Developing an Agile Mindset

Developing an Agile Mindset

What is an Agile Mindset:
An agile mindset is all about creating and responding to the changes in uncertain and turbulent environments. It is about thinking through how you can understand what is going on in the environment, identify what uncertainty you are facing, and figure out how to adapt as you go along. Adopting an agile way of working means taking into consideration all the different elements that form the Agile Framework on whole.

This is best represented by the ‘Agile Onion’ according to Simon Powers, Founder of Adventures with Agile. As per him, the agile mindset is the outermost ring in the popular metaphor ‘Agile onion’ while the inner rings include Agile Values, Agile Principles, Agile Practices, and Agile Tools and Processes.

Developing an agile mindset is especially important and once you learn it, you can quickly relate this to the values and principles. The Agile Manifesto of 2001 makes no mention of any “Agile mindset. However, adapting the agile mindset is the key to successfully deliver value to the end-user.

Key elements for adopting an Agile Mindset:

Respect: Interestingly this is also Scrum’s value and is of the utmost importance when you work in a team environment. Listening to each other’s views with no bias, respecting their point of view, and understanding the idea behind what is being communicated is critical.

Collaboration: It is rightly said, together everyone achieves more. We all know that the effect of synergy is multifold. Sharing ideas and effectively working together with the team spirit is a key enabler for success in agile.

Focus on Delivering Value: No matter how busy we get at the delivery of the product; one thing should never be taken from our vision and from the back of our mind and that is, delivering value. It is crucial to always deliver the most valuable, on priority. This will help organizations to stay relevant and stay ahead.

Ability to Inspect and Adapt: Every event, ceremony, or meeting in Agile is an opportunity to inspect and adapt. Make sure we are always on the lookout for what we are doing, how we are doing, why we are doing, and think of finding better ways of doing things and adapt quickly to the changes. Learning is not something that you can do once and then forget about.

As business environments, technologies, and processes are constantly changing, it is important that your skills and experience should also get revised. After following the agile mindset, you should be continuously looking for ways to improve and develop your skills.

Consider the above keynotes to be a must, for developing an agile mindset.

To keep up with the constantly changing business environment, it is important to adopt an agile mindset. An agile mindset is the set of characteristics supporting an agile working environment. These comprise of respect, collaboration, improvement and learning cycles, pride in ownership, focus on delivering value, and the ability to adapt to change.

This mindset is will help the organization to cultivate high-performing teams, who in turn deliver amazing value for their customers. This mindset is the environment within which agile teams flourish and if this mindset is refined and nourished, whether before, during, or after agile adoption, the teams will experience amazing results.

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