Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
Seldom can a group of statements have had such a profound impact on the way we work and tackle problems as those of the Agile Manifesto. The pace of change in recent years has increased exponentially, and innovation spans just about every industry. The way we communicate, how we shop, the means of doing business, when, how, and where we work have all changed and continue to evolve. We are in the midst of a revolution, and Agile is at the core of it. And the revolution is global.
The Agile Mindset is described and defined by the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and implemented by an almost unlimited number of practices (image courtesy of Haroon Khalil)
Adopting Agile then requires a shift in mindset. But what impact do national, organizational, and people’s own values have on their interpretation of the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto? And how does this affect attempts at the implementation of Agile practices?
Given the range of circumstances in politics, economics, and history across the world, can it really be true that ideas emanating from Japan and developed in the United States can find acceptance and be effective in all cultures of the world? National cultures have evolved over hundreds of years with different values, behaviors, and belief systems. How and why has Agile gained such popularity in such a relatively short space of time? Are some cultures naturally more suited to adopting an Agile mindset than others? What impact do national cultural behaviors have on the adoption of Scrum and Agile methods as they have spread across the world? Is there such a thing as an “Agile culture” that results from adopting Agile ways of working? Or will aspects of national cultural behaviors prevail?
These are the questions that prompted us to begin the journey that led to this book.
Top Ten Experiences
The Heart of Agile Teams at 10Pines (Page 32)
10Pines, a software development services company in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is also known as “la empresas sin jefes” (translated as “the company without managers”). But how does this work in reality? In this story, 10Pines partner, Federico Zuppa, discusses how 10Pines has a focus on creating great teams by putting people at the heart of everything they do.
Glad, Mad, Sad in Japan (Page 157)
Agile Coach Donna Marie Lee, originally from the Philippines, tells a story that demonstrates that techniques that work in one culture will not necessarily work well in another culture, as she recounts her first use of the Glad, Mad, Sad retrospective technique while working with a team in Japan.
Building Trust, Learning, and Understanding: An Agile Approach to Project Discovery (Page 81)
There is much uncertainty at the start of a project, and the Agile mindset of emphasizing discovery and learning can be disconcerting to those of a more traditional mindset that seek the comfort of defined budget, scope, and timelines upfront. Juan Rucks, Senior UX-UI Designer at UruIT, a software development company in Uruguay, explains the Agile approach to project discovery from his and UruIT’s own experience.
Agile Organizations Set the Stage for Emergent Leaders (Page 252)
Elroy Jumpertz is a professional software engineer who started his career in his home country of the Netherlands. Elroy discusses his experience of working in companies that support individual’s development, and he shares what he believes are the traits of organizations and leaders that enable leadership to emerge naturally.
Finding My Voice (Page 308)
Courage is one of the Scrum values and a core behavior for any Agile adoption. What courage means is going to be context specific. In her story, Khwezi Mputa, a Certified Scrum Master/Agile PM Practitioner in South Africa, talks about the courage needed to stand up and speak out.
Trust: The Basic Building Block of Agile Teams (Page 115)
While building trust is fundamental to any Agile team, in some cultures it takes on extra significance. In his story, Pranshu Mahajan, a Scrum Master with many years of experience working in a number of different roles in India, shares his experience of trust as the basic building block of Agile teams in India.
Forced Fun (Page 278)
Knowledge work requires people to work collaboratively, thus the need to build trust and understanding. But every team is different and some team-building activities or meeting formats that work for one team may backfire when used with other teams. Ilona Kędracka, based in Poland and Product Owner/Blogger at Poczatkujaca.pl, shares her own experiences and examples that she has encountered when teams become frustrated or uncomfortable with activities designed to be “fun,” but have questionable practical value.
Accelerating the Supply Chain of Goods and Services (Page 62)
Agile ways of working are not just for software development. Claudia Liliana Toscano Vargas, Agile Coach at EPM, tells the story of the approach she used to help non-IT teams implement Agile ways of working. Claudia shows us how she presented the adoption of Agile as an experiment to be tried with hypotheses on expected improvements that could be tested. Taking this approach, she gained buy-in from the teams involved and was able to work with them to achieve success.
Retrospectives at Every Level (Page 51)
Change should be embraced across the whole of an organization. The retrospective is an effective tool to instigate change, yet many organizations see retrospectives as something that is done at the team level. Renato Otaiza, Agile Practitioner and Coach at Scotiabank, shares his experiences on the importance and effectiveness of running retrospectives at every level of an organization.
Learntor: On a Mission to Create a Level Playing Field for Africa (Page 325)
Mercy George-Igbafe has the mantra, “True greatness is not in being great but in the ability to make others great.” She shares her personal story where, despite a life of adversity, she achieved a university education and went on to found Learntor, a digital consultancy and training company based in Nigeria that is on a mission to create a level playing field for women and youths in Africa.
Understanding Culture
As the world becomes more globalized, with increases in mobility and migration, finding tools to help us to understand each other is becoming evermore important. This is as relevant in the field of software development as in any other industry, where many teams have members distributed across different geographical locations and are made up of people from a number of different nationalities.
When Cultures Collide
Some of the many layers of culture (image courtesy of Haroon Khalil)
Many of the misunderstandings that we have with others arise when we have a clash of culture. One of the greatest sources of frustration is as a result of us being unable to relate to one another culturally. We know that good collaboration is a critical part of the success of Agile teams. If we are to have highly performing teams and organizations, the ability for individuals to interact successfully is essential. Awareness of each other culturally is key to this, both within teams and across our organizations as a whole.
The different components of culture also make up the layers that influence a corporate culture. After all, companies are made up of individuals. However, often companies have, over time, built up a unique identity and their own corporate culture, diluting the influence of some of the layers of individuals’ own cultural aspects. This may not always be the case though. For example, there are significantly different perceptions of organizational wrongdoing, such as sharing passwords or piracy of software, depending on where you come from.
A study focusing on South Korea4 found that different cultures may have differing influences on the occurrence of misuse, and differing perceptions on the seriousness of it. In the United States, organizational rules are communicated, with IT security and HR departments “laying down the law” of what is permissible. However, the opinion of people in someone’s social network has a higher influence in South Korea. Here, embarrassment and the loss of face caused by the discovery of misuse is of greater concern than any organizational policy. At the same time, in a South Korean organization, someone seeing others committing an offence and getting away with it is far more likely to commit the same offence. In this example, the importance of harmony in South Korea is so important that actions that appear unethical to people in the United States are fully justified to people in South Korea if they prevent conflict and discord.
It is these alternative perspectives that are based on individual values and may be at odds with one another that lead to tensions, arguments, disengagement, apathy, and many other negative behaviors to the detriment of collaboration. We would argue that clashes of culture are at the very heart of most of what holds teams and organizations from fulfilling their potential.
At the Risk of Stereotyping
German people are efficient. The Swiss are always on time. Dutch people are direct. Americans are loud. Japanese are shy and quiet. Italians are always late.
These are sweeping, stereotypical statements. Surely we should not group people in this way because not all people categorized into groups based on nationality are going to behave in the same way. We need to be careful with our generalizations about culture. As we have discussed, culture consists of so many layers and we as humans are all complex individuals.
When we began our research into the topic of Agile adoption in different countries, we found a number of generic statements from often frustrated Agile practitioners who expressed doubts that the society they worked in would be able to adapt to more Agile ways of working. Commentary came up such as if Agile would ever really be embraced in a country where traditional hierarchical structures and the behavior of top down control are embedded. Or where the cultural preference is for keeping harmony above having transparency.
When we started our journey to find out how culture impacts Agile adoption around the world, we quickly found ourselves treading a minefield. There were the dangers of stereotyping by national cultural categorizations and having biased opinions. Identifying groups based on data can be a useful starting point though. When developing a product, be it software or some other product, using archetypes or personas is a common way for designers to build empathy with the potential users of their product. Empathizing with our customers is an essential aspect of Design Thinking.5 However, this is just a starting point. Our knowledge and understanding of user behavior develops over time, allowing adaptation to their needs as we learn more about them.
Just like designers looking for a starting point to build empathy with their users, models can be part of the starting point to build empathy with people from other cultures.
Such a model would help us for the purpose of social study, something that would give us a cultural reference point and allow us to form hypotheses on how Agile may be used in different contexts. This could then form a basis for analysis and testing of our hypotheses to validate or invalidate the assumptions we and our fellow Agile practitioners make.
Categorizing Behaviors
Given the number of factors that could feed into a definition of culture, any attempt at categorization could result in the creation of dozens, if not hundreds of different groups. The dilemma is clear: for a cultural model to be useful, it needs to provide a level of succinctness while also taking into account the complexity involved. There have been many attempts by sociologists in creating cultural models. We give a brief introduction and overview of two such models that have emerged: the Hofstede Model and the Lewis Model.
The Hofstede Model
The Hofstede Model 6 is one of the best-known models of national cultural behavior in the workplace. It is based on the extensive research carried out by Professor Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, and their research teams. The research was carried out between 1967 and 1973 and was based on data returned from some 116,000 questionnaires from more than 70 countries.
The model consists of six “dimensions,” each dimension representing a preference for one state of being over another. Countries are given a quantitative score indicating the degree to which their culture exhibits these preferences.
Power distance index
The power distance index is a measure of how less powerful people in society accept and expect power to be distributed unevenly. High power distance index scores indicate a higher acceptance of hierarchical structures.
Individualism vs. collectivism
Individualism refers to loosely knit societies where individuals look after themselves. Collectivism refers to societies where groups will unquestioningly look after each other.
Masculinity vs. femininity
Masculine societies display characteristics such as rewarding achievement, heroism, and assertiveness, whereas feminine societies show characteristics such as cooperation, modesty, and valuing a good quality of life.
Uncertainty avoidance
Uncertainty avoidance is a measure of how much a society is comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. It includes the extent to which the society believes in trying to control the future.
Long-term avoidance vs. short-term normative orientation
This category refers to a societal preference to established, long-term traditions as opposed to its willingness and pragmatism toward change. Low scores indicate a preference to adhere to traditions and a suspicion of change, while high scores indicate societies that take a pragmatic approach to prepare well for the future.
Indulgence vs. restraint
This is a measure of the level of restraint that a society shows in gratifying their needs and desires.
Hofstede six-dimensions comparison between Argentina, Japan, and the United Kingdom
According to the Hofstede Model, we can see that the United Kingdom has a much more individualistic culture compared to those of Argentina and Japan.The United Kingdom scores much lower in the category of uncertainty avoidance, meaning people are comfortable with ambiguity and relaxed with the fact that the future can never be known. Japanese culture is very long-term oriented, while Argentina’s is at the other end of the scale, with the United Kingdom in the middle. Japanese culture stands out as being very masculine yet significantly less indulgent in nature by the Hofstede Model’s dimensions definitions, when compared to the other two countries.
The Hofstede Model has been used across the world for a multitude of purposes. It has been used in industry for management and leadership strategies. It has been applied as a basis for further research and study. We found that there has been some study of the effect of culture on Agile adoption using the Hofstede Model as a guide. These include those by Bas Vodde,7 co-creator of the LeSS framework, and Jaakko Palokangas8 for his MSc thesis at the University of Tampere.
The Lewis Model
The Lewis Model was developed by Richard D. Lewis who published his work in the book When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures.9 This book has now sold more than 1 million copies worldwide and it has been published in 15 different languages.
Lewis formed his cultural categorizations from data gathered during visits to 135 countries. He spent significant time working in more than 20 of these countries. Data gathered from 50,000 leaders and executives on residential courses and 150,000 online questionnaires across 68 countries provided the basis for the Lewis Model.
Lewis considered other cross-cultural experts were at risk of creating confusion due to the number and types of categorizations that were being produced. Lewis wanted to go beyond academic thinking and supply business leaders with a simple model to avoid this confusion, provide succinctness, and something for use in the real world.
Common behaviors of Linear-active, Multi-active, and Reactive categories (copyright Richard D. Lewis)
Linear-active | Multi-active | Reactive |
|---|---|---|
Talks half the time | Talks most of the time | Listens most of the time |
Does one thing at a time | Does several things at once | Reacts to partner’s action |
Plans ahead step by step | Plans grand outline only | Looks at general principles |
Polite but direct | Emotional | Polite, indirect |
Partly conceals feelings | Displays feelings | Conceals feelings |
Confronts with logic | Confronts emotionally | Never confronts |
Dislikes losing face | Has good excuses | Must not lose face |
Rarely interrupts | Often interrupts | Doesn’t interrupt |
Job-orientated | People-orientated | Very people-orientated |
Uses mainly facts | Feelings before facts | Statements are promises |
Truth before diplomacy | Flexible truth | Diplomacy over truth |
Sometimes impatient | Impatient | Patient |
Limited body language | Unlimited body language | Subtle body language |
Respects officialdom | Seeks out key person | Uses connections |
Separates the social and professional | Interweaves the social and professional | Connects the social and professional |
The Linear-active category contains behaviors that include a tendency for logical thinking and argument. Linear-active behavior consists of making detailed, step-by-step plans. It includes respect for job-titles, officialdom, and hierarchy. Social and professional lives are largely kept separate.
The Multi-active category includes traits of being highly verbally communicative, showing a comfort, and often even a preference, for multitasking. Openly displaying feelings and emotions is evident in confrontations.
In the Reactive category, behaviors include attentive listening, politeness, and the tendency not to display feelings and emotions in public. It is very important to avoid both confrontation and losing face.
While each category is distinct, it is important to note that no one set of behaviors will apply in its entirety to a particular individual or group. While one category’s behaviors may dominate in an individual or group, there will always be elements of behaviors from the other two categories present. It is a question of which behaviors are dominant and by how much.
The behaviors in each of the categories should not be judged as either positive or negative. Making such a judgment is an indication of our own cultural bias. An individual that exhibits the behavior of being flexible with the truth may be doing so because they value diplomacy over candor given the context of their situation and environment they are in.
The Lewis Model Triangle (copyright Richard D. Lewis www.crossculture.com/)
The model is relative. There is no intention of giving an impression of scale along the triangle’s axis. It is important to understand that countries may be at similar points on the triangle but not necessarily for the same reasons – there could be different behaviors from a category that are more evident in each case. Within each country, we would expect variation in behavior. For example, some people in Reactive Vietnam may well have more Multi-active traits relative to other Vietnamese people; however, in comparison to other parts of the world, they still remain relatively more Reactive.
Lewis found that there is a link between individuals’ behaviors and their area of study and profession. Examples of this from those that were surveyed are as follows: engineers and accountants – whose professions require attention to detail for example – have more Linear-active traits; teachers, sales people, and those in people-centered professions demonstrate more Multi-active behaviors; while lawyers and doctors who we expect to be good listeners, for example, are inclined to be more Reactive. Those that are in a profession that is a poor fit with their culture as an individual are likely to be unhappy and poorly performing.
Lewis’s research shows that a high proportion of Linear-active behavior is seen in Northern Europe such as in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, as well as in North America. Scandinavian countries exhibit some Reactive traits along with Linear-active ones. Multi-active behavior is encountered more in the Latino nations in South America such as Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. Parts of Africa and Arab countries also display Multi-active tendencies. Societies dominated by Reactive behaviors are in countries that are mainly in Asia such as Vietnam, Japan, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines, for example. The model is periodically updated and positions are not fixed – countries can move on the scale as time passes and events affect societal behavior.
The model is not intended to stereotype nations, it is rather just a starting point to explore how we can develop our intercultural sensitivity.
The CultureActive platform tests according to the LMR Model, based on the Linear-active, Multi-active, and Reactive categories originally derived from Lewis’ writing. Through the completion of a self-assessment, it can be determined where on the scale an individual’s personal cultural profile would fit. The results then enable groups of people to compare their results and to start building cultural awareness and understanding of one another.
Oftentimes, we are compelled to hire people who are similar to us, those that share the same values, mindset, and behaviors. However, and especially in Agile teams, a greater diversity of people will bring with it a wider spectrum of backgrounds, ideas, thinking styles, and perspectives, enabling wider creativity and greater innovation. A team of people that are mostly Linear-active in their behaviors are likely to be working efficiently but could also be held back by a lack of innovation and problem solving. A team of people who are mostly Multi-active in their behaviors may generate lots of ideas but could lack focus. A group of people who display mostly Reactive behaviors may have harmonious teams, but struggle to come to a decision. So in order to have highly performing teams, a conscious effort can be made to build a team with a mix of styles and behaviors using the Lewis Model and the LMR test.
Having a team with a wide range of diversity is likely to cause conflicts. However, by understanding cultural behaviors, making them transparent to all, and coming up with strategies to integrate and leverage those differences, teams can reach higher levels of performance and innovation.
A Basis for Study: Cultural Behaviors and the Agile Values
The Lewis Model in particular gives us a good basis for forming hypotheses of behavior for Agile teams in different parts of the world. In Lewis’ work, we could see that some of the main aspects of his research focused on areas such as communication, values, behaviors, leadership styles, negotiation techniques, and team dynamics. These are certainly areas of interest when it comes to forming highly performing Agile teams.
We felt that the simplicity, the focus on workplace behaviors, and the purely qualitative nature of the Lewis Model would be a better guide for us in studying Agile teams than other models, including the Hofstede Model. We also believed that no studies had taken place using the Lewis Model as a reference to the way Agile teams and organizations work in practice.
Lewis’ discussions on behaviors could help us to understand what was behind our observations and anecdotal evidence from the field. Given many of the behaviors as described in each of the cultural categories in the Lewis Model could be seen to work well or impede Agile ways of working, our intention was to test the hypothesis that culture impacts how Agile is adopted. Our method was to gather qualitative evidence directly from Agile practitioners around the world.
With this hypothesis in mind, we began our journey.
On the Road
A flavor of our journey and some of the countries that we visited (image courtesy of Tasia Graham)
We gathered qualitative data of Agile teams in their workplaces, with a mixture of direct observation and anecdotal evidence provided by expert Agile practitioners working locally in the field. The intention was never to restrict our observations to teams and organizations that were using any particular Agile method. Rather, we were interested in meeting teams and Agile practitioners with experience with the implementation of any Agile method such as Scrum, XP, Kanban, or any hybrid approach.
Given the breadth of the undertaking, we focused our attention on visiting countries at different extremes of the Lewis Model triangle, though took advantage of opportunities to go to companies and talk to practitioners when they arose. This was often through referrals as the Agile community supported our journey. No restriction was made regarding the size or type of company that we visited, though we acknowledge the large part that the size, structure, and corporate culture of a company has on the workplace culture. However, it could be argued that our collective individual cultures and national culture influences company culture, and that the company culture is a reflection of the culture of the people within it.
From our own experiences as Agile practitioners and countless anecdotes of the difficulty that many organizations have in adopting Agile methods, especially those transitioning from traditional ways of working, we narrowed our observations to organizations that had been practicing some form of Agile for at least one year. This was to ensure that there was some level of understanding and experience of Agile in those that we were speaking to.
Regardless of experience or specific practice, it was more important to us that we saw certain fundamental characteristics in the ways of working to consider teams or organizations “Agile.”
Incremental and iterative. Instead of a “big bang” single release of a completed product, Agile methods evolve products in iterations, releasing successive working product increments regularly.
Self-organization. The people doing the work are the most suited to decide how the work should be carried out and are trusted to do so. No one tells those doing the work how to perform the work.
Collaboration. Silos of knowledge and specializations are broken down. People on the team help and support each other. Collaboration reaches out beyond the people doing the work, with regular communication between the delivery team and stakeholders, fostering a sense of collective responsibility for success or failure.
Sustainable. Environments are such that people are motivated, and have been given the tools and support to be able to carry out their work to the best of their abilities.
Continuous improvement. Teams and organizations strive to get better at what they do through regular reflection and experimentation.
Transparency. Problems impeding progress are surfaced so that they can be eliminated. Knowledge is shared, a common language is used and the current state of work items are visible.
Inspection. Frequent inspection of various artifacts are performed for understanding of progress toward the fulfillment of goals.
Adaptation. Direction is based on feedback, understanding changing customer needs, market and environmental conditions.
Empirical. Empirical processes operate under the assumption that the future is unknowable. Progress is made through forming hypotheses and validating them through the scientific method. Empiricism is founded on transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
We travelled across South America, Asia, and Europe. Along the way, we met many people working in a country that they had moved to, and so were able to provide a unique perspective as a foreigner. We had numerous conference calls with people in parts of the world that were not on our itinerary. This includes calls with people in Africa, which we were unable to travel to due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Though the Agile movement originated from the software development industry, Agile methods can suitably be applied anywhere. We found instances of Agile practices being applied in a retail company, in marketing departments, in the registration and student administration processes of a university, and many other places outside of software development.
This book is not intended to be a presentation of a scientific study. Instead, we wanted to produce something that was accessible. We have presented the four values of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development together with the categories and behaviors of the Lewis Model to encourage you to think about the underlying influences of both people’s culture as well as the Agile mindset that may be affecting the practices, techniques, and stories shared by the community with us in the sections that follow.
As we shall see, we both learned so much during our study; we learned many new Agile tools and techniques that we would come to apply in our own work as Agile practitioners. But above all else, we heard many great stories of Agile in action.
What follows includes stories, case studies, tips, tricks, and the best of the experiences from those we met on our journey.