The Agile Fluency Model Explained: A Brief Guide to Success with Agile

Summary

The 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

00:00

📚 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.

05:00

🚌 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.

10:02

🏆 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.

Keywords

💡Agile Fluency Model

The Agile Fluency Model is a framework developed to provide a positive, inclusive, and improvement-oriented approach to agile practices. It was first published in 2012 and updated in 2018 by Diana Larson and James Shore. The model aims to rise above the debates on how agile should be implemented and instead focuses on what works and brings value to organizations. It is not a maturity model but rather a representation of different ways agile teams can operate effectively, as illustrated in the script by the idea of viewing it as a 'ride on a bus' where teams can 'get off' at the level that provides the most value for their organization.

💡Agile Methodology Wars

The term 'Agile Methodology Wars' refers to the disagreements and debates within the agile community about the correct way to implement agile practices. The video script suggests moving beyond these unproductive conversations to focus on useful agile ideas and how they can be leveraged for organizational benefit. The Agile Fluency Model was created with this intention, aiming to be a positive contribution to the discourse rather than partaking in the 'wars'.

💡Team Culture Shift

A 'Team Culture Shift' is a transformational process that individual contributors undergo as they move from working separately to a team-based way of working. In the context of the Agile Fluency Model, this shift is crucial for teams to progress to the 'Fluent Focusing' zone, where they can provide business value and adapt to changing priorities. The script mentions this shift as a key step in the model, indicating the importance of team dynamics and collaboration in agile practices.

💡Fluent Focusing Teams

Fluent Focusing Teams are those that have achieved a level of agility where they can work effectively from a business perspective, making progress visible to stakeholders and allowing for redirection of work as needed. This concept is part of the Agile Fluency Model and represents a stage where teams are dedicated to a single team, have their own workspace, and are coached in continuous learning and visibility of work. The script emphasizes the benefits these teams provide to organizations, such as always working on the most valuable priority.

💡Business Representative

A 'Business Representative' in the Agile Fluency Model is an individual who provides perspective on what has business value to the team. This role is essential for Fluent Focusing Teams, ensuring that the work being done aligns with the organization's business goals and priorities. The script highlights the importance of this role in helping teams understand and focus on what is most valuable to the business.

💡Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement is a core concept in the Agile Fluency Model, emphasizing the need for teams to constantly refine and enhance their agile practices. The model promotes a culture of learning and deliberate practice, allowing teams to achieve fluency in their skills over time. The script mentions that the model shows team members and managers how they can improve their agile practice to gain the benefits they need, illustrating the importance of ongoing development.

💡Delivering Teams

Delivering Teams, as described in the Agile Fluency Model, are those that have reached a level of proficiency where they can release software whenever their customers are ready to accept it. This ability allows organizations to capture monetary value as soon as features are completed and to identify and address obstructions early. The script discusses the benefits of this zone, such as reliable delivery to the market and the revelation of obstructions before they become significant problems.

💡Technical Debt

Technical debt is a concept that refers to the implicit cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy solution now instead of a better approach that would take longer. In the context of the Agile Fluency Model, paying off technical debt is part of the process of teams learning new skills and reaching fluency in delivering software. The script mentions that teams' productivity may initially decline as they invest in addressing technical debt, which is a necessary step towards achieving delivering fluency.

💡Agile Sustainability

Agile Sustainability is a zone in the Agile Fluency Model that represents a state where teams can spend more time building features and less time fixing issues, leading to better maintainability of their output. This is achieved by incorporating disciplines like DevOps or user experience into the team and providing full-time technical mentoring. The script refers to this zone as one that allows teams to focus on value creation rather than maintenance.

💡Optimizing Fluency

Optimizing Fluency is the highest level in the Agile Fluency Model, where teams not only deliver low-defect software reliably but also aim to lead their market. This requires a focus on business expertise within the team, embedding product experts, and shifting managerial interactions to support the team's decision-making. The script describes this zone as one where teams make excellent product decisions, eliminate wait time from cross-team handoffs, and innovate to disrupt their markets.

💡Strengthening Fluency

Strengthening Fluency is a zone in the Agile Fluency Model that represents teams contributing to the strength of the entire organization by cross-pollinating ideas and innovations. Teams in this zone understand their role in the larger system and work to make the cross-organization value stream more successful. The script mentions that this zone requires inventing new agile practices and teaching teams to think about the whole organization, indicating a focus on organizational culture and innovation.

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

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