So what is Agile culture?

The traditional project management and development culture coupled with the use and abuse of "expert" power lead to an approach to both project development, project management and sponsor relationships based on an inward looking and technology-focussed set of behaviors that reflected a value system.

Values plus behaviors = culture.

As we discussed in earlier blogs, this traditional value system had already been established for hundreds of years in construction, engineering and similar professions.

The key values of this culture were:

• Closed - stakeholders (including sponsors) were treated as "users" who either got in the way of technical people delivering or worse, as luddites who resisted the change;
• Dishonesty - critical documents such as Business Cases were treated as a bureaucratic hurdle and risks, estimates (costs and benefits) were manipulated or copied with minimum effort to get the project approved so the technical people could get in with it;
• Distrust - a set of behaviors such as checking up or "are we there yet?", haggling about estimates and designing complex reporting systems all sent a message that people were to be treated as children not professionals;
• Lack of courage - it became common for project managers and technical people to avoid confrontation and negotiation by accepting imposed deadlines and budget constraints which could be negotiated at the latest possible stage. This form of ambushing was/is so common that every senior manager we have worked with actually expects it to happen. Worse, by agreeing to imposed deadlines and other constraints, the project manager often forced many internal service providers such as H.R. and Infrastructure to have to work within these constaints;
• Technical focus - the inward focus of projects meant that issues such as the true costs of projects and support and the realization of benefits were either ignored or treated as after thoughts.

We are not saying that these values and the related behaviors were deliberately designed but rather they evolved and like the frog placed in cold water that is brought to the boil, we didn't notice the rising heat of the culture.

We weren't looking and we weren't paying attention. In fact, any discussion about culture was seen as "soft" or "flakey".

Agile values and the related behaviors are the exact opposite.

• Open - stakeholders (including sponsors) are completely involved in the planning and delivery of their projects. RAP (RApid Planning) and Agile Development are open and transparent enabling stakeholders to get closer and have control of their projects;
• Honesty - critical documents such as Business Cases are treated as critical information that link the business problem to the technical solution. Risks, estimates (costs and benefits) are honestly created and "not knowing the answer" is more acceptable to "making the answer up";
• Trust - team members, stakeholders and sponsors are treated as intelligent professionals who will make good decisions and fully support their commitments to colleagues and to the project's big picture;
• Courage - Being able to say "No" appropriately and with justification and being able to admit mistakes as well as not knowing everything are supported as signs of strengths not weakness. Not punishing project managers when projects go "Red" but rather asking what help is required to make it "Green" are some of the examples of this value;
• Money focus - projects are about true value add and that all costs must be measured and managed. The realization of financial benefits is the key measure of success not time. Use of "intangible" benefits is not allowed and a true partnership between the project manager and team who deliver the capability and the sponsor and stakeholders who must use the capability for benefits is created at the beginning of the project.

In our consulting experience, these Agile values really challenge some of the more commonly accepted behaviours and "artifacts" of prevailing project management. Just as Agile development no longer uses GANTT charts, Agile project management requires new tools and artifacts. We'll talk about some of these later in our Agile Conversations blog.

Meanwhile check out http://onegreenerday.blogspot.com/2009/06/integrating-agile_19.html . This is a really awesome example of how social networking technology can open things up .. in this case .. the Agile Conference in Amsterdam in June 2009.