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Conserve energy in agile activities

Agile activities are determined by the acting people, who produce seizable results. Each particular aspect that makes a contribution to the overall outcome is thereby of interest. These are on the one hand the memetic results – ideas, topics, concepts, models, plans and practices. On the other hand it’s a matter of the physical products – prototypes, parts, components and assemblies. In order to exploit the opportunities of agility, the acting people need a constant energy level. Nothing else remains to be done by the managers than tackling things or doing anything, so that the involved people do not work to hard, not to burn out, but to conserve their energy.

The stamina of employees in the context of agile projects and, above all, the duration of a high agile energy level are apparently not yet analyzed. Factors that affect the duration and encourage on a long-term basis are among other things the following aspects.

  • Positive self-image
    A positive assessment of the self-esteem results from the own, recognized strengths (e.g. skills, creativity) and the controllable weaknesses (e.g. impatience, being nutty on details). The self-image is often reinforced by the comparison with other people.
    The manager should suppress all disturbing impulses, like the feeling of competing with the employees, in order not to put scratches on their self-image.
  • Aligned doing
    As soon as the employees have found their direction; they become bound to everything that goes into this direction. All thoughts turn around planning, execution and implementation of the various parts as well as around similar results that other people created.
    The manager can foster this momentum, by providing appropriate material, trainings and events for the employee.
  • Real autonomy
    The feeling of having control of your own fate and to determine your own career with suitable measures create self-confidence that allows admitting difficult tasks. This results in a confident attitude that achieves more than a negative.
    The manager is crucial for the elbow spaces that are available to the employees. This takes place on the one hand through the fact that they do not interfere into each detail as well as to prevent on the other hand that others limit the autonomy of the employees.
  • Official acknowledgment
    The results that are obtained by the employees, should be honored by the internal public. This can take place through respective publications in the available media, mentions within given events or through appropriate trophies (e.g. certificates, cups, and badges).
    The manager is responsible to take care that the employees are praised and/or for the fact that deliverables become officially visible.
  • Equal workload
    Dependent on the employee type they work with their personal rhythm. There are morning and evening beauties, short-distance and long haul runners as well as short- and long-winded, rhythmic and flowing characters. It is common for all that an interruption of their work is counter productive, since the resumption of the thread always takes a lot of time.
    The manager should know the rhythms of their employees and do everything that they are not thrown out of their rhythm or will be interrupted.

Whereas leaders in the past intervened from above with defaults, demands and instructions in order to prove themselves, now the conception of the world is put upside down. With the old approach they would destroy the mechanisms that keep the employees moving. In agile environments they carry the needs of all employees on their shoulders.

Bottom line: The pro-active actors are located in the center of a self-organized world. Their positive self-image, their aligned doing, their need for real autonomy, their official acknowledgment and their equal workload are apart from other aspects the pre-requisites for agile approaches. The managers have the duty to support the employees in all areas. Thus, the energy is extensively longer conserved in agile activities.

(Fr)agile

Companies that already exist and grew for a long time mastered many challenges – changed market requirements, new technologies, and various cooperation styles. Over time these companies developed a custom-made armor of rules and stipulations of organizational structures and procedures, which should cover, if possible, every eventuality. As the armament of a knight meant an additional weight of 30 kg, the enterprises also carry around enormous ballast of guidelines. Even if this armor is adapted to the proportions of its user, it limits the mobility and thus creates certain fragility. How to get rid off the “Fr”?

An armament consists of different metal plates that were forged for certain parts of the body of a distinct person – the helmet, the piece of chest, the arm things, the thigh cover, the elbow, the knee piece, the leg tube and much more. Also the enterprise develops internally regulations for its different areas. In order to become agile it is crucial, to consider the following aspects.

  • Vision
    The picture of an ideal, in the future agile state of the enterprise forms the basis for the renouncement of over years developed, detailed determinations. The vision is built upon the ideal employee conception, the other resources and the customer-oriented cooperation. The elements that obstruct this vision have to be dissolved.
  • Convictions
    All involved people developed by and by mindsets that disturb the agilization. The employees have to let the expectation go that they have to be motivated, trained and assigned from the outside. The managers must let go that they directly steer, control, and sanction the employees. The magic word of the future is self-organization.
  • Intrinsic motivation
    In order to keep the momentum in an enterprise, appropriate extrinsic rewards and incentives were developed – the payment, the bonus, the career, and the training. In self-organization other incentives that drive the employee from the inside become important – the satisfaction to accomplish an activity, to have a skill, being able to satisfy one’s curiosity or to be able to reach a personal purpose with the activity.
  • Trust
    The company owners have to carry out the greatest deal of trust. They can’t avoid to give up the direct influence and to believe that the internal society, the employees, steer the economic fate in such a way that the enterprise remains economically viable and lucrative. The confidence that the intrinsic motivation guarantees the necessary employee interaction and that way productive results appear spontaneously is the pre-requisite for the fact that the employees after all get the chance to prove themselves.
  • Organizational openness
    To open the existing chain mail, in order to let evolve the possibility for self-organized networking and team building, requires great courage. The corporate DNA is burned into the consciousness of the employees in such a way that it requires a large effort to get away from the cherished sense of security. One company and two approaches require neutral zones, where the employees can try themselves out, without having to follow the established, old way.
  • Governance
    The introduction of a fundamental set of rules that describes briefly and easy to understand the new principles, the ways of alignment, the common view and clear tasks, authority and responsibility, is an important pre-requisite. It is conceivable to introduce special areas, as China did with its special economic zones (e.g. Shenzhen, Hainan, and Hong Kong). In this area completely new approaches can be tested – Holacracy, pods, platforms.
  • Platform
    Self-organized units are focused on their topic. Repeating activities and generally needed services disturb thereby. For this reason, it is smart to liberate the teams from certain basic tasks. The bundling of these items in a platform increases the effectiveness of the units. In the platform you can find standardized procedures and tools as a service – IT, infrastructure, logistics, etc.

In the course (Fr)agility, the employees consist not only of the executing people, but also the steering ones, the so-called management. The upcoming loss of power that results from the self-organization is the largest challenge, since guidance results in the future out of context and no more from the classical career. The person will lead, who inspires and engages people at most and no more the best adapted careerist.

Bottom line: The (Fr)agility of companies is determined by the armament that limits the mobility. This includes the structures and procedures, the established set of rules that tries to regulate every detail. In order to create the transformation to an agile organization, it needs a vision, common convictions, an intrinsic motivation, trust, an organizational openness, governance and a common platform that is available for the agile units. The agility is threatened by those, who loose the most – the leaders. For this reason, they need perspectives that show them opportunities for survival.