Are you complicit in 'Agile-washing' cost-cutting?

Digital Transformation became a big business in the years before the pandemic. The Agile Certification Industrial Complex rode the wave. Were you complicit in 'Agile-washing' cost-cutting?

Photo by Ezra Jeffrey-Comeau on Unsplash

In April 2023, I wrote, ‘Are we the baddies?’ as a call to action for agile proponents (of which I am one) to temper enthusiasm with more awareness of the unintended consequences that can accompany the positive change we seek to bring about.

Are we the baddies?

If you believe in something's value, it's important to be able to critique it, be open to feedback, and improve.

These issues are complicated; the enthusiastic agilistas seldom have the most power in the equation and, to put it crudely, ‘have got to eat’. I acknowledge that and make the point not to lay blame or apply judgment but to highlight things to consider when similar situations arise.

This post is rough; it states a few unfair things, doesn’t give adequate representation of good work that’s been done and will rightfully receive some criticism. I will take that all onboard and make a more thoughtful edit so I welcome your feedback. But I feel these issues need to be aired to have discourse and hopefully learn together.

The Era of Digital Transformations

Digital transformations have exemplified the past decade. For new companies, digital technology is part of their fabric. For older organisations, there was a driver that to compete and stay relevant, a digital transformation was necessary.

Digital transformation typically meant moving away from manual and paper processes and adopting digital tools. Large enterprises struggled with change, felt they needed more expertise, and hired big consultancies to make a plan for them to change. These plans typically were multiyear, huge investments that included changes in tools and processes and reporting structures, culture, and many other aspects of work.

For many, adopting agile practices was seen as another trait in the newer, nimbler companies that threatened to disrupt them. Digital transformation and agility promise to be able to do more with less. And, of course, with the change of skills, tools and structures, large enterprises saw the opportunity to reduce the size of their workforce and to eliminate obsolete roles as part of the change.

Using Agile to Wash Down Less Palatable Change

The change in tools, practices, and structure is threatening because of the degree of potential change it brings. People see the potential to lose their status, responsibilities, agency, or even jobs.

Enter the agile coaches, people skilled in various soft skills, armed with novel work practices and a disarming approach to successfully helping people with change and collaborating.

Weaponised Growth Mindset

An overused tool of many agile coaches is the wielding of the growth mindset. A growth mindset is so appealing because the attributes of a growth mindset are inarguably positive.

The problem with framing mindset is that how people think and behave is often a product of their environment. Insisting people adopt a growth mindset does not take responsibility for changing the environment, and worse, it applies a judgment on the individual accused of a fixed mindset and suggests they were responsible.

Most people don’t start behaving in an anti-risk-taking, anti-learning way. Their environment rewards and penalises their behaviours and shapes their responses. Suppose you observe people under stress or in environments that are not conducive to them having agency, safety or value learning. In that case, you will see anyone, even so-called growth mindset gurus, behave like fixed mindset people. I’ve observed it, and that’s also been me.

Suppose you want the attributes of a growth mindset that are so appealing. In that case, you must first change the environment, rarely a real focus of these large digital transformations and seldom a priority for even the agile coaches hired to support them.

Incentives For Change And Those That Resist

Many change management frameworks spend ample time managing those who resist change. When agility is part of the change, the agile coaches hired to help with the cultural change are incentivised in various ways to help the change be successful.

For all the ideals that are at the heart of the various flavours of agile, it is gut-wrenching to see the incentives take hold, the dismissal of those who are resisting change as people with a fixed mindset who need to be deprogrammed and reshaped as growth mindset people, or find themselves moved on.

To their credit, the majority of agile coaches are extremely patient people and skilled, so it was rarely for want of trying. The problem was they were part of the machine of the enterprise, paid handsomely to make changes that would affect livelihoods and leave people in competency cul-de-sacs either without work and prospects or in a new scary environment where they are branded of a fixed mindset and not ‘getting it’ as they watch their status and often the quality of work and effectiveness of their area decline all while being told things are improving.

I have no debate that these organisations needed to change; my quarrel is how willing we have been to support change inhumanely, often used to make some callous workforce reductions appear more palatable.

Change Was Needed

I am not naive to think that all organisations could change without changes in the shape of the workforce. Some organisations have done a terrific job reskilling and helping employees change and remain gainfully employed, productive, and hirable. Many, unfortunately, did not.

Agile proponents did not create this situation, but they are often used in difficult-to-reconcile ways with our values. Worse still, there are organisations where the benefits of the changes were never realised. The organisation’s structure was moved around multiple times, multiple rounds of redundancies, multiple consultancies were brought in, and value was destroyed rather than improved.

Unfortunately, this complicit relationship has helped undermine people's trust in agile ideas and proponents of agile thinking. It's not the only factor; the agile industrial complex, which promised agility at the end of training courses and certifications, played a considerable part, as did the fact that agile ideas alone are insufficient to succeed in business. It's unfortunate because there is a wealth of good thought and practice here, and these ideas have created so much value in newer, nimbler businesses.

Anyone who says otherwise must have failed to notice that in the past decade, software has come to rule the world at a pace never seen before. It is everywhere we look; much of it constantly evolves, iterates, and updates.

What Could An Agile Proponent Have Done?

So, if change was inevitable you could argue that whether you took the role, someone would be hired to help make it happen. Given that, what could you, an agile coach or an agile-inspired change manager or another such role, do in this situation? You are not the enterprise leaders who ultimately have the power in these situations.

First, I suggest that you form a sense of what practices and approaches are true to your values and agile ideals, of which most lean and agile practices are at the centre.

If it becomes clear that the ideals and values will be compromised in a change you have been hired to support, it’s a choice to stay or to go. The benefits of going are apparent. It draws a line in the sand and doesn’t put an experienced agile coach in the position of providing sugar so people can swallow medicine that is actually poison and going to hurt them.

They, of course, will hire someone else, but imagine if, over the last decade, the people acknowledged as the best at doing this all actually refused to support these organisations to make willfully bad changes that would ultimately end as failed digital and agile transformations? A pipedream, of course; as I said earlier in the post, people need to eat, and the incentives for this happening are not in our favour. But we could have been less willing to deploy our agile excitement to these cumbersome corporate change programmes and take more time to consider what we were supporting. The lure of getting to put our agile ideas into practice at scale was too enticing.

If it is to wait, please ensure your contributions focus on minimising harm. Some approaches are more empathetic and less judgemental than those focused on change resistance and mindsets.

Secondly, it's important to remember that agile is not the destination; it’s a tool. It’s part of the journey to improving the work and the value people create working.

Building on this, it is essential to apply agile ideas where they are an excellent solution to problems. I’ve met many people whose fears about agile transformation were fomented by their experiences of agile being applied to them. It wasn’t about listening to what they needed to improve their work but about rolling out agile. This is an example of something that should have anyone versed in the principles of agility running for the door—the ‘project-ification’ of becoming agile.

Were you part of one of these digital and/or agile transformations? How did it go? Did you feel you were part of a positive change, or did it end up harming? How do you feel about it now? Please share your experiences in the comments.

I know I have some things wrong in this post, or at least, in an attempt to get the thoughts down, I have been uncharitable in some characterisations. Let me know where I got it wrong, and I will improve the post in my next edit.