Last night I had the privilege of attending a talk by Alistair Cockburn, one of the 17 signatories of the Agile Manifesto.  The central theme of the talk was around The Heart of Agile.

Cockburn developed this model to distill the elements of agile down to four main concepts.  In his opinion, all of the frameworks and scaling concerns really come back to can a team or an organization really do these four things — collaborate, deliver, reflect, and improve.  He also indicated that there are two sub-loops, the we should reflect and improve on delivery, and reflect and improve on collaboration.

 

Another main component from the talk was the ShuHaRi model as a way to think about an agile journey.  Cockburn explained that entering with Shu level practice is only one way to start. One challenge here is that people get comfortable in the Shu-box, doing one practice without willing to expand. They nestle in, and refuse to get out of the box.

Kokoro, meaning “heart” can also be a way to think of it.  One can be a kokoro student and focus on the very “heart” of agile.

A final way to learn is through play, as this type of unstructured experimentation can engender learning.

Cockburn then explained how the heart of agile can unfold like an origami fortune teller, revealing layer upon layer of detail.

After digging a little into the details of the external layers of the Heart of Agile, and showing how it folds back up, he moved to a discussion of the role of managers in agile. Using the Theory X and Theory Y model of motivation and management developed by Douglas McGregor at MIT Sloan in the 1960s, Cockburn explained how managers need to manage the polarity between pushing from autocratic leadership and pulling through guest leadership.

He described the idea of guest leadership and guest as host.  This is where someone steps out of their role to help someone, to aide.  As a volunteer, this type of leader provides a temporary service. They understand what might be a good thing to happen, and they work alone or with others to do it.  This concept is very resonant with the millennial generation and a increasing culture of service and public good.

I look forward to exploring the idea of guest leadership more and how I can better serve agile teams as a coach and leader.

 

Until the next Iteration . . . .

Jason