal we are all seeking (and I think it is a great way to state our overarching goal) how do we step away from a know-it-all ego-driven stance, and define and embrace our role as a participant instead?