
In a VUCA world, with an ever-changing and amorphous business dynamics and landscape, organisations are perennially seeking ways to improve their project management methodologies to stay competitive and relevant. The Agile-Scrum methodology has more or less turned out to be a panacea to this intractable challenge faced by businesses all over the world. It has truly emerged as the most popular and widely used framework that enables teams to not only adapt to evolving requirements but also improve collaboration and continually deliver value.
Agile Manifesto
The principles enshrined in the Agile Manifesto state that our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. In other words, they ask us to embrace change and harness it to enhance the customer’s competitive advantage.
If we look at these principles more closely, it would be very evident that the constant underlying theme is ‘Inspect and Adapt’. Every ritual followed in SCRUM – be it Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-up Calls, Sprint Review or Sprint Retrospective – is geared towards this theme of ‘inspect and adapt’.
- During Sprint Planning, we inspect the committed tasks against the delivered tasks (also known as user stories), look at the spill-overs and then re-adjust the backlog.
- During the Daily Stand-up Call, we inspect what are the bottlenecks regarding the presently ongoing tasks and then resolve them. In the event of not being able to resolve the bottlenecks, the task is pushed to a future iteration and the backlog is re-prioritised.
- During Sprint Review, we inspect the deliverable and gather feedback on the alignment of the deliverable to the customers’ expectations. In the event of any shortcomings noticed or any enhancements expected, tasks are accordingly amended or added to the backlog.
- During Sprint Retrospective, we inspect how the team had performed in terms of collaboration, productivity and the ability to self-organise in the face of changes or challenges they faced and then discuss ideas to adapt and improve on all these fronts.
One of the values in the Agile Manifesto states that we should focus on ‘responding to change’ rather than strictly ‘following a plan’. This means that no plan can hold good for a long period of time. There will be changes necessitated by business dynamics and other factors external to the business, over which we will have less or no control. In other words, for the present context, while planning is important, plans themselves are not as important. So, we need to inspect our plans every once in a while and adapt to business changes.
Inspect and Adapt
Now, let us pause for a moment and look at this theme – this phrase – ‘inspect & adapt’ closely. Isn’t that the philosophy that humans have been following since the dawn of civilisation? Isn’t that a principle that all of us follow in our daily lives as well, to this day?
Here are a few examples that would help elucidate this point.
- Hunting was a crucial activity for primitive humans as they relied on hunting animals not just for food but for other resources as well. Initially, they used basic tools such as sharp-edged stones and wooden spears to aid in hunting. Over time, they realised that improved and specialised weapons would be required to enhance their hunting capabilities. The development of projectile weapons like the bow and arrow, for instance, allowed for greater precision, longer range and increased hunting success. A classic example of ‘Inspect and Adapt’!
- Let us look at a more recent scenario – the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools and universities worldwide faced closures during the pandemic, which prompted all educational institutions to necessarily adapt and shift towards online education. Another classic example of ‘inspect and adapt’!
- If we examine the evolution of technology, we can think of scores of examples of ‘Inspect and Adapt’. For instance, Data Analytics as a field was created to supplement the intuitive decision-making abilities of business leaders so that decisions could be more accurate and rewarding.
- When the Government of India, under Prime Minister Modi, realised in 2014 that India’s demographic dividend in terms of youth population would be a key factor for propelling economic growth, they recognised the need to reinforce India’s competitive advantage in not just the service sector but also in the manufacturing sector. This led to the initiative of ‘MAKE IN INDIA’, which then turned out to be a catalyst for the mushrooming of a lot of start-ups in our country. Yet another application of the ‘inspect & adapt’ philosophy that is reaping huge rewards for the Indian economy indeed!
- Come to think of it, even our basic survival skills – such as the fight-or-flight response that we invoke in the face of danger, depend on this same principle, ‘Inspect and Adapt’.
Thanks to the Agile revolution of 2001! It has raised our awareness of the timeless ‘Inspect and Adapt’ philosophy that we have instinctively employed in diverse ways down the ages.
The ‘INSPECT and ADAPT’ philosophy is therefore nothing but old wine in new wineskin.
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