Agile Transformation or Scientific Revolution?
the radix | Agile Protocols | Joel Harned | 4/2/2024
Agile. The very word likely conjures up many thoughts and opinions today. Like many methodologies, once they find their way into practice, the idea is no longer interesting. Due to natural tendencies (captured in research like the Semmelweis Reflex), our own psychological biases cause us to reject new knowledge or information, because we believe it contradicts with the way it’s always been done. This reflex, along with our own normalcy bias pushes us to keep working the way we always have, falsely assuming the world won’t change, and we won’t fall behind.
However, have we heard the whole story? Could we, in our blind bid to reject new things, and what we believe is just another management trend, really be holding on to biased thinking? Could we also be rejecting centuries of scientific progress, with the potential to solve many of the problems that plague modern organizations?
Background
Most would agree agile is not able to solve every problem and does not answer every issue of ailing organizations. However, agile is a major step forward in the maturity of organizations aiming to succeed in the 21st century and utilizes many well researched and highly impactful concepts.
So, what exactly is agile? Changing and adapting, right? Iterative improvement and feedback? Well, that is only part of the story.
The framework of modern agile depends heavily on the concept of Plan-Do-Check-Act (or adjust) or PDCA. PDCA is what I like to call the “agile engine.” There are many variations of the PDCA engine, but the primary concept is built around the continuous feedback loop. There are many additional agile concepts and practices, but they primarily revolve around a PDCA framework.
Modern Science
Today, most are familiar with the scientific method. It’s usually taught by middle school at the latest, in most American schools. Wikipedia defines the method as: “… an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century.” Medical textbooks dating to the Egyptians discuss a process of examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. Francis Bacon, known for contributing to the scientific method with publication of Novum Organum in 1620, wrote of shedding the old ways of biased thinking, for a new science based on reasoning and experiments.
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However, the scientific method didn’t really take hold until the 18th century and didn’t really fall into the common lexicon and taught with regularity in schools until the 1900’s.
Picking up around the 1930’s, the concept of PDCA was developed by Walter Shewhart. Mr. Shewhart was a physicist at Bell Telephone Laboratories, which you could consider the Google of the time. He was struggling to get workers to experiment more, approach work more iteratively, and improve over time. Since most workers at the time were not trained or familiar with the scientific method, Mr. Shewhart created a simple process called Plan-Do-Check-Act. While the concept originated from Mr. Shewhart, many call it the Deming Cycle today, since it was adapted, used, and in wide circulation in Japan by Mr. W. Edwards Deming after World War II. The impact is seen today with the success of Toyota Motors, and others. The point is PDCA is really a condensed version of the scientific method.
Teams of scientific workers
So, how does PDCA really work? First, is to Plan. What exactly is a plan? In the agile sense, a plan is actually a hypothesis statement. This is what we are planning to do over a set period of time, and the hypothesis is the possible outcome or results that we expect, based on that plan.
In my experience the most common pushback I tend to see from teams and organizations to agile is really just pushing back on the basic idea of planning. Yes, planning. While coaching organizations in the past, I hear comments that they would rather be assigned some work, go back to their cubicle and be left alone until they complete their work. Others would just rather work as issues arise, with no planning at all. All reactive, with no proactive planning at all. All while big picture planning and mapping out long-term goals seems too ambiguous and a waste of time. If we have learned anything the last 100 years, it’s that some basic planning is better than no planning at all. Lee Iaccoca, the former president of Ford Motor Company, learned the importance of quarterly planning from the financial folks after going public all the way back in the 1950’s and made it a mandatory practices at Ford. (Iacocca: An Autobiography — 1984)
Do, is the work, the test or experiment itself. Check is the review, the conclusion, or the demonstration to show the results. The genius in the process was adding Act or Adjust, which essentially turns scientific method experiments into a recurring feedback loop. This step considers what was learned, or feedback from the experiment, and uses information as input to move forward, learning or improving a little more with each cycle.
Conclusion
Organizations face fundamental, century long issues that need new solutions. I would say an Agile Transformation would be more accurately defined as a Scientific Method Transformation in the workplace.
If you don’t want to move towards an agile way of working, some might conclude you just don’t want to accept several centuries of human progress regarding learning, reasoning, experimenting, and science. Or you could just apply the scientific method to the work you do and say you’re being agile. They are really one and the same.
Agile simply helps us to be teams of scientific workers, as opposed to using outdated, ineffective and flawed ways of thinking, then doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. While standard practice in academia and research organizations, the scientific method approach in the workplace is long overdue.
Rather than being seen as another management trend, agile is more closely tied to the continuation of the scientific revolution, using tools like the scientific method to improve the work of organizations worldwide.
