In parts 1 and 2 of this three-part article, we explored High Performing Teams – It is possible through understand the team’s psychology and dynamics using the Team Performance Model and then using the appropriate graphic facilitation tools for the right stage of the team’s development. In this last installment, we will examine agile principles and how they can be applied in small team settings.

What is Agile Thinking? Where Did It Come From? How Does This Help My Team?

As our corporate environment’s ask each of us to continuously learn, work smarter, and collaborate more with others both inside and outside our organizations, we need to adapt our work mode. One such solution comes from the software industry and design firms. That is Agile Thinking. Many managers supplement Agile Thinking with Lean Startup and Design Thinking concepts.

In this final installment, I will talk about how Agile Thinking can help your team become a top performer. Agile Thinking [1] is the ability to consciously shift your thinking when and how the situation requires it; this is often contrasted with a Fixed Mindset.

Business Challenges Consulting has simplified Agile for Corporate Team Environments. These teams do not need to be producing software. Agile Thinking offers corporate teams a novel way to form, operate, and behave on teams. Those teams that embrace the values, principles and practices of Agile Thinking will achieve great results in shorter time frames. This is the new work mode when coupled with the Team Performance Model and Graphic Facilitation tools.

Agile Thinking is essentially a way of working and includes forming dedicated and interdisciplinary teams; breaking the project into small digestible pieces; customer centricity and a high degree of adaptability. In the diagram below, I have simplified Agile Thinking by omitting some of the Principles and Practices and deemphasizing software development.

Design Thinking Connects Well to the Agile Values and Principles

Design Thinking [2] is complementary to Agile Thinking. Design Thinking is a methodology for creative problem solving. It relies on observing, with empathy, how people interact with their environments, and employs iterative, hands-on approach to creating innovative solutions. Below is an illustration of the Design Thinking process from Stamford University d.school.



The idea behind this process diagram is that the customer is at the center. You interview the customer; you infer insights and begin to create prototypes. You test these prototypes and get customer reactions for further improvements. This process is iterative and is supposed to be fast. One example from the past is the how the Palm Pilot was developed. One of the early prototypes was a piece of wood painted like a Palm device. A student took this mock product around campus and pretended he had the real device in their interaction with friends.



I believe Design Thinking really is integrated with Agile Thinking. In fact, design teams or using the design process is inherently agile. Design Thinking is iterative with the idea of trying, testing, adapting and trying again until you find a product or service that works well for your customer.

Practices You Can Use with Your Team to Become More Agile

There are many practices which can make your team more agile. Below are a few that can be implemented in their entirety or piecemeal. Once you delve into this topic it could potentially change how you organize your work at your company. You can start with a small team who are dedicated to one topic to see for yourself if this new way of working proves successful. It can potentially change your corporate culture.

1. Sprints – The basic idea behind a sprint is that the work is broken up into smaller pieces (say 2 or 3 weeks) and the team does sprint planning, sprint reviews, uses some kind of Kanban system to keep track of the tasks.
2. Daily Standup Meetings – Even if you do not implement Sprints. The idea behind a daily standup meeting is profound. The Team meets each day for 20 minutes (virtually or in-person). Each team member states what they accomplished in last 24 hours, what they are planning to work on today, and what obstacles have they encountered? If the conversation goes more than 2 minutes for each person, it is taken offline.
3. Use Customer Centric Design – Thinking like a designer is key to creating a successful service or product. Sometimes the customer is internal. The team needs to think through basic questions such as Who is the customer? What can we learn about them? Do we have access to observe and interact with them? Do we have team members who can create prototypes?
4. Interdisciplinary Teams – Very important to find people who have the skills and passion for the topic they are working on.
5. Time Commitment – Oftentimes in a corporate setting, your team members are working on multiple projects. Make sure that if they are added to a new team that they have sufficient bandwith to handle a new commitment. My observation is that most people can handle only 2-3 main topics at work well. When they are on 5 or more project teams where it takes more than 20% of their time they are doomed to failure.

Bringing It Together
Using Agile Thinking in concert with the Team Performance Model and Graphic Facilitation Tools is a winning combination. Agile is the hardest of the three topics to implement. Even if you take small baby steps to implement some of what was discussed here and in the two previous articles you will be moving in the right direction to make your team higher performing. There are a multitude of training courses as well as consultants who can help you get there. Business Challenges Consulting is in business to help individuals and teams to perform at higher and higher levels.

Footnotes
1. I will use the term Agile in a broad way to include elements from Lean Startup and Design Thinking. The definition used here comes from Wikipedia.
2. More on Design Thinking https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular

Bio
Jeff Landau is the founder and principal of Business Challenges Consulting. The company focuses on building better individual and team performance through executive coaching and strategic marketing projects. Jeff has been in the specialty chemical and ink & coatings businesses for 30-plus years. Jeff has held Marketing Management, Consulting and Training roles at Evonik Industries and prior to that worked in the Landau family business, Polytex Environmental Inks, where he had roles in Sales, Product Development (Ink Chemist) and Technical Service.

He can be reached at [email protected]; www.businesschallengesconsulting.us