Barre Moves
How agile product transformation keeps you on your toes.
This summer I started taking a Barre class for fitness, and I'm completely in love. The class moves fast and is hard enough that I can’t think about anything else during class (so I get a much needed mental break while moving my body), but it’s not so hard that I sweat too much (I really, really hate to sweat.)
One of the mainstays of Barre classes is doing lifts on your toes: stand facing the bar, go up on your toes … lower your heels….up...lower….you get the idea. There are a whole set of variants on this move that work your entire leg, back and core muscles based on the alignment of your posture, how bent your knees are, the tilt of your torso, and so on.
Last week the instructor had us do the simplest of variants of these, but standing on a mat that is about a half an inch thick. And as we were doing this, I thought, “this is really dumb. Why are we just standing on the mat? It’s no different than standing on the ground!”
No sooner did that thought trail through my head, she said, “I know this seems really dumb, but the simple act of standing on the mat to do these lifts creates the tiniest of instabilities - and your leg muscles know it even if you don’t. These lifts are going to get results that much faster — so don’t blow this off!”
And then I nearly fell over, off that tiny little mat.
I work with teams at every single stage of progression along the agile product transformation curve, and nearly every stage is messy, uncomfortable, and hard work for everyone involved. Teams (or rather, the individuals on the teams) are struggling with the changes they need to make to be more effective across the organization to deliver higher quality customer experiences.
They are working with new people as they try to partner across the organization in delivering their solutions. They are working with new systems as they implement new platforms to tie together previously disparate experiences and products. They are working with new processes and meeting structures as they expand agile beyond IT and bring its ceremonies and rituals out into the business.
As often as not, they are thinking (or in some cases, are probably saying it out loud): “This is really dumb. Why are we putting all this work into this new thing? The old way was so easy and this new thing isn’t really showing that much improvement, from what I can see.”
What they don’t yet see is the way that new ways of thinking, working, and operating are building new, leaner, stronger muscles that are going to allow the business to move further faster as the adoption curve of agile practices and product mindsets continue to mature. And these new ways of working are making them more marketable as employees and are contributing to the long term prospects for their company.
The tiny movements don’t feel like much now. But just wait until you try to get out of bed tomorrow morning. You’re gonna feel it then. Trust me.