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Several weeks ago, in an interview with Dave West of Forrester Research, Dave posed a provocative question to me.
“Do you have to be smart to do Agile?”
In retrospect, Dave’s question reminded me of an old joke: “Have you stopped beating your wife?“ In this “deeply philosophical” question, there is really no good answer. “Yes” looks bad; “No” looks worse. Answering the question about Agile and smartness could be the same. For me to answer “Yes” could be interpreted as, “Gee of course; look how brilliant I am!” To answer “No” could be interpreted as, “Gee of course not! Look at me! I’m as dumb as a doorknob!“
All jokes aside, I answered “No,” to Dave’s question and here is why.
The real question is not about individuals. The real question is, “Do Agile TEAMS have to be smart?” And to that question, I would answer “Yes.“
Agile relies on the collective wisdom of the team, not on the brilliance of one individual. I learned a lot about this, not just in my research of Katzenbach and Smith’s The Wisdom of Teams. I also have experienced it in the variety of teams in which I have worked and with the teams I have mentored. High team E.Q. (emotional quotient) is what makes Agile really hum. In fact, high team collaboration, their ability to invite and manage conflict, and their ability to create consensus, actually is the fiber that weaves the cloth of a high-performance team. High-performance teams have a collective high goal for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. It is about the team and its commitment to one another and their goal.
So, back to our title math question.
- 7 + 2 = 5 if your team mistakes collaboration as working in a “dumb down” or “group think” mode. That is not the intent of Agile collaboration or consensus. We’re an Agile team because we intend to increase our collective wisdom.
- 7 +2 = 9 if you are not gathering all the insights of all the team members to inform your decisions in your work. You are not quite yet truly Agile.
- 7 + 2 = 11 is where the collective wisdom of the Agile team raises its team I.Q. That is, the Agile whole team is indeed greater than the sum of its parts. And besides, as Spinal Tap says, it’s great to, “Go to 11!”
Further Reading:
- #6 Collaborative and Smart – Top 10 Charectieristics of an Agile Organization
- Get Serious About your Meetings with Jean Tabaka and Seth Godin
- Live from LA Success Tour: Advice on Socializing, Testing and Collaborating
A system in which 7+2 = 11 would be called “superadditive.” Contrariwise, one in which 7+2 = 5 would be “subadditive.” I’ve worked in both super- and sub- additive teams. The superadditives just seem to click. The subadditives nearly always have a couple of bad apples that drag the team into subadditivity. In this case,if you subtract those two, you might get 7-2 = 7.
Thanks for this comment, Steve. I too have worked on both superadditive and subadditive teams. That really describes them! And yes, sometimes, removing one or two non-collaborative members can actually make the team more productive. Though the people may be smart, heroic, productive, they can ultimately make for a subadditive team.
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