It is not instinctual.
I was riding high. My team was, too. Or so I thought.
The team in question was new to Agile and new to Scrum. As we made preparations to start the first Sprint, the team chose a one-week Sprint duration. This surprised me, in a good way. It is rare for a team to try a one-week Sprint. And it is even rarer for a new team to try it.
I was beaming. I knew from experience the short Sprint cycle would bring the team great returns. The feedback loops would be rapid on the product as the team built it. And the short cycle would provide more chances to adapt the team’s way of working.
In a short Sprint, the new behavior habits to support an Agile mindset have fertile ground to grow. And the old, traditional behaviors have no easy path back in. For example, it is difficult to hand-off and not collaborate in a shorter timebox.
Everything progressed great and as expected until our fifth Sprint. The team members learned to work together, collaborating in a more effective manner. They learned from each other by working together. And they emerged the “right” product through rapid iteration with customers and stakeholders.
Then, it happened.
The team wanted to complete more features in one Sprint cycle, so they voted to move to two-week Sprints.
My guard went up.
How could the team want to do this? Could they not see all the value the one-week Sprint was providing? All my instincts as a coach urged me to keep the team from going down this path.
I felt once the team members tasted the expansive, two-week Sprint, there would be no return. And the team would lose the benefits of the shorter time-box.
My gut reaction to this situation is common for anyone faced with a change. When faced with the unknown, we want to hold on to the known. And the way we handle these moments is the key to being an Agile Leader.
I could try to block the move. Or I could let the team try the two-week Sprint. Control. Or let go.
Before I tell you how I reacted and what happened, let’s explore these two reactions to change. And then we will identify the one behavior which will enable us to embrace change.
Control the Situation
Change is everywhere. But it is not an easy thing to accept. When we face change, it requires us to leave behind our existing status quo.
In most cases, our existing behavior is a place of comfort. We know what to expect. Leaving the known to explore the unknown is not natural. Prediction is instinctual. And our brains reward us with dopamine when we predict right.
But when we are changing to something new, we can’t tell what will happen. And this scares us.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.“
—Henry Ford
So we hold onto what we know. We try to eject the change as a foreign element. And we control the situation to hold on to our status quo.
Unfortunately, this behavior, hurts us in the long run. It provides us immediate comfort by keeping the familiar patterns in play. But it causes us to stagnate. Our teams do not innovate and do not adapt to change when the status quo rules. Our preference for keeping things the same saps us of our potential.
“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
—W. Edwards Deming
And in the product development world, change and uncertainty are here to stay. If we don’t adapt, others will pass us by.
Let Go and Experiment
Instead of trying to stamp out change, we need to be willing let go and to try something new.
Product development is uncertain and complex. When faced with this, scientific thinking can help. No two products have the same path. A bias for action will help you chart your unique journey. And many small experiments will help us arrive at our goal with less chaos.
“I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance.”
—Seth Godin
If you are feeling nervous in the face of change, form a small experiment with your team. Enter this activity with a beginners mind, free of preconceived notions.
Work with your team to form a hypothesis. Help your team determine how to measure the results. Set a short time box to reflect on the results. Then, practice daily with your team and help remove obstacles as they appear.
Engaging in this way will help dissipate your anxiety. And it will help you engage closer with your team as they learn and embrace change.
The Key Behavior of An Agile Leader
By this point, I am sure you are deducing “letting go” as the better choice. And this leads us to the one critical behavior which will stack the deck for success. It is a foundational element of an Agile Leader.
When faced with the uncertainty of change, an Agile Leader must have the courage to be vulnerable. This is the gateway to trust and to change.
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”
—Brené Brown, author of Dare to Lead
Being vulnerable requires us to trust our teams to make decisions—good or bad. Change happens when we learn. And we can only learn when we try something new and observe the result.
We fear a bad outcome of the experiment. We ask ourselves, “Will others label us as inferior if what we try does not work? Will this affect my career path? Will others criticize me for being wrong?”
As Agile Leaders, we must be vulnerable and support our teams in being vulnerable. Every experiment is not meant to succeed. The reason we experiment is to learn. And sometimes the experiment does not turn out as planned. We should celebrate these times as learning moments.
Below are four ways you can show vulnerability as an Agile Leader:
- №1–Scope: Allow the “right” product to emerge rather than requiring the team to decide everything up front.
- №2–Technology: Allow the team to experiment with many technology options rather than depending on big, upfront design.
- №3–Social & Behavior:Allow the team to experiment with new ways of working within the parameters of the Agile Mindset and The Scrum Guide, if using Scrum.
- №4–Effort & Duration: Avoid big, upfront planning and estimation. Allow the team to evolve their understanding of the effort and duration of the work. Recognize this is best done through doing the work not thinking about the work.
What I Did and What Happened
We started this post with my Scrum team who decided to move from one-week Sprints to two-week Sprints. I faced a decision either to prevent the team’s switch to two-week Sprints or to let go and see what happened.
I decided to let go.
Every fiber of my being told me this was a bad idea. My instincts warned me the team would fall in love with the two-week Sprint and never return. But I took a leap of faith and ignored my inner voice. After all, coaching only works when a team has desire to change.
And a funny thing happened.
The team did not like the two-week Sprint. All Sprint Events took longer because the batch of work was larger. Collaboration reduced. Team members started working on their own with less integration back to the group. Work was not getting to “done.”
One team member said the two-week Sprint was awful, and she never wanted to do it again. And the rest of the team members had similar sentiments.
The team, against my premonitions, decided to return to the one-week Sprint. This happened after only one, two-week sprint. And the team members made this decision based on the results of an experiment they chose to make. If I had not allowed them take their own path, the team would have lost a critical learning moment.
I am so glad I let them try.
It is not easy to focus on people instead of the process. People are all different and behave in unpredictable ways. But when you respect people and give them space to learn, they will likely make the right decision. It might take them a little longer. And this is time well spent.
Who can benefit from having the courage to be vulnerable? Everyone in the Agile journey. This includes managers, stakeholders, and coaches. And it includes the Scrum Team—Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Development Team Members.
We can all feel vulnerable when confronted with change. Agile Leadership happens when we have the courage to be vulnerable, take a step, and check the outcome. This is how we learn. Learning is how we change. And change is mandatory for our product’s success.
Be crazy and try new things. You will not regret it.
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Todd Lankford unlocks Lean Leverage in organizations to cultivate powerful, engaged product teams who maximize outcomes and impact.
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You said towards the end, “I am so glad I let them try.” — I assume you mean “I am so glad I didn’t try to dissuade them from the choice they had made as a team.”
Well, I was resisting, so I did let them. I had to “let go”