The Tip of the Iceberg, Vol 2:
The Limits of Agility
A good and sensible maxim has become an organisational principle that, misinterpreted, creates more inefficiency than flexibility and speed. An "agile organisation" tends to stand in the way of the workforce's desire for stability, order and transparency and should therefore be put to the test again.
Agility - The original idea of agile working
Agile working has numerous origins, two of which are essential (albeit very different): Firstly, "agility" was one of the demands of the "New Work Movement" at the end of the 19070s, initiated by Prof Frithjof Bergmann, an Austrian-American social philosopher. There, agility was understood as flexibility in terms of working hours, workplace and individual tasks. His postulated change in the world of work called for a departure from capitalist labour models: Instead of viewing work as a means to an end, Bergmann saw people and their needs as central to the organisation of work.
More than 20 years later (2001), the principle was taken up in the "Agile Manifesto - The 12 Principles of Software Development" and referred to the agile processes that were required in software development: to implement changing requirements late in the development process and to react quickly to customer requests for their benefit; at the same time, all parties involved should maintain a constant pace for an indefinite period of time.
From "agile" to "Agile"
From 2010, the principle of agile working methods changed to "agility" as a guiding principle for companies, driven by considerations of the effects of globalisation, the associated increase in speed (in innovation and production), increased uncertainty and changing environmental and market developments. "Agility" has become the new buzzword, a chic synonym for speed of reaction, speed, ability to change and flexibility. In the social media world, we would say it was "trending": #Agile #Agility #Scrum #Cluster #....
The definition of "agile" as being "able to move quickly and easily" or "able to think quickly and in an intelligent way" (Oxford Dictionary) was given a new meaning without a clear interpretation ever developing. In English, the adjective even became a noun: "Agile" (not to be confused with "agility") and in job titles such as "Head of Agile" made more than just native English speakers wince.
Agility in companies - what became of it
When introducing "agility" in companies, I see four misconceptions that often thwart an originally good idea:
- "Everyone is becoming agile, and so are we. We don't need our own interpretation of the term, the main thing is that we follow the trend."
- "Flexible structures make us more flexible and faster."
- "Our employees welcome changing leader, team and working relationships."
- "We are introducing agile working and thus managing the same workload with fewer employees."
"Everyone is becoming agile, and so are we. We don't need our own interpretation of the term, the main thing is that we follow the trend."
The dilemma of wanting to turn away from an "agile organisation" after months of costly introduction, speaking of the "A-word" or even prohibiting the use of the term, is also due to the lack of consideration at the start: there is no uniform definition of an "agile organisation" and companies fail to define how they want to define and understand "agile organisation", "agile" or "agile working" and, above all, what they want to achieve with it. There are no clear (and measurable) goals. As long as companies cannot make it clear what they understand by an idea and what the implementation of this idea serves, all efforts are doomed to failure in the long term.
"Flexible structures make us more flexible and faster."
At some point, a maxim for action or a software project management method became an organisational design criterion. The "agile organisation" became a further organisational variant alongside the familiar "classic" ones (functional, divisional and matrix organisation).
The idea is that adaptability and speed of response cannot be achieved in "classically organised companies", which is why organisational structures must be designed to be agile. Conclusion: Companies act more flexibly and quickly in the interests of their customers if they design their organisational structure to be permanently changeable. I believe this is a fallacy for the following reasons:
Definitions of an agile organisation range from the "alignment of structures, processes, cultures and management with the customer" to "flexible structures" as opposite to rigid structures. The structural concept then culminates in the cluster organisation: similar to a matrix organisation, several departments work together in horizontal ("chapters") and vertical ("cells") relationships and form a cluster, of which there can be several.
Employees switch between cells, have other roles in addition to their function, such as Scrum Master or Product Owner, and are supported by other roles on the sidelines in working, "finding their way", clarifying multiple interfaces and the question of decision-making authority: Agile coaches, architects, road managers, ..... If a structure requires additional roles in order to work faster and more flexibly overall - how does this fit in with the demand for added value and efficiency? Does it not make more sense to organise processes from a situation of stability and a fixed, transparent order in such a way that companies can react flexibly and quickly to customer requirements and new market and general conditions?
"Our employees welcome changing leader, team and working relationships."
No, they don’t .... People want stability, security and orientation, also at the workplace. This includes quickly finding your way around a structure. Cluster organisations lead to constantly changing team constellations, changing reporting lines (technical, disciplinary), increased coordination effort, training effort for new team members, long decision-making paths and unclear decision-making authority, more interfaces between cells, chapters and clusters and, above all, a lot of effort to find out who is the right contact person for a topic. Like this enumeration, it is tiring.
Reviewing established processes, implementing improvements and moving away from the famous "we've always done it this way" are right and important - but you don't need a flexible structure to do this.
"We are introducing agile working and thus managing the same workload with fewer employees."
This idea is often brought into play in cost-cutting projects: employees will work in an "agile" way in the future, allowing the company to manage the same workload with fewer employees. From a consultant's point of view, I am coming up against my limits as to how exactly time is actually saved through "agile working" when two jobs are cut in the team and these tasks are then distributed among the remaining team members.
Let's be honest: "Agile working" has never gone hand in hand with the permission to cancel tasks, water down customer promises, lower quality standards or no longer regard delivery times as a fixed date but only as a rough recommendation.
Agility - what we should say goodbye to
Companies have put a lot of effort into establishing agile organisational structures, but whether the benefits outweigh the effort is questionable (at least it is rarely measured). Projects were started without defining "agile" and without clear objectives. The organisation was "whirled around " in the assumption that it would become faster and more flexible and in the belief that employees welcome permanent change. The idea also arose that if everyone worked "agilely" enough, this would be the answer to unfilled or cancelled positions with the same workload.
I think it's time to say goodbye to the idea that "agile working" makes an organisation more flexible and faster and therefore better equipped to cope with growing complexity. Meeting complexity with complexity only makes things ... more complex. To put it another way or in a nutshell: reacting to chaos outside (in the environment, in the markets) with internal chaos (organisational structure) seems counterproductive.
Companies do not overcome the challenges of complexity with a flexible and constantly changing organisational structure, but with well-established processes and a fixed frame of reference that provides orientation and enables quick decisions. This is not a contradiction to the justified call for everyone in the company to challenge the status quo and improve things. But then we can also call it what has been standard practice in many companies for several decades: process optimisation.
Sources:
Frithjof Bergmann and "New Work", https://newwork-newculture.dev/
"Manifesto for Agile Software Development", https://agilemanifesto.org/
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/agile