I wrote those two books. The black one is older, and the white one is new. It's going to be published this December, and this talk is partially summarizing it. Being an elder is what I did these past few months, mostly. So, those are my two small, tiny paper babies.
Now, I would like to start with a story—a story from my past.
In the summer of 2010, one afternoon, I was given three departments: developers, testers, and hardware guys. I was asked to form a new single department of engineering from them—a department with high collaboration, flexibility, and the ability to build cross-functional teams across all those domains. I was also asked to come up with my own idea of how I wanted to run this department by the next week.
So, I went home, sat in the garden, and thought about it. My first feeling was, "Wow, I can finally change it. I can do it my own way. It's simple!" Then, the image of a hundred people coming to me every other day with all those questions, requests, and approvals overwhelmed me. "Can you advise me? Can you tell me? Can you approve my vacation?" I felt tired even before I started.
Finally, I thought, "Maybe I shouldn't reinvent the system. Maybe I should just do it the same way as before—hierarchy, managers, simple." But the next day brought new energy, and I gathered the courage to present, later that week, a very different structure—one based on self-organizing teams with Scrum Masters and no managers.
To give you a little context, our chairman was a short man in his sixties with a deep voice, almost no hair, and the mindset of a traditional manager with hierarchy hardcoded into his DNA. He always wore a suit, kept his distance, and carried the aura of a person who could never be wrong.
The next week, I was back with my presentation—nervous and enthusiastic at the same time. He asked, "So, let's start with the engineering structure. We need to know who you expect to be in the management roles." And I was like, "I don't have managers." Oh my God, what should I do? Should I change it? No, I don’t have a chance to change it. So, I just started.
I said, "You asked me to come up with my own idea of how I want to run this department. But first, let me summarize the goals we need to achieve: higher flexibility, a fast-learning environment, and delivering added-value solutions focusing on technical excellence. Is that right?"
Silence.
So, I continued. "I did research about similar companies, and in their structure, they use self-organizing teams with no management."
"No management?"
"Yes, no management. No management is actually an enabler for empowerment, motivation, and creativity. You know, it comes from this agile structure."
"So, you want to make it agile?"
"Yes, let’s try that. After all, we said we wanted change. We want to be a modern organization, attract new people." And, by the way, to tell you the truth, I don’t remember the rest. He just said yes to my crazy idea, which went against everything he was used to and everything he believed in.
When I thought about it later, I realized maybe the reason why he said yes was that I didn’t sell him agile. I actually referred to real goals. My first learning here, point number one: Agile is not your goal. It’s just a way to achieve some of your goals. Remember that one.
I’ve seen so many organizations transforming to agility just because they "want to be more agile," and then they fail one after another. Agile is never the goal. We needed flexibility. We needed to deliver value to our customers faster and more efficiently. The value, not necessarily the functionality. Agile was just a means to that end.
Let’s talk about why agile is popular. There must be something about it that is common to all these organizations that are starting their journey. And it’s a tough journey for most, just like it was tough for our chairman of the board. He didn’t like it. He struggled with it all the years I was there. It was a weird relationship—he liked it and disliked it at the same time. He liked the outcomes, but he didn’t like that it was too unpredictable.
Why agile? I have this map of modern work. It all started with the individual era—people having their own fields, not needing each other that much. Every city had one restaurant, one hotel, one shop. Pretty simple. Then, the world changed with the industrial era. Machines made the world faster and allowed us to do things we couldn’t do before. But did people from the individual era like it? No, they hated it. They broke machines. They didn’t believe it would last. They liked their horses—quiet, sound, and not that slow either.
Now, how many people still use horses for transportation? How many machines do you have at home? My home is full of them, and of course, I have a car. I can’t even imagine living the same way as before. Then, the world changed again—globalization.
When I first heard about globalization, I was running a British MBA. Teachers kept saying globalization is a big trend, and you need to be prepared for it. I thought, "I don’t even know what they are talking about." Yes, there were global companies like Microsoft, but otherwise, we were just a small country. I was wrong. I didn’t see it at the time.
Now, I’m an agile coach and trainer. I don’t even have an office. When I started my own company ten years ago, I thought, "Should I have an office? Is it important?" Then, I decided to try without one. And then, I realized I could deliver training and coaching services worldwide. Before COVID, I was traveling across continents every month. My business became global. I became a global traveler. Is that good or bad? I’m not saying—it just is.
And then, one more change came—digital transformation. The first time I saw an email, my university friend asked me, "Do you want an email address?" I said yes, just because he was my friend. I didn’t even know what it was for. Now, I can’t imagine life without it.
So, change is unpredictable. And who knows what’s next? Actually, no one knows. If we did, we’d be the most successful people in the universe. But as time goes on, complexity grows. The pace of change accelerates. The world becomes less and less predictable.
This is why agility matters. Organizations need to respond to change faster. They need to be flexible, adaptable. That’s why executives tell me, "We need higher flexibility. We need to be more responsive to change."
And that’s why I ask them: "Why do you want to be agile?" Because agile itself is not the goal.
(To be continued...)