The Agile Fluency Model Explained: A Brief Guide to Success with Agile
Summary
TLDRThe Agile Fluency Model, introduced by Diana Larson and James Shore, is a framework that transcends the debate on 'how to do Agile' by focusing on useful Agile practices and continuous improvement. It's not a maturity model but a flexible guide that helps teams evolve from individual contributors to highly effective, fluent teams, capable of reliable delivery and market leadership. The model promotes a positive, inclusive approach, encouraging organizations to invest in learning and deliberate practice to achieve agility that naturally integrates into their workflow.
Takeaways
- 📚 The Agile Fluency Model was first published in 2012 and updated in 2018, aiming to provide a positive and inclusive framework for understanding effective agile practices.
- 🌟 The model is not a maturity model but a representation of various ways agile teams work well, suggesting that every part of the model has value depending on organizational needs.
- 🚌 The model is likened to a bus ride where teams can 'get off' at the zone that provides the most value for their organization, rather than progressing linearly to an end goal.
- 👥 It starts with the recognition of effective individual contributors and the need for a team culture shift towards a team-based way of working.
- 🔍 The 'Focusing' zone emphasizes fluent teams that provide business value, with progress visible to stakeholders and the ability to redirect work as needed.
- 🏠 Teams need a dedicated workspace, a business representative for value perspective, and coaching in continuous learning and visibility to be effective in the Focusing zone.
- 🚀 The 'Delivering' zone builds on the Focusing zone, with teams able to release software whenever customers are ready, capturing value early and fixing problems while small.
- 🛠️ Achieving Delivering fluency requires patience with the learning curve, inclusion of other disciplines like DevOps, and training towards engineering excellence.
- 🌐 The 'Optimizing' zone involves teams that not only deliver reliably but also innovate and lead their markets, requiring business expertise and product focus.
- 🌟 The 'Strengthening' zone is for organizations that aim to innovate at a cultural level, with teams contributing to the whole organization's strength through idea sharing and system understanding.
- 🔮 The final zone, 'Agile Future,' is for leaders who want to create new ways of working, requiring the invention of new agile practices and a focus on the whole organization.
- 📈 The model encourages organizations to consider the benefits they need and the investments and trade-offs they are willing to make to achieve those benefits.
Q & A
What is the Agile Fluency Model?
-The Agile Fluency Model is a framework developed by Diana Larson and James Shore in 2012 and updated in 2018, which aims to provide a positive and inclusive perspective on the various ways Agile practices can be implemented effectively across organizations.
Why was the Agile Fluency Model created?
-The model was created to rise above the unproductive conversations about how Agile should be done and to focus on what useful Agile ideas exist and how they can be leveraged to benefit organizations.
How does the Agile Fluency Model differ from a maturity model?
-Unlike a maturity model that suggests a linear progression, the Agile Fluency Model is designed as a 'ride on a bus' where each 'bus zone' represents a different level of Agile practice and value, allowing teams to choose the level that best fits their organizational needs.
What is the significance of the term 'fluency' in the Agile Fluency Model?
-The term 'fluency' is borrowed from language fluency and refers to the ability to perform a skill with routine, automatic ease, which comes from doing something well repeatedly and investing in learning and deliberate practice.
What are the prerequisites for a team to move from individual contributors to a team-based way of working in the Agile Fluency Model?
-For a team to make this shift, they need to be fully dedicated to a single team, have their own workspace, a business representative for value perspective, and coaching in skills such as continuous learning and making work visible.
What are the benefits of a team being fluent in the 'Focusing' zone of the Agile Fluency Model?
-Fluent focusing teams can show progress from a business perspective, allow stakeholders to redirect work as needed, and ensure the team is always working on their most valuable priority.
What does it mean for a team to be fluent in the 'Delivering' zone of the Agile Fluency Model?
-Teams fluent in delivering can release software whenever their customers are ready, capture monetary value as soon as features are ready, and reveal obstructions early to fix them while they're small.
What skills and practices are associated with the 'Delivering' zone in the Agile Fluency Model?
-Skills and practices in the 'Delivering' zone include patience with the learning curve, including other disciplines like DevOps or user experience in the team, and training for engineering excellence with full-time technical mentoring.
What is the 'Optimizing' zone in the Agile Fluency Model and what does it aim to achieve?
-The 'Optimizing' zone is for teams that want to lead their market. It requires business expertise in the team, focusing on specific markets to develop expertise, and shifts in how managers interact with teams, including delegating business decisions to the team.
What is the purpose of the 'Strengthening' zone in the Agile Fluency Model?
-The 'Strengthening' zone is for organizations that want to innovate their organizational culture. Teams in this zone contribute to making the whole organization stronger by cross-pollinating ideas and innovations across teams and working to make the cross-organization value stream more successful.
How can organizations determine which zone in the Agile Fluency Model is the best fit for them?
-Organizations should consider the benefits they need and the investments and trade-offs they are willing to make to achieve those benefits. The Agile Fluency Model provides a roadmap to help organizations determine the best fit.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to the Agile Fluency Model
Diana Larson and James Shore introduce the Agile Fluency Model, which they first published in 2012 and updated in 2018. The model aims to rise above debates on how Agile should be implemented by focusing on useful Agile ideas and their benefits. It was created by examining various Agile practices and aligning them with the experiences of a broad range of Agile community members, including thought leaders and practitioners. The model promotes a positive, inclusive, and improvement-oriented approach to Agile, avoiding the promotion of any single methodology. It is inspired by the concept of language fluency, suggesting that true proficiency in Agile comes from repeated practice and deliberate learning.
🚌 Agile Fluency Zones: Focusing and Delivering
The script explains the Agile Fluency Model as not a maturity model but a set of valuable practices that can be adopted based on organizational needs. It describes the model as a 'bus ride' with different 'bus zones' representing various stages of Agile practice. The first zone is the pre-Agile stage with effective individual contributors. The next is the 'Focusing' zone, where teams adopt a team-based approach, requiring full dedication, a dedicated workspace, a business representative, and coaching in continuous learning and visibility. The 'Delivering' zone follows, emphasizing the ability to release software reliably, which requires patience with the learning curve, inclusion of other disciplines, and training in engineering excellence. The 'Focusing' zone can take two to six months to master, while the 'Delivering' zone can take an additional three months to two years, depending on technical debt.
🏆 Advanced Agile Fluency: Optimizing and Strengthening
The script further discusses the 'Optimizing' and 'Strengthening' zones of the Agile Fluency Model. Teams in the 'Optimizing' zone make excellent product decisions, eliminate wait times from cross-team handoffs, and innovate in their markets, requiring business expertise and product experts on the team. This zone may take several years for organizations to adapt. The 'Strengthening' zone is for organizations that aim to innovate at an organizational culture level, contributing to the entire organization's strength by cross-pollinating ideas and innovations. This requires inventing new Agile practices and understanding the larger system, and is aimed at leaders who want to create new ways of working. The script suggests looking into methodologies like Lean Startup, lean software development, design thinking, and possibly beyond budgeting for more information.
🛣️ Agile Fluency Model as a Roadmap for Benefits
In the final paragraph, Larson and Shore emphasize the importance of understanding the benefits needed and the investments and trade-offs an organization is willing to make to achieve those benefits. The Agile Fluency Model serves as a roadmap for organizations to navigate their Agile journey. They invite listeners to read the white paper on agilefluency.org for more detailed insights into the model and its application. The script concludes with thanks for listening and a sign-off by both presenters.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Agile Fluency Model
💡Agile Methodology Wars
💡Team Culture Shift
💡Fluent Focusing Teams
💡Business Representative
💡Continuous Improvement
💡Delivering Teams
💡Technical Debt
💡Agile Sustainability
💡Optimizing Fluency
💡Strengthening Fluency
Highlights
Introduction to the Agile Fluency Model by Diana Larson and James Shore.
The model was first published in 2012 and updated in 2018.
The Agile Fluency Model aims to rise above disagreements on agile practices and focus on useful ideas.
The model was created by reviewing various agile practices and aligning them with a broad consensus.
The model is positive, inclusive, and promotes continuous improvement in agile practices.
The term 'Agile Fluency' is inspired by language fluency, emphasizing routine and automatic ease in performing agile skills.
The model is not a maturity model but a representation of different ways agile teams work well.
The model starts with the concept of effective individual contributors and their transition to team-based work.
Fluent focusing teams provide business value and allow stakeholders to redirect work as needed.
Team members need dedication, workspace, a business representative, and coaching for effective team work.
The model includes a shift from focusing to delivering, emphasizing reliable delivery to the market.
Delivering fluency requires patience, learning new skills, and addressing technical debt.
The Agile Sustainability zone allows teams to spend more time building features and less on fixing issues.
Optimizing fluency enables teams to make excellent product decisions and eliminate wait time from handoffs.
The model suggests that focusing or delivering fluency is sufficient for most organizations.
The final zone, Strengthening, is for organizations that aim to innovate their organizational culture.
Strengthening fluency involves cross-pollination of ideas and innovations across teams.
The Agile Future zone is for leaders who want to create new ways of working and requires inventing new practices.
The Agile Fluency Model provides a roadmap for organizations to understand the benefits they need and the investments required.
Transcripts
[Music]
hi this is Diana Larson I'm here with
James Shore are there to tell you about
the agile fluency model it's the model
that we first published in 2012 and
updated in 2018 we're going to give you
just a brief overview if you'd like to
learn more go to agile fluency org and
read our white paper when we first began
developing the model and even still
today we noticed a lot of folks
disagreeing about how agile is supposed
to be done and we don't feel like that's
a very productive conversation to have
we want to rise above that and ask what
are the useful agile ideas and how can
we take advantage of them with that in
mind we created the model by looking at
all the different ways we saw agile
practiced we reviewed it with a broad
cross-section of other folks who worked
in the agile community some were thought
leaders some were in the trenches
practitioners and we got the model to a
place where we all agreed it pretty much
represented their experiences as well as
ours
of the different ways agile teams have
worked well all along we wanted to move
beyond the agile methodology wars in our
minds the model needed to be positive
the model shows what works and what
brings value to organizations it needed
to be inclusive we don't promote one
methodology over another we see how they
all can contribute to really effective
agile teams and finally we needed the
model to promote improvement it shows
you your team members and your managers
how you can continuously improve your
agile practice to get the benefits you
really need the name a jalloo NC comes
from the idea of fluency that we
borrowed from language fluency and the
idea that when you are fluent in a skill
you perform that skill with routine
automatic ease it's what you do without
thinking it's not what you stretch into
it's what you just do naturally and some
people
might call it fluent proficiency or
praxis mastery but it really is that
ability that comes from doing something
well over and over again and it comes
only from an investment in learning and
really focusing on deliberate practice
let me tell you a little bit about how
it works some people ask us if the agile
fluency model is a maturity model and it
really isn't we believe that every part
of the model has value if it's a good
fit for what your organization needs so
instead of thinking of the model as a
progression where we want to get to the
end we think of it as a ride on a bus as
if you were going through different bus
zones and you would always get off at
the one that gives you the value that
you're looking for the model starts with
the idea that an organization has a
group of effective individual
contributors remember this is a positive
model and there's nothing wrong with
being in this pre agile zone you have
skilled practitioners working separately
assigned individual tasks and reporting
progress from an engineering perspective
and if that's working for you that's
great and many organizations do need the
benefits that agile provides agile is a
team sport so those individual
contributors need to move to a team
based way of working when they do they
go through a team culture shift this
team culture shift leads to the focusing
agile fluency zone fluent focusing teams
provide a number of benefits to the
organization they show the progress
they're making from the businesses
perspective stakeholders can redirect
the work as needed and they'll know that
the team is always working on their most
valuable priority to provide those
benefits the team members have some
things they're going to need to be
really effective as a team they need to
be fully dedicated to a single team they
need their own team work space either
physical or virtual they need a business
representative who provides perspective
on what has business value they'll need
to be coached in skills such as
continuous learning and making their
work visible and managers need to be
trained to support their new way of
working this zone represents a dull
fundamentals and reaching fluency can
take anywhere from two to six months if
properly supported with these
investments methods that discuss these
skills include scrum and Kanban and
fluency in the focusing zone can be
adequate for many organizations it can
be a very nice fit but not for all
organizations in addition to focusing on
business results some organizations need
reliable delivery to market these
organizations go through a team skills
shift to our next bus zone which we call
delivering teams fluent at delivering
provide a lot of benefit to the
organization they can release it will
shipping load effect software whenever
their customers are ready to accept it
this allows them to capture monetary
value as soon as features are ready and
this way of working reveals obstructions
early before they become big problems so
they can be fixed while they're small
you need delivering fluency to get these
benefits and the skills shift required
to reach fluency doesn't happen
overnight one of the biggest investments
you'll make in your teams is patience
with the learning curve team's
productivity will decline at first as
they learn new skills and pay off
technical debt you'll also need to
include other disciplines into the team
so the team can own their entire release
cycle you'll often need DevOps or user
experience folks and finally everyone
will need training to get them to
engineering excellence and they'll
probably need full-time technical
mentoring to reinforce that training we
call this zone agile sustainability
because this allows the team to spend
more time on building features less time
on fixing things and the maintainability
of their output tends to be much better
fluency at delivering can take another
three months to two years beyond
focusing fluency depending on how much
technical debt you have extreme
programming practices and the DevOps
movement are both good places to look
for more information although the
delivering zone builds on the focusing
zone it's actually faster to aim for the
delivering zone before you reach
focusing fluency that's because a jhalak
toises all work together this idea
applies to all agile fluency zones if
you know which zone you're trying to
reach invest in reaching that zone from
the beginning and for most organizations
focusing or delivering fluency is
everything they need but some want even
more they not only want to deliver low
defect software reliably they also want
to lead their market and this further
shift requires attention to
organizational structure teams that
reach optimizing fluency make excellent
product decisions really eliminate the
wait time that comes from cross team
handoffs and they have the expertise
needed to innovate in and even disrupt
their markets fluency and these benefits
requires real business expertise in the
team you'll need to focus your team on
specific markets so they can develop
that expertise you'll often need to
embed product experts as full-time team
members
there will need to be shifts in the way
managers interact with teams including
delegating business decisions to the
team this will likely require coaching
for managers as they adapt to supporting
their teams differently than they're
used to we call this zone a JAL's
promise because very often this is
what's sold is the best way to do a j'l
even though it's not the right fit for
everyone but even if this might be the
right fit for you it will probably take
several years before your organization
adapts to these agile ideas
methodologies to research as you
consider this shift include Lean Startup
lean software development design
thinking and possibly even beyond
budgeting
there's one final zone in our model
that's inappropriate for all but of very
few organizations it comes from a desire
to innovate organizational culture we
call this zone strengthening because
teams fluent in this zone contribute to
making their whole organization stronger
they cross pollinate ideas and
innovations across teams they understand
their role in the larger system and
actively work to make the whole cross
organization value stream more
successful to enable strengthening
fluency the organization needs to invest
in the cutting edge this zone is only
for leaders who want to create new ways
of working
it requires inventing new agile
practices and teaching teams to think
about the whole organization we call
this zone agile future because it's the
direction cutting-edge agile practice
appears to be going to learn more
research complexity theory organization
design theory and alternative governance
structures the book bossa nova is a good
starting point in the end what we really
want to know is what's the benefit we
need and which investments and
trade-offs are we willing to make to get
those benefits the out of fluency model
provides your roadmap read the white
paper and find out more at agile fluency
org i'm diana Larson and I'm James Shore
thank you for listening
[Music]
you
[Music]
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