The duality of Agile

The term “Agile” means different things to different people.

To some it’s the powerhouse of efficiency and productivity; whereas to others it’s a vague label at best, or an empty buzzword at worst.

And I can see why the conflict arises: because two forms of agile exist – one with a small “a”, the other with a big “A”.

Small “a” agile

Small “a” agile is a 400-year old word in the English language that means to move quickly and easily. In the corporate context, it lends itself to being open to change and adapting to it, while maintaining a healthy sense of urgency and prioritising delivery over analysis paralysis.

It’s a mindset that underscores the concept of the MVP – Eric Ries’s construct of good enough – to get the product or service that your customers need into their hands as soon as possible, so they can start extracting value from it now.

Then you continuously improve your offering over time. Retain what works, and modify or cancel what doesn’t. That way you fail fast and small, while iterating your way towards perfection.

Big “A” Agile

In comparison, big “A” Agile is a methodology to manage that way of working.

It provides tools, structures and processes – think sprints, kanbans and retrospectives – to pin down the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of our work, thereby maintaining clarity over what needs to be done, and baking in accountability to ensure it gets done.

Hence it may be helpful to think of small “a” agile as an adjective and big “A” Agile as a noun; bearing in mind that big “A” Agile might also be used as an adjective to describe a person, place or thing that adopts the methodology.

Regardless, some of our peers rail against Agile as a redundant neologism. As with other trends such as Design Thinking, they argue it’s merely old world practices repackaged in a new box. It’s what we’ve always done and continue to do as consummate professionals.

But I politely challenge those folks as to whether it’s something they really do, or rather it’s something they know they should do.

If a new box helps us convert best practice into action, I’m a fan.

The caveat of content curation

At last week’s Learning @ Work conference in Sydney, Clark Quinn declared:

Curation trumps creation

And this resonated with me. Why spend time, effort and money reinventing the wheel?

However I’d like to explicate his implied caveat:

…if good content is available.

There is a belief prevailing among L&D folks that all the information we need is at our fingertips. We can learn anything online. Everything is googleable.

But this is a myth.

Anyone who’s spent 5 minutes in an organisational setting appreciates how difficult it can be to source relevant, actionable content. If it’s not hiding in a walled garden, it’s of terrible quality or doesn’t even exist.

We’ve all scoured user manuals and discussion forums and video libraries, seeking assistance for that one specific thing we need to do, only to give up dispirited and empty handed.

Under these circumstances – when the right content can not be found – there is nothing to curate, so we have no choice but to create it.

Having said that, I recognise a halfway point.

Clark observes that finding good answers is more problematic than just finding an answer. In an agile environment, it is also important to realise that an answer will be useful if it is good enough.

By way of illustration, I am currently piloting what I call a “MOOC-like” training program at my workplace. Uncertain of whether this kind of L&D will fly with my colleagues – and mindful of failing fast and cheap – I have purposefully avoided investing big in scenario production. Instead, I have found a couple of videos on YouTube that are good enough to support my minimum viable product.

If the MVP proves to be a success, I’ll scale it up and invest in producing scenarios that press all the right buttons.

In other words, I’m taking Clark’s advice to create when I have to, but only then.