Agile Mind-Set
by Gil BrozaThis assessment is based on the work of Gil Broza, author of The Agile Mind-Set, The Human Side of Agile, and Agile for Non-Software Teams. He has helped hundreds of teams and leaders become Agile in their context without reliance on “best practices,” frameworks, or tools.
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Mind-Set Affects Execution
Practices may be codified, taught, measured, and imposed. Yet, consciously or otherwise, the mind-set of the human beings who use them will always affect the practices’ actual execution. The results may range from helpful through ineffectual to harmful.
Essential Insight
The Comparative Agile Mind-Set survey represents the extent to which a team applies Agile principles when working toward their objectives. That is the key indicator of agility, not whether they adhere to certain frameworks or practices.
Intention and Choice
While mind-set is complex and slow to change, people do choose theirs. As a leader, be intentional and explicit about the mind-set you wish your team would exhibit. Use this survey’s results to understand the current state and key areas for improvement.
Agility Requires Both Mind-Set and Behaviors
Gil Broza’s model, depicted here, expresses the straight line of thinking that connects why people do some work (purpose) and how they get it done (tactics);
You’ll notice that tactics and behaviors are last in line. What’s the significance?
Consider that thought leaders started combining mutually reinforcing Agile ideas into methods in the mid-90’s; the Agile Manifesto, capturing key values,
beliefs, and principles of Agile without prescribing how to act on them, was written in 2001. Given the explosive growth in companies’ interest in
Agile in the two decades since, you might expect most businesses to already be adaptive, value-focused, collaborative, and people-first.
However, that is not the case. The main reason is that many organizations took the path of implementing Agile: adopting practices, frameworks, lingo, and tools.
By contrast, organizations that have successfully become Agile have also updated their mind-set, culture, and management systems to enable their new tactics.
Sample Survey Items
The team defers decisions to the last responsible moment.
Team members do their work without fear of failure.
The team favors results over keeping team members fully loaded.
Team members feel respected and accepted.
The team is generally able to focus their attention on the task/activity at hand.
Team members determine together who will do what when.
The team begins everything with purpose in mind.
The team utilizes minimal-investment experiments to validate hypotheses.
The team constrains both work and activities to short time spans.
Sample Survey Items
The team defers decisions to the last responsible moment.
Team members do their work without fear of failure.
The team favors results over keeping team members fully loaded.
Top Features
Leverage an empirical and scientifically backed analysis to quickly identify what to focus on to achieve real agility.
Give your teams – the people you want to be Agile – a safe forum for providing their input into this analysis.
Apply to any group using Agile – stable teams, project teams, entire departments.
Benchmark the level of agility against other organizations in your industry.
Leverage an empirical and scientifically backed analysis to quickly identify what to focus on to achieve real agility.
Give your teams – the people you want to be Agile – a safe forum for providing their input into this analysis.
Apply to any group using Agile – stable teams, project teams, entire departments.
Benchmark the level of agility against other organizations in your industry.
Gil Broza
Gil Broza helps organizations increase their agility and team performance with minimal risk and thrashing. Around 100 companies seeking Agile
transformations, makeovers, or improvements have relied on his pragmatic, modern, and respectful support for customizing Agile in their contexts.
His services include strategic assessments, Agile mind-set and skills training, key event facilitation, keynotes for internal conferences,
and coaching at all organizational levels.
Gil’s best-selling book, The Agile Mind-Set, helps practitioners become
truly Agile about their work. His earlier book, The Human Side of Agile,
guides Agile leaders in growing and supporting their teams to outstanding performance. His ground-breaking new book, Agile for Non-Software Teams,
helps managers consider, design, start, and cultivate Agile ways of working in non-software functions. Gil has also delivered multiple keynotes on Agile,
served three times as a track chair for the Agile 20xx conferences, and written extensively about Agile for projectmanagement.com.
Gil has an M.Sc. in Computational Linguistics and a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He
is a certified NLP Master Practitioner and has studied organizational behaviour and development extensively. Gil lives
in Toronto, Canada, with his wife and twins.
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