Why Agile In 5?

Why you ask did I name this site Agile in 5? What does the 5 stand for?

It goes back to my early childhood… I was my dad’s buddy… we went everywhere together… Especially exploring the various parks and forests around Northern Indiana. Boy did my dad like to hike and explore nature. “Let’s explore together… Together is Better” is what he always said.

I remember a new county park opening up near where we lived and my dad and I just couldn’t wait to explore it… Lemon Lake in Crown Point, Indiana. They built a huge tree house that was devine. It was the size of two or three houses and up in the trees, many trees. My dad and I talked about it for weeks!

We finally went… and my dad let go of my hand and said… explore and enjoy… I’ll be right behind you… he let me lead the way….

Oh the sounds of the birds, warm sunlight on my face, and smell of fresh cut wood and chill of the crisp fall air… the trees were changing color to a glorious burst of reds, oranges and yellows… just tickled my senses.

As we finished exploring the tree house (and playing tag together), we started hiking along a path and I found a short brown stick that seemed to be moving… It had legs! A walking stick! I picked it up and my dad and I explored… experimented placing different leaves and sticks in its way and seeing how the walking stick adjusted it’s walk to overcome obsticles… the darn thing was pretty agile!

My dad wasn’t afraid to experiment, to explore and see things from different perspectives. He encouraged me to do the same… he wasn’t afraid to raise me to love the outdoors and to allow the sense of wonder and adventurer in me to come out… He had the courage and patience to allow me to learn through exploration and experimentation. He wasn’t afraid to let me fail and learn from my mistakes so that I would make better decisions. He mostly led from behind instead of trying to control me to fit into a predetermined box. We sure did learn together as we journeyed through those parks and also through the stages a child goes through to become an adult. As a leader and parent he learned as I learned… we journeyed together because “Together is Better”!

Fast forward to my own personal agile transformation journey and the 5 Agile Scrum Values… I realized that my dad also held those same values… as a leader of our family, he didn’t talk about these much but boy did he model them and it left an impression on me… it gave me a sense of comfort, of trust and courage/ fearlessness to explore and take risks… I felt empowered…

As I embarked on my own personal agile transformation journey, I realized that you simply cannot succeed at Agile without adopting deeply these 5 Agile Scrum Values. They seem so simple, but it is a journey to explore yourself, your mindset, your behaviors and adopt these.

I encourage all who are exploring this Agile World, to really think about what these 5 Agile Scrum Values mean to you as a leader (how might you lead differently/ behave and operate differently), as a change agent (how might you allow leaders and teams to experiment and explore), as a team (how might you have the courage and openness to have those difficult conversations that springboard growth) and as a person (which one of these 5 Agile Scrum Values do you need to work on?).

So yes, the 5 in Agile in 5 stands for the 5 Agile Scrum Values we as agile explorers live by. Cannot “be” agile without them.