Agility is best known in the IT world, mostly due to Scrum Framework. And even after so many years, we can still hear the arguments like “We are agile, we do Scrum; we have Scrum boards /Dailies” or “Scrum is just a brainwasher”. This is because Scrum and even Kanban are seen as just a set of practices, totally decoupled from the agile principles. The agile philosophy, that is behind Scrum/Kanban is applied in our day to day lives. We are built, as human beings, to be agile and when agile principles are applied in our daily lives (starting with early childhood till we get old), we end up having better relationships, better results, we are happier. We are agile by nature without realizing it and to support this point of view, I tell some short stories, connected to one another, growing one from another, each one emphasizing one agile principle.

1. Agility and Life
Camelia Codarcea
Consultant, Trainer, Coach
Cofounder AgileHub
ALE2015
#ale15

2. I want to bring a new perspective.
What agility means to me and why I think life is
agile.
Agility and Life

3. 1) Târnăveni, Mureş County – Bridge
over Târnava Mică river

4. We all have a big desire to experiment and
even like the process itself.
When dealing with difficulties, our instinct is
to get up and move forward.

5. We are actually not that affected by the
results, we are affected by the reactions we
get from others when the results are not those
they wanted.
And that feeling kills the desire to experiment.

6. • Freedom (supervised)
• Experiment
• Trust
• Confidence
• Space
Key points:

7. 2) The Burgundy winter coat

8. Focus on solutions:
“Don’t cry over spilled milk” - Dale Carnegie
Take responsibility of your actions. Deal with
the consequences.

9. Agile Manifesto:
“(….) our highest priority is to give value to
the customer through early and continuous
delivery”.
Who are the customers?
What does it mean value in our lives?
How do we give value to the customers?

10. In life our customers are ourselves, our
families, friends and those we interact with.
What do we want from our relationships?
What do we want our customers to become?
The answer to these questions will tell us
what VALUE is in our lives.

11. Joke: Mother to child.
“When you grow up, I would like you to be
a manager, to have many ideas, make a lot of
money and make good decisions every day.
But until then, you have to shut up and do as I
say cause I know best! ”
IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. WE HAVE TO GIVE
VALUE EVERY DAY.

12. Do you have a long-term plan regarding your
relationships?
• our families
• friends
• children
Or do we react on the spot, without thinking
about consequences ?

13. In Agile there is a business responsible (PO).
• finding out what value means.
• optimize the ROI (Return Of Investment).
• make decisions every day: what’s
important and what not, orders the
features, talk to the team, finds out new
information.

14. TOUGH JOB!
All of us are the POs of our own lives.
When we know what value means to our
customers (family, friends, ourselves), when
we have the vision of the final product, it’s
much easier to take short term decisions.

15. He wanted to raise a child that trusted him and
that learned what responsibility means. And
knowing that, it was easy for him to make the
decision”.
Joel Peterson: expert in
Leadership and Negotiations.
His daughter negotiated with him
to get a hamster.
She is wining the negotiation
although he HATES hamsters.
WHY?

16. How do we decide what’s valuable to
us?
• Think
• Reflect
• Analyze
• No blaming
• Accept the facts and decide on the
actions

17. “No, that’s enough for me … I don’t
want perfection. These are good
enough.”
3) Pair of summer pants.

18. He was not willing to spend any more energy
and time for the benefit of perhaps finding
something better.
He had reached the ROI.
He was happy with the decision.

19. “Most people are majoring in minor things.”
Tony Robbins
Being great PO means knowing what’s
important, what’s valuable.

20. 4) From developer to …

21. Agile teams need the courage to change things
even late in the process when finding better
ways.
In life most of the time we are afraid to leave
the things we are used to, even though we don’t
like them. They bring the false feeling of safety
and familiarity.

22. Our nature is to evolve, to learn and the most
natural thing is to have the courage to make the
first steps in the direction we want… but that
requires some experiments first, plus some
reflection and self analysis.
Courage

23. Fixed thinking:
• I’m born with certain abilities which don’t change.
• We are successful because we are smart.
• If we have difficulties in doing something, that’s
because we are NOT smart.
• judging.
• Constantly we have to show you are good.
• We don’t accept feedback, we look for excused and
we accuse others
Ways of Thinking – Carol Dweck

24. Growth thinking (agile thinking):
• I can learn anything.
• If I’m good at something that’s because I’ve put
effort into it, I worked towards becoming better.
• It’s not important where I am and what I do… I
can become better.
• I observe, ask questions, investigate, I am curious.
Ways of Thinking – Carol Dweck

25. We cannot think agile in all areas of our lives,
our entire life.
Agile thinking and fixed thinking are only roles
we take at different moments in our lives.
This is why it’s so important to know what
value means to us.

26. No matter how much we wait to learn before we
begin doing something, there will always be more
things to learn. We need to feel comfortable
recognizing that we don’t know it all.
“If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and
you’re not sure you can do it, say yes – and learn
how to do it later”.
Richard Branson – founder of Virgin Group

27. “What if I told you that those things you like about me
are the result of ALL my hobbies, would you still want
to end my game playing hobby?”
5) Playing games

28. We live in a ecosystem, where diversity is to
be appreciated as it is.
We are different and that’s the beauty of it.
Each one of us comes with a different view
of the things and we can share information.

29. • Diversity
• Same goal
• Share ideas, gain new perspectives
• Respect and appreciation

30. Do the same principles work? How do we apply
them?
Can we apply?
• experiment, supervised freedom
• trust, giving space
• responsibility
• decisiveness (enough)
• courage to change
• appreciate diversity
What about companies and teams?

31. John Shook, a LEAN guru, during Lean Conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUpbbK104Zg
Experiment, supervised freedom, trust,
giving space
”Lead, as if you have no power!”
“In my five years in Toyota City, almost never
was I told exactly what to do or how to do it…
Yet, I was NOT free to just do what I wanted”

32. “Every time you tell people what to do,
you take the responsibility of that action
away from them”
LEAN philosophy
Responsibility

33. “If I were to start my career all over again
… I’d still be a math teacher. I really love
being around kids and I like math.”
My mom – Retired math teacher

34. People change, they are capable of
transformation so give them:
• room to experiment, to learn
• encouragement, so they feel safe to
share ideas
• support
• help them develop as humans, so they
find out who they are, what they want
YOU CREATE AN INFINITY OF POSIBILITIES!

35. When we:
• accept diversity and experiments
• believe in ourselves
• have our priorities sorted out
Then we have the chance to grow old
and say:
• “It was hard, BUT If I were to do this all
over again, I’d still do what I did. ”

36. THANK YOU!
Camelia Codarcea
www.cameliacodarcea.ro
camelia.codarcea@agilehub.ro