Much of my recent writing about Strategy Deployment has been driven by the idea that Agility is a strategy while Agile is a Tactic. However, Agility is a very broad topic, and can easily slip into being a buzzword or platitude. In other words Bad Agile. This suggests that there are some more useful Good Agile strategies.
When I blogged about deploying strategies as choices I suggested that the Agile Manifesto could be interpreted as a set of strategies. They looked like this.
- Enabling individuals and interactions even over common processes and tools
- Developing working software even over providing comprehensive documentation
- Collaborating with customers even over sticking to contractual obligations
- Responding to change even over keeping to planned commitments
More recently, I’ve been wondering whether there is a better way of describing agile strategies in order to emphasise the core challenges that agile is addressing. That took me back to the Kanban Thinking Impacts that I described as part of the Kanban Thinking model I created. Those impacts are Flow, Value and Potential.
Flow
A “Flow” strategy is one which focuses on “doing the work right”. This involves organising people into cross-functional teams who can collaborate to deliver work quickly. In other words, work flows through teams rather than people being allocated to work. Further, this can mean a shift from an annual planning cycle where people juggle multiple short-lived initiatives. Instead, there are more frequent and dynamic investments in long-lived value streams. As a result, the business is able to respond to unforeseen challenges and take advantage of unanticipated opportunities.
Using the even-over format, I would describe this as a choice to “Organise for fast flow of change even over long-term certainty of plans“.
Value
A “Value” strategy is one which focuses on “doing the right work”. This involves structuring the work to be able to continuously understand and meet customer needs. As a result, there is usually a shift from projects to products. Projects often try to optimise the cost of work through separate technical or architectural solutions. Conversely, products try to optimise the benefits of the work by collectively prioritising collaborative solutions. As a result, products can be continuously validated and evolved to deliver what is most important to customers. After all, increasing value is infinite while reducing cost is zero-bounded.
Using the even-over format, I would describe this as a choice to “Maximise the value of products even over minimising the cost of projects“.
Potential
A “Potential” strategy is one which focuses on “doing the work sustainably”. This involves working in a way which enables long-term adaptability and learning. As a result, there is a shift from cutting corners and short-term solutions to building quality in and long-term investments. By creating fast feedback cycles, teams can learn more about their products and services and how they are being used. Further, that feedback enables people to have autonomy, mastery and purpose in their work which creates more potential in them. To paraphrase an expression used by Toyota, build people in order to build products.
Using the even-over format, I would describe this as a choice to “Create feedback for long-term potential even over making short-term gains“.
It should be obvious that these three strategies work together. Achieving flow requires organising around value, and delivering value requires achieving flow. Both require building long-term potential. However, they each emphasise something different and important in terms of organising for flow, delivering products of value, and creating potential through feedback.
These three strategies are just the way I think about the core challenges that Agile is addressing. Let me know if you have different strategies and what they leverage.
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