Frameworkless Agility: 8 Questions to ask before implementing an Agile Framework

During my talk at the Agile Coach Summit in Chicago some attendees joined me in a discussion about: “Frameworkless Agility”. Within the context of Agile Adoption, we began to explore what it would look like without SAFe or Scrum. We wrote down questions like: What does Agile mean to you? What problem are we trying to solve? What behaviors do we want? And, Why are we doing Agile?

What is Frameworkless Agility?

Frameworkless Agility is about focusing on the essentials of Agile beyond the constraints of frameworks.

Why Frameworkless Agility?

Some of the most successful “Agile” organizations today have figured out a way to scale practices by evolving traditional frameworks. Frameworkless Agility is about people, finding purpose and enabling Agility by leveraging various Lean-Agile frameworks, principles and methods. The implementation of “Agile” will transform your organization. However, we believe to increase your chances of success you should adapt and evolve SAFe, Scrum, LeSS, etc. practices and guidelines to your business context and environment.

As you research for the right model to bring Agility to your organization, make sure to enlist the help of an Agile expert who can help your organization be Agile.

Below are 8 questions to ask before implementing an Agile Framework (gathered during the ACS).

Note: To make this post fun I included some funny answers. I’m hoping these can help guide you through a path of a successful adoption and implementation of Agile. 

1-What does Agile mean to you?

Is it about Doing Scrum!

2-What problem are we trying to solve?

We need to be more responsive to our clients. Instead of sprints let’s use a Kanban Board.

 3-What behaviors do we want?

We need the developer to be transparent regarding how long developing the feature will take. Let’s do Time Tracking in Jira!

4-What do we think we need to do to make it work?

We need to re-organize our organization chart and update the roles to align with SAFe. Let’s train all the leads, get some coaches, change titles, roles and go!

 5-Can we talk about what Agile really means?

 It means we should deliver value faster!

 6-Why are we doing Agile?

We need to improve our response time. With Agile we can reduce or eliminate planning!

7-What outcome are you thinking of?

We want to improve quality! Let’s track defects and bugs!

8-What do you want to become?

We want to become competitive and grow. We need a Scalable Framework!

If any of this seem like something you would do when implementing Agile, then maybe we should talk.

Special thanks to: Chris, Ingrid, Ben, Faye and all other collaborators who outline these questions. I will be sharing more on these ideas during my upcoming talk @AgileDayChicago this Friday. What does Frameworkless Agility mean to you? Tweet: #frameworklessagility @3ptstoBeAgile or send me an email to: 3ptstoBeAgile.com@gmail.com.

References:

Going Beyond Agility with Antifragility – Feb 09, 2015 by Ben Linders on

Building Antifragile Relationships and Teams – November 3, 2014 by Jake Calabrese

“Push Right” From Agile to Antifragile – Aug 18, 2015 by Roland McLain-Smith

Frameworkless Agility Talk – 9/16 – Agile Coaching Summit Chicago, 2017