We hear more and more often about the individual terms Agile and mindset but also about the concept which results by combining them.

But what is an Agile mindset?

In my opinion, an Agile mindset is based on the following pillars:

• The ability to have a clear vision about own work and teamwork, from small topics to larger topics like product vision
• The ability to understand what inspect and adapt really means – inspecting the results at the end of each period of work (sprint) and adapt activities planned for future periods of work (sprints)
• The ability to understand change management, how it can be applied in a Scrum Team and which are the benefits it brings
• The ability to continuously improve own performance and team performance
• The ability to understand what value really means for your product and challenge end-users, stakeholders about their requests as long as they don’t fit the product vision and strategy
• The ability to use the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach in most of our activities, from fewer effort activities to high effort activities (e.g. creating functional documentation based on a simplified format to the most extensive format it is there)
• The ability to understand what time to market really is in relation to the MVP approach
• The ability to learn from mistakes and from own failures as well as success
• And last but not least having pride (in the good sense) about your work, your team’s results and your product

Sometimes it happens that most of the team members have an Agile mindset, sometimes it happens that only a few have it. Nevertheless, if there is at least one team energizer with an Agile mindset the right trend will be set.

The Take-Away

Having Agile mindsets at the execution level (Scrum Team) of an organization usually leads to better results for teams.

Having Agile mindsets at the strategic level (Management Team) of an organization should lead the way to a great organizational culture.

Is agility one of the topics your organisation needs help with?

Leave a comment below and I will get back to you.