Don't do Agile—Be Agile

Agile isn’t a destination or a practice – it’s not something you, as an organization, do. Agile truly represents a culture change, a mindset everyone within the team adopts for the greater good.  CGI works with the agencies we support to help them move beyond Agile practices (doing Agile) to adopt the Agile mindset (being Agile).

Why make the investment in this cultural change? Adopting an Agile mindset within the organization increases focus on meaningful results for our federal clients, team members and the mission. 

Federal agencies adopt Agile for any of several reasons, including: 

• Improving user experience
• Delivering more frequent value to the public
• Enhancing their ability to manage changes
• Improving their services 
• Accelerating innovation 
• Reducing project risk
• Breaking down organizational silos
• Increasing productivity
• Increasing employee satisfaction
• Saving taxpayer dollars 

What being Agile means

Want to evolve past adopting some Agile practices to truly manifesting an Agile mindset? Change the definition of success and measure teams embracing a shared intent of iteratively delivering value, incorporating user feedback and driving innovation, not just adding certain practices to their workflows. Certainly, Agile practices play a role, but an Agile mindset expands far beyond practices. 

An organization with an Agile mindset:

• Continually thinks about how to help its users do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. Agile teams endeavor to understand what problems their users face and find creative solutions for them. Our coaches and teams use Customer Experience Design, a common practice. This iterative process for design and innovation centers on users’ desires and needs and enables to pivot as the industry changes and technology evolves. 
• Proactively seeks and incorporates iterative user feedback, providing opportunity to improve the work your teams do for their end users. It helps them ensure they deliver what the customers need. 
• Dedicates time to self-improvement and expanding skill sets. A growth mindset means that teams thrive on challenges and see mistakes — and even outright failures — as an opportunity for growth, learning and development. A lot of new and innovative ideas come from teams with growth mindset.
• Appreciates opportunities to work with team members and colleagues outside of the team as a way of collaborating, learning and improving the quality of its product.
• Shares positive feedback daily, not just at set milestones, such as project completion or team member performance reviews. Many studies show that positive feedback increases team members’ engagement and performance, and creates a positive atmosphere in the workplace, leading to greater productivity and better results. 
• Always looks for ways to improve how we work together, our processes, our products and ourselves. Regular retrospectives help teams plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness. During retrospectives, the team discusses what went well and the areas where they can make improvements. An Agile organization embeds continuous improvement and innovation within its activities.  

At CGI Federal, Agile Coaches support an engagement focus on what it means for our client to be Agile and what challenges they face. Using that understanding of our clients’ needs, we customize our Agile approach using tools and techniques to help our clients succeed in their Agile journey. We are here to help the organizations we serve not only do Agile, but be Agile.

Learn more about CGI’s capabilities in Agile coaching here.