Abstract: Rama talk would explore what are the different traits of agility how organizations can work on changing the work environment by taking organized efforts to make small changes in the mindset of their workforce. Unfortunately, nothing works if the mindset is not agile. How this should be practically driven by setting the roadmap shall be discussed in the presentation. We cannot assess the current status of agility within the teams and leadership. We cannot target the expected values. But as a liberal and forward-thinking agile evangelist, I dare to chalk out a roadmap and action plan to work on ‘adopting mindset of agility’. As widely said ‘Scrum never fails’; in the same way we can put efforts in the right direction to see small success stories and say an exercise of ‘Adopting to agility shall never fail’.

1. 10/15/2020 1
Roadmap for adopting a
mindset of agility
By
Rama Bedarkar
Scrum Practicing Trainer, Coach and
Mentor
Agile Transformation Practicing
Consultant

2. 10/15/2020 2
Agenda
 Mindset of agility – the traits and anti-patterns
 Business Advantages
 Case study - Setting the roadmap for driving
mindset of agility
 Small success stories
 Challenges

3. Mindset of agility – the traits
 Agility - ‘attitude needed to support agile work
environment’
 Focus
 Accountability and responsibility
 Respect for all
 Trust and integrity
 Courage
 Transparent Communication and Collaboration
 Ability to adapt to changes
 Fast Learning and unlearning
 Focus on continuous improvement

4. Mindset of agility – Anti-patterns
 Unlearning is crucial
 Traditional management concepts
 Hierarchy based communication
 Closed and restricted communication
 Empowerment based on designations and
experience
 Overuse of power of coercion
 Absence of transparency and collaboration
 Treating failures with negativity

5. Business Advantages
 Agility brings in business gains
 Transparent agile work environment
 Reduction in time to market
 Reduces operational cost
 Generates optimal productivity
 Failures are early, cheaper and mostly
reversible
 Creates ‘safe to fail’ environment - people are
ready to take calculated risks.

6. Business advantages
 Teams are empowered
 Feeling of belongingness towards organization
demonstrated
 Employee happiness index improves
 Employee turnover or attrition is in control
 Survival and growth in VUCA business world
 Meeting competition is the principal business
advantage.

7. Business advantages
 Customers become your partners
 Customer relation becomes more collaborative
 Possible to take business challenges together
in the VUCA world for win-win
 Robust customer relationship for future
business growth

8. Roadmap for driving agility
 Can we set a roadmap?
 Can we have a plan for adopting mindset of
agility within the specified time frame?
 Can we assess the current status of agility within
the teams and leadership?
 Can we target the expected values?
 Soft skills based attributes are difficult to
measure
 We may try to measure using Radar map on a scale of 1 to 5
 But may not throw light on actual behavior

9. Case - Roadmap for driving agility
 I dared to chalk out a roadmap for an assignment
– Case study
 All forward thinking agile evangelist would do that
 Action plan was to work on ‘adopting mindset of
agility’.
 Continuous assertion and consistency in deployment
is needed
 Both top-down and bottom-up approaches are
imperative
 No time frame set!
 No target values set!
 Continuous journey without destination

10. Roadmap for driving agility
 Ref- Source - Page 246, Book ‘Agile Scrum-Improving Practices for
Business Gains’ by Rama Bedarkar, Published by Wiley India.

11. Roadmap for driving agility
 Values based behavior in operations was targeted
 Each individual in a leader of their deliverables
 Handling dependencies and impediments by
individual
 Inculcating attitude for growth
 Practical operational behavior guidelines for
communication, collaboration and empowerment
 Setting expectations by leaders
 Getting leadership support on time was planned
 Values based behavior focus was on generating
business value for customers

12. Roadmap for driving agility
 Pattern of activities for practices during sprint
execution set
 Consistent deployment of agile practices and
refining them based on ‘Shu Ha Ri’ concept
 Created the most compatible (for teams) pattern of
activities
 For sprint execution
 Calendar based weekly activities throughout the sprint
duration
 Ownership within teams explicitly specified
 Focus on ensuring that the teams are structured
to become ‘organized’
 Customization of patterns of activities - Crux

13. Roadmap for driving agility
 Getting team organized in practices
deployment and consistency
 Important tips –
 Continuous assertion on mindset based behavior
 Without losing an eye on deliverables and
business!
 Customer delight - most important!
 Results followed after 6 sprints
 Small success stories
 Slower pace
 No time frame based targets

14. Small success stories
 Intangible benefits are demonstrated
 Small changes seen in work culture
 Can be treated as beginning of cultural change
of the organization for betterment
 Un-learning traditional management concepts
by middle management and leadership was
demonstrated
 Helped the organization to prepare for VUCA
world

15. Small success stories
 Some team members evolved to grow professionally in
agility
 Potential leaders were identified for future
 Team became sincere and dedicated in their work
delivery
 Productivity enhanced
 Imbibed better communication skills and opened - up
 Juniors empowered to lead in small tasks
 Team was ready to take risks and no more scared of
failures
 Cohesive team formation
 Positivity and better energy in the teams demonstrated

16. Challenges
 Human interactions based issues
 Transparency is the biggest impediment
 Cannot control how team members think and
interpret
 Perceptions based negative mindsets were
damaging
 Disrespect for leadership if they do not lead by
examples
 Solutions – Reinforcement and reinforcement!!
 Don’t give up!

17. Roadmap deployment for
changing the mindsets
never fails!
The journey of a thousand
miles begins with one step!

18. 10/15/2020 18
Thanks
Scrum Practicing Consultant
ramabedarkar@yahoo.com
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