Arno Delhij

As an Agile Coach or Scrum Master, you most likely have encountered resistance in your work. We work with people who have established careers in established enterprises and help them to work in an Agile manner, usually by adopting Scrum. And although it can be love at first sight—people immediately and wholeheartedly embrace Scrum—more often than not, we face resistance. We feel we have to teach the people involved new things and to adopt new ways of working. As Agile Coaches or Scrum Masters, it appears that we have to teach people how to be Agile in the sense of being adaptive and self-organizing. But, is that really true? Were we born with no other capability than to act within the traditional context of traditional organizations that know nothing else but a command-and-control way of working? Does our DNA limit us to only being able to follow a plan and instructions imposed upon us?

Did you learn to walk or ride a bike by following a plan? No! You used trial and error: Inspect and Adapt. It is amazing how many human activities until the age of six are based purely upon failing (often) and adapting to the lessons learned. Chances are high that this started changing as you went to school around the age of six. Although schools occasionally use innovative and new approaches, most of them implement a command-and-control style of teaching, leaving little or no autonomy to the kids who have to learn. In a way, we can state that we were all agile (adaptive and self-learning) until we went to school. From that moment on, you had to leave all those agile capabilities at home and do as you were told. Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters now face the challenge of getting people to dig up abilities they intrinsically have but that have been suppressed and buried for a very long time.

What if we preserve those abilities in our children by organizing their learning in an Agile way, while better equipping them for their future jobs? There are numerous initiatives in education that embrace agility and Scrum, and the results of children using Scrum in the classroom are amazing. They take ownership of their own learning and monitor their progress against the official learning objectives with burn-down charts. They know early on if they are behind schedule, which allows them time and room to get back on track. When they are ahead of schedule, they still work hard. The whole idea creates and thrives on intrinsic motivation. Small teams collaborate intensely on the learning subjects while also taking time to reflect on their process and themselves as learners. In eduScrum, one of the better-known frameworks, the definition of “Done” is complemented with a “definition of Fun” (as a working agreement). Much like great Scrum Teams, eduScrum teams often deliver early. They love the autonomy to decide for themselves how they will do the work.

If we want to invest in the agility of our organizations and enterprises, then training people in Scrum as early as possible is worthwhile. Why not start early with our children by not killing their intrinsic agile abilities in the first place, rather than teaching them to be agile again?