Habits for Being More Effective in Agile

“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”– John C. Maxwell

In our daily routine, almost 40 percent of the work we do is based on our habits. That means our big part in life is on autopilot. Think if that’s the case, by bringing up good habits in ourselves how much progress we can make on daily basis. Think it through and measure what habits you have that can help you succeed or make change for the better.

Agile has always encouraged its users in becoming a better version of themselves not only in the aspect of working in their organization but also as an individual and their mindsets. The book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” written by Stephen R. Covey has provided some habits when implemented can provide immense benefits to the individual in day-to-day life as well as in their work. If we see the habits they have mentioned they are also so effective and relate more to an agile mindset that can be implemented by agile workers for their growth and agile transformation.

In this article, we will go through some of the habits an individual can adopt for being more effective in agile. Even though all the habits mentioned by Stephen Covey apply to agile transformation but we are discussing the habits here for being the most effective. Let’s start with Stephen R. Covey's most effective habits for agile and then move towards other ones.

Begin With Focus on Result

Whether working in a group or individually thinking about what you want to achieve will help you create a roadmap towards it and plan considering your positives and negatives. With knowing where to reach journey becomes easy as you know the end you will be obtaining. This will also help you in avoiding the distraction of quick wins or new interferences.

Schedule Priorities

As stated in the 80/20 rule, 20 percent of work helps in achieving 80% of the result, so be sure what task you perform will yield you maximum result and what is the most important work to be achieved at first. By putting priorities on the work you want to complete you can avoid jumbling with confusion, and wasting time and effort.

Think Win-Win

At some point, you will require to work with others and be dependent on them for one or another thing. When it comes to agile, working as a team is always preferred for the best and quality results to achieve. While working as a team or dependent on others always think about the win-win situation where both you and your partner will get profitable outcomes. Being selfish and thinking of only our benefits is not workable today.

Listen First then Speak

Many times with effective communication skills and psychological safety we have learned that understanding and listening to others first, is the most important point to be effective. Avoiding it will make us have biased opinion, assumptions, or judgemental creating trust issue or crack in a relationship. Understanding and listening to others and then putting our points will make others trust and collaborate with us along with giving an actual overview of the issues or situations.

Sharpen Your Knowledge Continuously

Whether working as an agile team or individual continuous learning is required in this digital era where things are changing rapidly. The habit of continuous learning and sharpening will always lead you towards success. By investing in one, only can you move forwards, or else you will get stuck with your current situation always.

Put Enough in Plate That You Can Eat

Tracking what have you completed and what needs to be completed is a good way of being on track. But most time people forget their capacities and take more than they could finish. Firstly understand your and your agile team’s capacity and take enough on the plate you can eat. This will help you provide quality work within time building your confidence instead of creating havoc due to unfinished tasks. Taking more than you complete will only misguide your path.

Be Confident in Yourself First

Eliminate doubts you have whether it is regarding your work in an agile team or about yourself. Eliminate all self-doubts from your life and be confident in yourself, by doing so you will be able to remove doubt in your work as it will also help you in taking accountability for your actions building more confidence in yourself. But be sure being confident and removing self-doubt don’t mean being arrogant.

By adopting the above habits any individual can be effective in life as well as in an agile team as he has adapted to an agile mindset with habits he showcases in his daily life.

About Advance Agility

We, at Advance Agility, are the new-age Agile Coaching, Consulting and IT services company. We enable end-to-end Digital Transformation. Agile execution is integral to our being. We are doing SAFe implementation with small, medium and large organization across the globe. Our vision is to be the leading Agile execution player globally. To keep adding value at every process stage. We are on a mission to empower our clients, move from concept to cash in the shortest sustainable lead time by adopting human centric approach to business agility. Embracing the change is in our DNA. Things that keep us apart are Quicker and Seamless execution with End-to-end gamut of services. Our Global presence and Stellar Track Record give us an edge over our competitor.

Connect with us at advanceagility.com to learn about SAFe and SAFe Implementation. We provide various SAFe certification courses along with DevOps, Scrum, Agile Coaching and more trainings. Write to us at contact@advanceagilty.com for any agile training or consulting needs. We are always looking for competent agile trainers as well. So if you are a good trainer or want to become one, do get in touch with us to that we can learn, grow and achieve together.