Agile Mindset — What it is all about?

One of the off repeated comment we hear during a transformation journey is that we need to look at developing an“agile mindset” for the teams and the organisation as part of new ways of working.

Lets understand what exactly is a mindset and “Agile Mindset”.

As per Wikipedia

“A mindset is a set of assumptions, methods, or notations held by one or more people or groups of people that is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within these people or groups to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviours, choices, or tools”.

If we think about mindset, it has mostly 3 parts: values, principles and beliefs. How does it align with

Values are something we hold to be important and we have the agile values as mentioned in the Agile Manifesto.

We can consider Principles as the guides which will provide directions in a given situation of our choice and we have the agile principles to guide us in our agile ways of working.

By embracing the agile values and principles, we can start the agile ways of working but is that enough to sustain the journey?

When we are talking of transformation, we are looking at moving towards a journey which imbibes

· a culture of failing fast,

· getting early and continuous feedback,

· continuous improvement,

· focusing on people,

· collaboration and interaction and

· the most important is being adaptive to change.

As per me, belief which is simply a feeling of certainty about something is one of the critical ingredient and drivers. Belief is based on our ideas. When ideas become certain, it becomes belief.

That’s why it’s so important to know what our beliefs are based on.

· Our beliefs shape our attitude.

· Our attitude also shapes our beliefs.

· Our beliefs shape our mindset.

This brings us to the “Fixed vs Growth” mindset research done by Carol Dweck.

She wrote a book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success . In it, she discusses the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. If you have the fixed mindset, you believe you can only do what you were born with. If you have the growth mindset, you believe you can acquire new skills and learn. Many of us in the agile community, starting with Linda Rising, like to refer to this as the agile mindset.

In my experience as a practitioner, for an organisation to succeed in its transformation journey and embrace true agility,

Key is to imbibe the culture of “Growth mindset”

How do we do it ?

By creating a culture of trust, empowerment, autonomy, learning, and most importantly provide a safe environment for its people to openly share ideas and learn from failures.

As change agents and leaders, we have a greater role in creating this culture of “Growth mindset”