The results were confirming on the one hand, surprising on the other. As a cultural meme, Agile is fundamentally patterned on the Collaboration culture type (not surprising). A strong second preference, however, is the Cultivation culture type (surprising). On the overall level, there are only slight differences culturally between the 3 Agile methods studied (a bit surprising). However, on the level of specific culture levers (things like Power & Influence, Decision-making, etc.) the results were either different from the overall pattern (e.g., Collaboration followed closely by Cultivation) or showed a different pattern between the 3 methods.

Background

Fundamentally, organization culture is to organizations what personality is to people. Culture combines many things: work practices, values, how processes and other systems are carried out, styles of leadership, decision making and thinking about organizational challenges and solutions. I have been using a specific culture typology for working with Agile transformation efforts for many years, and that approach is the basis of this research.

In The Reengineering Alternative: A Plan to Make Your Current Culture Work (1994), William Schneider outlines his researched-based model of organizational culture (Bill is a great guy, and one of our partners–see our Partner page). Schneider outlines four core cultures. Similar to a person taking the Myers-Briggs type inventory, there is no “right” answer or “better” culture. Any culture (like a personality) can be adaptive to its environment or not, in balance or not, and authentic or not. Determining and aligning a management approach (such as Agile) that is being implemented with the existing organizational culture is the difference between flourishing success or abject failure. Not all ideas are good ones, depending on their fit with the organization’s culture. Here’s a brief description of the four cultures.

Control

If a culture could be said to have a quest, in the Control culture that quest is for certainty and predictability. Not surprisingly, the Control culture loves data and objective analysis. It strives for market share dominance with customers and to be the ‘only game in town.’ Managers in a Control culture tend to be directive and authoritative. Jobs are focused on functional need, even functional loyalty. The archetype of the Control culture is the military, where a strict chain of command is followed and rank means everything. The climate in such a culture is serious, formal, at times even secretive. The underlying psychological motive here is power. A potential misunderstanding is that a Control culture is inherently ‘controlling.’ The urge of the culture is for certainty—the kind of certainty needed in a nuclear power plant, for instance—which is not necessarily controlling, but rather orderly and procedural. When the culture is overly controlling, that represents an out of balance situation.

Competence

The quest of the Competence culture is for freedom, distinction and uniqueness. A consistent product strategy in such a culture is striving to be the best, innovative, one of a kind, cutting edge. In contrast to a Control culture, the role of employees here is to become an expert within one’s specialty. The culture is oriented towards learning and development in service of becoming the best. The climate is intense and competitive, with a tendency towards being Spartan and prideful. Power comes not through position per se, but through prowess in one’s field, a meritocracy. Organization structure tends towards the matrix or an adhocracy. The underling archetype is the traditional University, where people pursue being the best. Achievement is the driving motivation in the Competence culture. Many engineering organizations and specialty product companies are Competence cultures, as are many IT organizations.

Collaboration

The quest in the Collaboration culture is for unity and connectedness. The relationship with customers is synergistic and oriented towards partnering. The natural organizational form that goes along with this intent is the cluster, often a cluster of teams. Leadership in the Collaborative culture is participative and collegial, focusing on team building and developing trust. Employees are encouraged to be generalists, to honor diversity and utilize others as resources. There is an atmosphere of informality, of “let’s try it and see what happens,” of on the job training and learning. The climate is harmonious, trusting, spontaneous and egalitarian with a ‘can do’ philosophy. (Parallels to the Agile philosophy are perhaps obvious.) A Collaboration culture is motivated primarily by affiliation. The archetype is the family or sports team. Collaboration  is the favored culture of many consulting companies and other highly collaborative service providers.

Cultivation

The final of the four core cultures is called Cultivation. Its quest is for meaning, for making a contribution. The relationship to its customer (or constituent) is their growth, the realization of their highest potential. Leaders in the Cultivation culture are catalysts, cultivators and stewards of human potential. The role of employees can vary from functionalist to generalist to specialist, depending on organizational need and personal inclination. Mentoring, sponsoring and a fervor to learn and grow are common. The climate of such an organization is lively, magnetic, committed, emotional and giving. The organizational structure is unconventional such as a wheel or lattice. Cultivation is the ultimate ‘values-driven’ organization. It is the least common type in the for-profit world, but quite prevalent in non-profits and religious and spiritual organizations, which provide the underlying archetype. Self-actualization is the primary motivator in a Cultivation culture.

The four core cultures are generally depicted by Schneider on a 2×2 matrix, where the horizontal axis represents the Personal cultures on the left and Impersonal ones on the right. Likewise, the vertical axis represents an Actuality culture on top, a Possibility one on the bottom. Collaboration and Cultivation are Personal cultures, Control and Competence are Impersonal ones, etc.  The matrix also represents the fact that Control and Cultivation are opposite culture types, as are Competence and Collaboration.

Results

The following diagram represents results from the Agile culture survey, combined across Scrum, XP and Lean-Kanban:

The digram shows Collaboration to be the strongest culture preference (47%) for the ideal Agile team, as judged by the 120+ respondents to the survey. Cultivation is a strong second at 41%. Competence shows up a distant 3rd at 9%, while Control (predictably) is a meager 3%. What this confirms is that Agile is clearly a strong culture meme (it is not, for instance, spread somewhat evenly across the four types) and it is decidedly a Personal culture. Further, if you are implementing Agile into a Competence or (especially) a Control culture, beware. (There are ways to mitigate this risk, but that is beyond the scope of this blog).

A further detailing of the results is revealed by examining each of the 10 culture levers measured in the survey (overall, Schneider identified 20; I choose the most salient 10 for this research).

The following diagram shows results for each of the 10 culture levers, again summarized across all 3 methods:

At this greater level of detail, some new  patterns emerge. First, in only four of the ten levers does Collaboration have the strongest preference, while the other six have Cultivation as a preference. In general, Collaboration and Cultivation are number one and two. In three instances, however,  the Competence culture is the second strongest. These three levers are Approach with Customers, Power & Influence, and Key Norms.

Two cautions: the results d not represent the study of actual Agile teams, but rather the ‘ideal’ preference for a good Agile team as expressed by practitioners. Second, when Schneider measures an organizations culture, he does it with a much more extensive (and statistically validated) instrument. These results may be incomplete due to this limitation of the survey.

I hope to publish a full report on this work later in the year. I will also be providing further detail on my analysis during my Agile 2010 tutorial, Blueprint for an Agile Enterprise. Hope you will stop by and say hello!

Michael is excited to be starting a  leadership coaching group for managers & executives engaged in Agile transformations. From the beginning of his Agile career, Michael has worked extensively with management and their unique perspective on the world of self-organized teams and the necessary changes to management assumptions that accompany an Agile transition. Managers making the (at times difficult) transition to Agile is a subject near to his heart.

The group is exclusively for those in management or executive level positions to help us ground fully and focus in the managerial perspective. The group will consist of coaching, peer support, and expert advising from Michael, based on his nine years doing large scale Agile transformations. It  will have elements of group coaching, a mastermind group, and peer supervision. The group will be limited to 4-6 people and will meet on a biweekly basis for 3-6 months.

Potential Topics:

• Organizational transformation & change models
• Leading teams from the boundary
• Leadership agility
• Eight Agile Manager competencies
• Leadership style assessment
• Issues in Agile Leadership

There are currently several slots open, so if you are interested please let us know.

Michael’s purpose is to share two things: his experience in coaching and organizational transformation, and his professional coach training as a relationship systems coach. He believes coaching groups are part of something trying to happen in our world. . .bringing coaching and mentoring to more people and creating community bonds and networks in the process. A colleague, Bachan Anand, recorded a brief interview with Michael about coaching circles. It is available onYouTube. Or see his blog post on the overall topic of Coaching Circles. Coaching circles are also available for Agile Coaches.

I have long taken the position that Agile teams seek to develop a specific type of culture identified by Schneider. Lately, I have begun to wonder whether the big three Agile methods–Scrum, XP and now Lean-Kanban–might have different underlying core cultures. To explore that question, I developed a brief (10 question) survey. I don’t want to say anything further about my expectations, so as not to bias anyone taking the survey.

If you are an Agile practitioner of any kind, I would be very grateful if you click on the link below to take the survey. It should only take 5-7 minutes. I will report back on the results when I have sufficient numbers.

Survey now closed. Results coming soon!  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/agileculturesurvey01

Thanks very much for your help!

My attempt to frame a new discussion about PMOs was inspired by a client request, as well as conversations with my friend and colleague, Lyssa Adkins. The client–we’ll call him Jack–wanted to know how to run a PMO at enterprise scale in light of the changes brought by Agile. This started me on a quest to find something I felt comfortable giving Jack from the recent literature on Agile PMOs. What I turned up did not satisfy me, so I felt compelled to write my own. (By the way, you probably know Jack: he’s typical of PMO directors everywhere.)

I approached Lyssa about collaborating with me on this idea. I ended up writing it alone, but Lyssa provided very valuable feedback, the kind a good editor does: not about the grammar or punctuation or other tactical matters. Rather, Lyssa helped me find my own voice. As she reflected, what I was articulating was more related to the being of a PMO than the doing of one. She also encouraged my bluntness, telling it like it is: PMOs are generally disliked by many of the people they are supposed to serve. It does not have to be that way. Getting there does require a fundamental shift in mindset and values.

The whitepaper is entitled The Principled PMO: Creating a PMO that Matters. If you are interested, it is available here by request.

Which leads me to my real point. Organizational culture. When a culture is clear, predictable, aligned, then it is trustworthy. We know how to react to it, how to act within it, what to expect from it. Even if we don’t share all its values, we can act with confidence and ease.

Take Toyota. As Jeffrey Liker was studying the company for his seminal book, The Toyota Way, he did what most Americans would do: paid attention to the tools and techniques. He later recalls “experienced leaders within Toyota kept telling me that these tools were not the key to TPS. Rather the power behind TPS is a company’s management commitment to continuously invest in its people and promote a culture of continuous improvement.” Liker candidly continues “I nodded like I knew what they were talking about and continued to study how to calculate kanban quantities…” (p. 10)

Some twenty years later, Liker truly sees that the Toyota Way is far more than a set of lean tools. For me, the key to Toyota is culture. A culture that creates trust because it is aligned and integrated. One that acts in ways that are predictable, that make sense.

So, what’s the lesson for me? First, I must create a culture within myself as a leader which is clear and aligned. One that creates trust with myself. When I manifest that clarity in my own organization and with my clients, I help them create a culture that can be trusted.

I want to follow Toyota’s example, but I do not want to become Toyota. I hope my clients do not want to become Toyota, either. It is enough to strive to become ourselves, whether person or organization.

No one else is smart enough.

My major presentation is a half-day tutorial on Wednesday afternoon (2-5:30). The title is Creating Your Enterprise Adoption Plan: A Seven Layer Framework. It is aimed at folks that are getting started with a significant Agile effort, or who are mid-course but not having the results they want. At the end of the session, everyone will walk away with a pretty robust plan designed for their specific organization, reviewed by their session peers, and addressing more aspects of an enterprise change initiative than most others even know to tell you about.

This presentation is really exciting for me since it is my attempt to distill the essence of many of the other presentations I’ve given at prior Agile conferences into one actionable package. Please tell your friends for whom it might fit. If nothing else, I should be entertaining .

Immediately before the conference (and in this space), I will be announcing the launch of our Agile Assessments package. Collective Edge will be featuring some new services and special offers during the conference. Stay tuned.

The other presentation, in case you were interested, is on a really cool topic called deep democracy. The session is a demonstration of deep democracy in action to resolve group disagreement and conflict. If you have a juicy topic that would provoke controversy in the Lean-Agile-Kanban community–perhaps even of a ‘religious’ fervor–please let me know.

I hope to see you there. Please text me or send me a tweet @mspayd about your plans and how we can hook up.