What are agile methodologies and their advantages? In this debate of the “Café con Talento” channel, we have chosen to deal with the topic of agile methodologies applied to the world of organizations.
Agile methodologies in companies
Today’s organizations move in constantly changing and complex environments.
These environments are known as “liquid” environments, (as opposed to solid, well-defined structures), and the concept of VUCA environments (acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) has emerged.
We have had the participation of two expert professionals in agility in this debate: Israel Alcázar, (Co-founder, Organizational Consultant and Agile Coach at Thinking With You) and María Berenguer Caballero, (Scrum Master at Vueling).
I would like to highlight some of the most relevant ideas that we have discussed in this debate:
What are agile methodologies and what does their application in the company consist of?
Maria says that Agile is more of a mindset, a way of thinking.
It is “a mindset” that is applied in organizations, beyond simply a methodology or tool.
Israel agrees that it is a culture, a philosophy of life, in the sense that it can be applied to the organizational and project environment, (where it arises), but also to life and personal contact.
There are many values of agility that can be applied to facets even of personal life.
Agile is a mindset, a way of thinking.
It is “a mindset” that is applied in organizations, Maria Berenguer.
What are the benefits and also the obstacles of the application of these methodologies?
Israel comments that sometimes it seems like a “bubble fad”, and that you have to jump on the bandwagon, but it is necessary to reflect that it is important to be convinced of the application, not just to do it for “fashion”.
In the VUCA world you either adapt quickly or you can end up becoming extinct even if you are a leader in your sector, (examples such as Nokia, Kodak, etc).
We know that 60% of the large companies that existed about 50 years ago are no longer there, so it is necessary to adapt to the context, focus on the customer and add value to them.
The concepts of agility are very easy to understand, but very difficult to apply.
They imply a change of mentality, going from competing to collaborating, Israel Alcázar.
Agile methodologies are people-centric
Maria adds that these agile methodologies are very people-centric, which is both the benefit and can also be the brake.
A misunderstood or misapplied agile culture means that when you’re “shaking” a system, and people feel uncomfortable, it can be people who create the barriers.
With agility, you go from working in an individualistic way to having to dilute yourself in a group of people and needing to have a “collective mentality”.
This implies having trust in others, delegating and at the same time taking responsibility, which is not easy at first.
Israel comments that the concepts of agility are very easy to understand, but very difficult to put into practice, since they imply a change of mentality, from competing to collaborating.
Organizations are sometimes designed just the opposite, that department A competes with department B. But it is also true that when the organization believes in agility they do not get worse.
In the end, companies work and get their results.
What is agility
Agility consists of people from different areas talking and working cooperatively and doing better, but at the beginning you have to overcome the fears and resistances of this new way of working and collaborating.
María adds that people who apply agile must think about medium/long-term benefits, they have to get used to not thinking only about the short term.
Companies must therefore lose the fear of “losing control” in the short term.
That’s one of the risks when you start applying agile.
Companies must understand that they have to be patient to wait to see results and sustainability.
We need to move from the immediacy of short-term results to better and more sustainable results in the medium/long term.
What practical experiences can you share about agile methodologies?
Israel says that agility arises from the world of software development, with the creation of the Agile Manifesto in 2001.
When we realize that these values can be extracted and applied to other areas and teams, there is everything to discover.
This influences values, leadership styles, new ways of organizing work, (transparency, Kanban, etc.), at the personal level, at the team level and at the organizational level.
It is also the change in the culture of learning, (very agile feedback to build and that knowledge does not remain in one person, but that all the people around in the organization learn).
The first thing is to work on the agreements of how the team wants to work, (values, commitments, collaborative team agreements, learning culture, the distribution of knowledge to be able to generate value, both for users/customers and for team members).
What are the most useful agile tools for the company?
Israel comments that the Lean method, which comes from the 40s, related to the automotive world, with cost reduction, optimization of value streams, is the origin of agility.
That is, focus on the customer, not only making production cheaper, but also passing on that improvement to the customer, providing them with more value.
This is where an agile framework like Scrum is born.
On the other hand, there is Design Thinkin, which is not about this, but rather about innovation, generation and ideation.
In creative processes and in the VUCA world, this creativity is needed and hence both concepts come together.
In agility you first define and brainstorm the problem and then build it.
Then, for example, there is the Lean Start up that gives me the business idea, thinking about the model and how to add value to users and customers.
Also Visual Thinking, as creativity methodologies, to promote collective intelligence by visualizing concepts using visual tools.
More tools – agile methodologies
María adds the idea of Stream Programming and Mindset, as software development tools.
From there, the Agile Manifesto was born, (discovering new forms of software that add value).
There are still many companies that don’t fully believe in agility.
They need to make this change in corporate culture if they want to retain talent, since the new generations want greater autonomy and responsibility in their work, to work in more agile environments.
Israel Alcázar.
In the world of HR there are very direct applications of this where these methodologies can be used to simplify.
For example, personnel selection processes, with more agile and more intuitive systems instead of using Excel, for example.
In this case, reporting meetings are saved, since in the tool you can consult all the steps and how each of the stages and the status of each of the phases of the process are.
This type of approach prevents us from wasting time on meetings and activities that do not add value in themselves.
As promoters of agile in organizations, what is the situation with respect to the implementation of agile in organizations?
What is needed to promote it more?
María comments that this depends on the type of companies we are talking about.
Many small companies and startups that are being born already do so by integrating this model from the beginning, which is much easier.
When we think of large organizations that are many years old, in many cases they are still in the first steps to change the organizational culture.
It seems that if you have been changing the culture for a year or two, you are already agile, but that is not the case.
These are only the first steps, the first contact, you have to continue implementing the change and that it is internalized for enough time.
Companies that want to apply agility must think about medium/long-term benefits, not just think about the short term.
It is important that they lose the fear of losing control in the short term.
Maria Berenguer.
Israel would distinguish large companies from SMEs.
In the case of large companies, for example those belonging to the IBEX 35, they are all to a greater or lesser extent already doing something about agility, either because they believe it or because they have seen that their competition is doing it and do not want to be left behind.
In the case of SMEs in general, they are concerned about changing but they still do not fully believe it.
When it comes to thinking about the effort involved in investing time, they are thinking about it.
They have to change their mentality, especially the younger generations, such as the Millenials, are asking them for greater autonomy and responsibility and that involves the change of culture that this requires so that they do not lose talent.
And you, what do you think of agile?
What comments would you like to share about agile methodologies in companies?
