Is Agile Learning A Fad

Agility is about gaining a competitive advantage through a superior decision making process in terms of conclusion making speed, quality, implementation and learning from (side-) effects.

'Agility' is a popular term in business organization. However, what is behind the idea is rarely addressed.

The term 'agility' in all its dissimilar shapes and flavours has made its manner into almost every arrangement. From product development to marketing and even as framework in the expanse of learning and development - everybody is talking almost agility. However, the fundamental concept behind it is usually not addressed or simply taken for granted. This is an issue especially when you not just desire to adjust what other organizations do, but when y'all want to get nearly out of it for your specific instance and context.

The practical application of agility in the real earth has its origins in the armed services.

While agility has only recently institute its manner into the business concern domain, it has been around for a long fourth dimension as decision making framework in the military. However, information technology was never called agility, but applies the principles that found the core of agility. One of the showtime publications that applies those principles goes dorsum to ancient Chinese armed forces strategist Sunday Tzu. In his volume "The Art of War" he emphasizes the demand for being one step ahead of your antagonist in your decision making wheel in order to succeed.

A more contemporary application of the principles behind agility is the mission-command military tactics approach, which has been widely used by unlike armies since the 19th century (Wittmann 2017). In business organisation terms, mission command can exist best explained every bit similar to the direction by objectives leadership style. Withal, there is 1 important divergence. Mission-command is implemented in form of frequent decision cycles, which are triggered by a commander who is located at the bespeak of action. He observes the unfolding of events more than or less in existent time. On a regular footing and as soon as whatsoever important variable such as weather, terrain, ain or enemy position takes a plow, the commander initiates a new conclusion wheel following a pre-defined scheme. Results are translated into new orders and communicated to his units which get through a like decision making wheel.

Jon Boyd, a United states armed forces strategist who was involved in the development of new generation of fighter aircraft, took a more formal approach to agility. He argued that agility is the power of any living organism to perceive changes of its environment, make sense of it, have appropriate decisions and interpret them into specific actions that ensure its survival (Enck 2012). In a competitive environment survival of an organism is determined whether it goes through this so chosen Observe, Orient, Decide and Act-loop (OODA-loop) faster than competing organisms.

Agility is nigh gaining a competitive advantage through a superior decision-making process and accelerated learning.

Taking all this into consideration, nosotros can summarize the bones principles behind agility equally follows: Agility is almost gaining a competitive advantage through a superior decision making process in terms of decision making speed, quality, implementation and learning from (side-) furnishings. Going through a decision-making process faster and with a higher quality than your competitor also leads to a steeper learning bend, which is another edifice block of agility. In sum, agility opens up another operation dimension beyond power and size which we think tin can exist best described equally maneuverability. This makes agility and extremely attractive concept both in the armed services and concern domain.

SCRUM is framework that provides guidance on how to conduct agile projects.

One of the most pop active frameworks is called SCRUM. The term SCRUM originates from rugby and refers to the move when the game is restarted afterward the ball went out of play. This metaphor of a fast moving team in an surround that is characterized by a loftier degree of volatility, doubt, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) already indicates where and when y'all should consider following an agile approach. SCRUM is an active framework, which is used all around the world to develop circuitous products and service. Recently, SCRUM has also started to gain traction in many other functions such every bit projection management, sales, marketing and even finance (Schwaber and Sutherland 2017). A successful SCRUM implementation usually consists of iii elements: roles, artefacts, and processes (Schwaber and Sutherland 2017).

SCRUM is a team-based arroyo that has a positive impact on motivation.

One of the edifice blocks of SCRUM is an implementation squad that consists of team members representing different functions and competencies required to achieve a shared objective. Except some predefined alignment points (e.1000. Sprint Reviews) the squad autonomously works together without direct interventions from the outside. In combination with a team approach and the trust put into the team to contribute to the shared objective, we argue that SCRUM supports the iii basic psychological needs autonomy, relatedness and competence (Broeck et al. 2010). In that location is a considerable body of show related to Self Determination Theory that supports the claim that piece of work settings that contribute to these psychological needs increase motivation (Deci et al. 2017).

SCRUM incorporates a set of evidence-based practices which have a positive impact on performance

SCRUM incorporates elements from goal setting theory, which has a positive touch on on team functioning.

Every SCRUM project targets at achieving an overarching objective that should exist in line with the organization'south strategy. This could be a production or service that has to be developed or a projection that has to be managed in a style such that fourth dimension, budget and quality restrictions are met. The team breaks downward this overarching objective into smaller pieces and puts them in a queue chosen Backlog. In a next pace the implementation team conducts a Dart Planning meeting to select the Backlog Items which will be worked on in the next Sprint. Every Sprint is a time-boxed iteration that lasts between ane or four weeks. This approach of "pulling" Backlog Items into a Sprint is very similar to goal setting. In that location is considerable show that difficult and specific goals practise have a positive effect on team operation (Locke and Latham 2016; Kleingeld et al. 2011).

SCRUM supports a common cognition representation and alignment of expectations, which increases team operation.

The SCRUM framework with its iii elements roles, artefacts and processes provides guidance on what is expected from which office at a certain procedure step. For instance, the role Product Owner in a product development project translates client expectations in a way such that the implementation team is able to grasp them from a technological point of view. In addition, SCRUM puts an emphasis on incremental results with a definition of done subsequently every Sprint. This is i of the many congenital-in mechanisms of SCRUM to brand sure expectations of all involved individuals are aligned on a regular basis.

Taking this into consideration we retrieve that SCRUM supports a mutual language and knowledge representation among squad members. At that place is considerable evidence that such "Team Mental Models" (sometimes referred to as Shared Mental Models) have a positive touch on on squad performance (DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus 2010). However, even though SCRUM supports shared mental models they won't be bachelor from the very beginning but need fourth dimension to exist build, shared and committed (McComb and Simpson 2014).

SCRUM relies on distributed and servant leadership which is connected to a set of positive organizational outcomes.

From a leadership perspective, SCRUM relies mainly on the distributed and retainer leadership approaches. This is reflected in a lack of formal hierarchy in the implementation team and a so called SCRUM Master role which serves the team as a moderator and coach. Having the overall projection objective for guidance and within the SCRUM methodological framework, the team members self-organize their work with a minimum of formal leadership interventions. This gives rise to a fix of positive organizational outcomes: There is some testify that less hierarchy increases innovativeness (Naranjo-Valencia et al. 2016), which supports the claim that SCRUM is most useful to find unique solutions to complex bug in a VUCA environment. In addition, empowerment, which is in the heard of retainer leadership (Sendjaya et al. 2008), is continued to a set of positive squad and individual outcomes such as job satisfaction, task performance and team performance (Hülsheger et al. 2009).

Agility and active frameworks such equally SCRUM do indeed add together value.

As managers and professionals from the public and private sector we take participate in a fix of active transformations, ranging from production evolution projects to large scale re-alignments of entire management systems. In order to get a better agreement of whether the time, energy and resources invested into this initiatives really makes a departure, we had a look beneath the surface of agility and SCRUM from an evidence-based management point of view. Our findings indicate that agility and agile frameworks such every bit SCRUM do indeed add together value. However, there is a set up of factors including your organization'due south item culture, level of expertize related to agility and SCRUM that volition have an impact on whether your agile transformation adds value or not.

Agility is more than than SCRUM and Kanban

Another central take-away of our findings is that agility is much more than SCRUM and Kanban. A full-scale agile transformation requires you to change the way your organization operates in a much more than pervasive level than simply developing products based on an agile framework such as SCRUM. Equally mentioned earlier, agility is about gaining a competitive advantage through a superior decision-making process in terms of determination-making speed, quality, implementation and learning from (side-) furnishings. The challenge is to get this mode of operations implemented in your organizations such that it is office of daily business organisation.

Tags: Agility, OODA-loop, SCRUM, Servant Leadership, VUCA