Coaching Frameworks or Patterns

I had a wonderful conversation with Marco Braun the other day, trying to learn more about Klaus Leopold’s Flight Levels and Jurgen Appelo’s unFIX work.

Then, our conversation moved from these specifics to a general discussion of agile frameworks versus patterned approaches. We both thought that unwieldy frameworks were slowly becoming less helpful and that pattern approaches were emerging as powerful alternatives within the agile community.

Marco likened Flight Levels and unFIX as being more pattern-like than framework-like. Then, our conversation explored the skill levels needed to introduce and grow frameworks versus patterns.

It made me think about an evolutionary path that I hadn’t thought about before.

Here are some examples of frameworks and pattern approaches that I consider for agile work.

Frameworks

• Scrum

• Kanban

• Scaling – (SAFe, LeSS, Scrum@Scale)

• Empowered Product Teams, Product Operating Models

• Any framework recommended by a Big 5 Consulting firm (Accenture, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and McKinsey)

Earlier Pattern ideas

• Extreme Programming (Beck)

• Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development (Coplien & Harrison)

• Agile Adoption Patterns (Elssamadisy)

• Software for your Head – Core Protocols for Creating and Maintaining Shared Vision (Jim & Michele McCarthy)

• Fearless Change, 1 & 2 (Rising & Manns)

• Spotify

More Recent Pattern ideas

• Open Space Agility (Mezick)

• Liberating Structures (Lipmanowicz & McCandless)

• Agile 2 (Cliff Berg, et al)

• unFIX (Appelo)

• Flight Levels (Leopold)

• Team Topologies (Skelton & Pais)

• 7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change (Derby)

• Company-wide Agility with Beyond Budgeting, Open Space, and Sociocracy (Eckstein & Buck)

As I alluded to earlier, I think an evolutionary path is emerging from framework to patterns. It seems to be emerging slowly but steadily. I also see it as ultimately disrupting the frameworks. Here’s an example continuum that captures some of my thoughts around the characteristics of each—

Framework centric-------------------------------------------------- Patterns centric

Purchased agility.

Requires less experience.

Less breadth & depth of skills.

Leveraging the framework(s) as knowledge / directional base.

Less thinking - people engagement.

Often “installed” or prescribed.

                                                                                    Context-based agility.

                                                                                    Requires more experience.

                                                                                    Augmenting the patterns in context.

                                                                                    Sharing stories, knowledge share.

                                                                                    People engaged, co-created

                                                                                    Always emergent solutions

====================== Evolutionary Direction ====================»»»>

Personal Discovery

As I noodled on these discussions, I discovered several things—

First, I realized why there is such a focus on frameworks. There aren’t enough deeply experienced practitioners to enable and empower pattern-centric approaches. But that said, I think the market is shifting from framework installation to pattern building. So, the less experienced will find themselves out of work. There will also be an emphasis on experienced practitioners continuously honing their skills to help emerge patterns.

Second, the Business Agility Institute and Scrum Alliance sponsored Skills in the New World of Work report firmly acknowledged that agile roles are becoming much less critical in lieu of skills. I’ve seen this shift occurring for quite some time, but nowhere has it been more visible than from 2021 – 2024. The implication is that, for example, being a Scrum Master is much less important than the solid and growing skill mix you bring to bear as a Scrum Master.

It also appears that many organizations are getting fed up with the cost of installing and maintaining their frameworks versus the value they provide. The point is that I see many more instances of homegrown agile emerging, leveraging the myriad of available patterns. Not only does this tailor the agile ways of working to the context, but it also develops the internal capacity to care for and feed it.

Finally, I think there’s a direct analogy to Agile Coaching.

That is, the role's importance is shifting towards skills. With that shift, the need for framework-centric coaches will also decline (IMHO). This will place market and client pressure on the agile coaching community to bring our clients deep, broad, and nuanced experience and skill—something that many “Agile Coaches” in name only will struggle to do. It will also wean out the surplus of Professional Coaches operating in agile contexts with insufficient skill and experience.

It's sort of a wake-up call if you will.

Wrapping Up

For me, this discussion has inspired me to do three patterns-related things—

1. I want to mine my past experiences, looking for and reminding myself of success patterns I’ve already used but perhaps forgotten.

2. I will continue to explore and grow my knowledge of and experience with more recent pattern approaches. UnFIX is next up on my agenda.

3. I want to truly begin guiding my clients away from frameworks and towards patterns. Yes, it requires more thinking and work, but the rewards are so much richer.

Finally, I thank Marco Braun for his friendship, thoughtful discussion, and inspiration.

Stay agile, my patterns-based friends,

Bob.