It’s been said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. We took our first step toward Agile in 2008 with our development team. We’ve taken hundreds of additional steps since then. But by 2013, we felt like we had taken all of the easy steps we could take. The next steps looked tougher.

So we decided to take a big leap instead.

We did some soul searching. We did lots of reading. We were particularly inspired by companies that have destroyed the boundaries of traditional management thinking. Valve Software’s employee handbook drew a picture (literally!) of how far you can go. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has a renowned 126-slide presentation on culture that challenged us to really think about what’s most important to us as a company. Steve Denning’s writings had us questioning things we thought were sacred. The Agile movement as a whole, especially Richard Lawrence and Joe Justice who came to Iowa last fall for our company-wide Agile Boot Camp helped get us ready to rethink everything.

And so, on January 9^th, we jumped:

• We flattened the org chart. We went to an entirely flat organizational structure, to clear the way for smart people to do what they do best. There are no managers at Geonetric anymore. Everyone is on a self-organizing team, focused solely on how to best deliver value to our clients as quickly as possible.
• We ditched traditional departments. There are no departments either: almost every team is now cross disciplinary, or soon will be, and can respond to client or marketplace needs without departmental relays or hand-offs.
• We’re getting radically transparent. We already share a lot more information internally (and externally!) than most companies do. But to make these changes possible we took an even bigger leap forward by sharing much deeper levels of financial, client satisfaction, and operational information with our teams.
• We’re building a deeply peer-accountable culture. Team members commit to each other, and to their clients or prospects. They don’t need to be “held accountable” by a supervisor.

As a team, we’ve historically been very open to radical ideas and making big changes, but this one is particularly complex. We spent the last 10 years carefully constructing tidy organizational charts, lines of communication, thoughtful performance evaluations, methods for working that depend on departments, and detailed planning tools and systems to keep track of it all.

And on January 9^th we pretty much abolished all of that. As a result we’re learning a lot – very, very quickly.

Perhaps the most radical aspect of all this is that we’re not hiding this learning process. No man behind the curtain here. We’re pulling the curtain back so you can see. The fact is there are very few companies that have taken Agile company-wide.

We’re ahead of the curve on this – certainly in our industry and in the state of Iowa – and since it’s an exciting story we intend to blog about it, warts and all.

Recently, the entire Geonetric team was treated to two days of agile methodology submersion.  We are really excited about this approach to our software and service offerings because it allows us to be more responsive to both our clients and the marketplace. So, having said that, we were excited to be under the tutelage of two seasoned gurus in the agile/lean methodology space, Richard Lawrence and Joe Justice of Wikispeed fame . The side effect of being in the presence of such awesomeness? 48 hours of brain-cramping problem solving.

Our goal here at Geonetric is to take what’s working fabulously for our development and professional services teams and fold in the rest of Geonetric operations. Why? Because we see how it allows us to work smarter and better.

A lot of great brain food but there was one light bulb moment for me:

Fast = Frequency.  Not speed.  And quality is the foundation for fast.

At the core of agility is speed, right? The ability to move quickly. At least that’s the practical definition. And that’s certainly been the case within our sprints (or work deadlines) in the search engine marketing team, in terms of how we feel we are moving. I’d liken it to a hamster wheel. We are accomplishing more for our clients, in less time, and our results are better because we respond to feedback instantaneously rather than waiting weeks or months to make adjustments. But now I know where we deviate from the practical definition of agile; it’s not about speed, but frequency. And frequency is achieved by reiterating; improving upon what we’ve already done so that it’s the best it can be. Quality.

And true to agile methodology, my light bulb moment has been translated into sticky notes and posted above my computer so that I have a continual reminder than frequency and quality allow agile to bring out the best we have to offer.

As we continue embracing Agile in the software team, we’ve also started carrying the behaviors and cultural changes to other teams. To be fair, we have a few teams that have adopted some of the tools and techniques, but we’re in the process of figuring out how to do it more formally and more aggressively.

So my first step has been to simply introduce others within the company to the ideas. Last week, I invited two team members to simply observe a retrospective. (And yes, I asked the software team in advance if it was OK to have observers.*)

You’ll have to imagine this: I’m sitting in the back of the software development team’s workspace with the two “outsiders.” The team – about 20 people – begins the process of describing what went well, what needed improvement, and what they should do differently in the future.

The team had no agenda except for those three items.

The meeting lasted an hour.

The team followed the methodology precisely, with Kevin (their ScrumMaster), occasionally refocusing them if they got too far off track.

Every single person spoke.

They debated complex topics.

They called out problems.

They apologized for failures.

And they ended on time.

The observers and I retreated upstairs after the meeting and one of them said, “Wow! That was the most productive meeting I’ve ever seen!”

Yes. Yes it was.

And they happen every two to three weeks on the software team. Carrying that behavior and culture to every part of Geonetric is the next step.

* Perhaps you think it odd that the CEO has to ask permission for something like that. There are two reasons: first, retrospectives can get a little personal. They’re exposing things that, to their direct peers, might be a little easier than when ‘outsiders’ are present. Secondly, this is their meeting – not mine. When I say improvement is the software development team’s responsibility, I mean it! So if I want do something that might affect their meeting, I will ask them.

There are lots of companies that use agile software development methods like Scrum to varying degrees of success. Just getting the hang of the techniques is difficult for organizations steeped in traditional development approaches. It has taken us years to master these behaviors, and to be honest, there’s still more we can improve upon.

But this past year, I’ve witnessed a dramatic transformation at Geonetric: Agile has become something much, much more than a software development technique. Within that same software team, Agile behaviors (daily standups, sprints, retrospectives) have evolved into an Agile culture.

Most company cultures are, frankly, aspirational claptrap derived by overzealous HR departments: they’re imposed from the outside. An authentic culture comes directly from the team itself, from its attitudes and beliefs. And those attitudes and beliefs can and do change over time.

So if I’m telling you that the culture of Geonetric is evolving into an Agile culture, what the heck does it look like? Here are some examples of our Agile culture:

• Peer accountability and candor: During a recent sprint retrospective, one team member, in front of about 20 peers, said that an impediment to the success of the sprint was “my bad attitude.” People have bad days and that’s hard enough to admit even in one-on-one conversations, much less in an almost public forum. Most company cultures frown on this sort of candor. To say something like that to your team takes maturity and accountability to your peers, especially when the team knows that the team member is taking steps to prevent it in the future. That’s an Agile culture.
• Rapid decision-making: No committees. Practically no meetings. Decisions are made on the fly, almost immediately, by the team. If the situation changes, the team chooses how to adjust priorities, in negotiation with other teams if necessary. There’s no flagpole to run things up for approval. Earlier this year a client made a big and unexpected change right in the middle of a series of sprints and the team adjusted to that change almost immediately, with no problem. Such a major shift in priorities at most companies would cause tremendous upheaval. Responding to change rapidly. That’s an Agile culture.
• Team value delivery is more important than individual output: At any given time, we might need more or less of a particular skillset. Geonetric’s team understands and works around the principle that the only output that matters is the finished product, so any individual’s role may sometimes be the critical linchpin holding a sprint together, and at other times, they’re doing work that isn’t their favorite or that they’re not the best at. It doesn’t matter: what matters is the end result. When team members do whatever needs to be done without drama. That’s an Agile culture.
• The speed of improvement: Since we do retrospectives at the end of every sprint, the entire team sits in one room for an hour discussing how to improve in the next sprint. What’s interesting about this is how fast it happens – every two to three weeks – so that’s around 15 times per year, specifically focused on improvement. The team usually picks just a handful of items to improve, but a few improvements every two to three weeks add up to tremendous improvement over time! That’s an Agile culture.
• Self-accountability for improvement: The software team at Geonetric isn’t accountable to their manager for improvement; they’re accountable to themselves! That self-accountability is a major Agile cultural marker; most teams decide to change practices or behaviors only when an outside force – such as a manager – decides it should change. At Geonetric, the vast majority of improvement happens automatically as part of the natural work process. It has shifted the accountability for improvement onto the team itself – and that’s an Agile culture!

There are many other cultural changes I’ve noticed during the last year’s transformation. I’ll be blogging about them in more detail, and showcasing other aspects of Agile as we proceed. These first steps in the shift from Agile behaviors to Agile culture have been fascinating to watch, and I’m excited to see what’s next!