This particular revelation came to me few years after I started working with agility. Organizations I have visited were either in a rigid-waterfall state and claimed that they are agile ("but we do daily standups" -this is an actual quote from management of one of them), or were agile and nible and admitted that they "have a long way to go and are still learning" (another actual quote - thanks Filip 😉). Of course this is not true for every organization, but I have to say it is a majority of cases in my experience.
Why is it?
Agility is not a state. Agility is an ability to change and respond to an environment you're in as an organization.
Can you say you've implemented Scrum?
In fact you can. If you have all the elements in place, then you have done that. But if you did it right, you start to understand that Scrum is not the mechanics. It's the values and pilllars, which are way harder to introduce. And that's where the "long way to go and still learning" comes.
Agile organizations - striving for Scrum, kanban or any other framework understand that only constant change and constant improvement brings significant value. Just like during the current pandemic - the ones that were able to adapt, survived or thrived. After understanding agility and Scrum you see, that you are never done changing.
So, next time an organization says "yeah, we're agile" - double check if they really are. And be skeptical if the "still learning" ones really have a long way to go.
Can you see similar patterns?
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