Pretty much all businesses must possess some level of business agility to compete in this world which moves faster than ever. 

Many organisations have implemented Agile practices like Scrum, or something that looks like Scrum, to respond to the challenge, but they aren’t achieving business agility. Some are experiencing even more delivery friction than they had before. Some are experiencing disorganised chaos. 

In this article we look at one reason why we sometimes fail to deliver results and, more valuably, what we can do about it. 

To do that, we need to confront what business agility really is; and to do that, we’re going to use the familiar iceberg model: 

What Really Makes Us Agile?

The key thing to grasp is that business agility is not achieved what’s above the waterline in this model. That’s just what’s visible and easy to replicate. Business agility is achieved by what’s below the waterline.

Similarly, the evidence of business agility is not in the validation that what’s above the waterline is in place.
Some people measure it that way, but the real evidence is in the measures of what’s below the waterline.

It’s making strategic decisions faster than we could before.

It’s responding to changes, feedback, learning, and market events faster than we could before. Changes in requirements and priorities, for instance.

It’s consistently getting work done, not constantly reporting progress.
It’s delivering value faster than we did before.

Incidentally, that speed is not achieved by rushing. It’s achieved by doing the right work, improving our ability to focus on that work, and systematically removing the causes of waste and delay in getting it done.

It’s about removing the bottlenecks from the system.

Frameworks Are Still Important

None of this is to say that frameworks like Scrum, and their events and accountabilities don’t matter. They do! Frameworks can be powerful in helping us focus our energies to such a way that it is true business agility we achieve, not disorganised chaos.

It is to say, however, that merely implementing the mechanics of frameworks like Scrum, without any focus on the results below the waterline, does not lead to business agility. It leads to Agile theatre.

If we take Scrum as the example, as it’s probably the world’s most popular framework for agile product development.
Scrum is Not Just About the Mechanics
Scrum is absolutely about bringing what’s below the waterline to life. The mechanics are just the means in this venture. The principles of Scrum are what matter more. Bringing them to life is what sets Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches apart.

It’s also a training differentiator. Are we teaching students only how to implement the mechanics and model only what’s above the waterline, or are we teaching them how to create results through principles?
We vote for the latter.

Scrum calls for a minimum necessary set of enabling constraints that help us harness our energy. It facilitates focus and alignment with a predictable frequency for inspection and adaptation.

Those constraints are the mechanics of Scrum, and they help, but applying the principles within the mechanics is what creates the real results.

The Real Path to Business Agility

If a business wants to improve its business agility, it shouldn’t ask what roles and ceremonies it should implement.

It should ask:
· What’s making it so slow to make critical decisions?
· What’s making it so hard to respond to change?
· What’s making it take so long to get work done?
· Why it takes so long to deliver valuable outcomes and learn from them?

The answers to those questions undoubtedly run much deeper than whether everyone’s having a Daily Stand-Up, or Daily Scrum, as Scrum calls it.

These are the things excellent Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches are really concerned with: the root causes of waste, latency, and delay.

Scrum, when used well, from a principled understanding, will help find and solve the organisation’s real delivery problems.

It may be a lack of access to timely information and insight.

It may be slow and overly bureaucratic processes.

It may be long and slow work approval chains.

It may be a culture of hierarchical command and control over empowerment.

It may be work having to move across teams to get done; and having to queue with each move because those teams are already fully busy and focussed on their own goals.

It may be lack of ownership.

It may be because of lack of alignment.

Cultures and organisations don’t change everything, everywhere, all at once, but by creating and nurturing cells of agility with something like Professional Scrum, we get there.

True Professional Scrum is a vehicle of change. It doesn’t merely install a layer of theatre over the problems.

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