Building Your Agile Mindset, Idea #6: Have a plan, but always be ready to pivot

[#1]

G’day, training & certification community! Last week, I let you know about our brand-new free course called Beginner’s Guide to Agile in Jira, designed by wizard @Andrew DeBell.

Inside that course is a tip sheet listing six concrete ideas to help you build your agile mindset. We want to hear from you with your real-life experiences putting these ideas in action.

This post is the sixth and final in a six-part series (check out posts one, two, three, four, and five!). In each, I’m sharing one of the tips, and you can comment on this post below with how you’ve put it into practice in your professional life. Our plan is collect our favorite advice in one post, then share it back with you—and put it on our website, for other folks to learn from.

Also: We’ll be awarding something special to our most engaged users throughout the series! 👀 🥳

(Sorry to report the something special is, like that lawyer from last year, *not* a cat.)

Ready to get started with the sixth and final tip?

Tip #6 to Build your Agile Mindset:  Have a plan, but always be ready to pivot

An agile mindset is about being flexible and ready for any unpredictable change. Yes, you should always have a Plan A (and B and C, if time allows). But you'll be most successful at work if your mind is always prepared to pivot.

Change will come. It always does. Your job is to prepare your brain to stay calm and collected so that you can handle each emotional wave with ease. If everyone on the team is ready for change, you'll be able to bounce back quickly and refocus energy on solving new problems.

I'd say this tip lives squarely in “last but not least” territory, wouldn’t you? 

Now, answer these questions by adding a comment below:

• Can you tell us about a method you use to make sure you are always ready to pivot?

• Where do you have room to improve in being flexible and changing your plan as needed?

• Do you have a trick to jog your memory or help you stay ready to pivot?

I’ll go first, to get you started with an example.

Do you have a trick to jog your memory or help you stay ready to pivot?

You’re not going to believe this is real, but honestly, this GIF and the scene it comes from helps me:

The scene is one of the all-time great moments in Friends, of course, but there’s also something to be said for always hearing it yelled in Ross Gellar voice in my brain—nothing happens on Friends that can’t be resolved in about 23 minutes, after all, and, more importantly, the flat-out truth is the only constant in life is change. It's a big word, but it's impossible to take it too seriously if you attach this scene to it. Ross-Gellar Pivot has become my internal rallying cry and my way not to over-wring my hands when the target I’ve been barreling toward shifts suddenly. Goals change, teams grow. What will we do? We’ll PIVOT!

Okay, your turn ⬇️

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Enroll today in the free course: Beginner’s Guide to Agile in Jira

Read the first post in the series: Tip #1: All about respect

Read the second post in the series: Tip #2: Communication!

Read the third post in the series: Tip #3: Look for ways to innovate

Read the fourth post in the series: Tip #4: Actively improve your skills

Read the fifth post in the series: Tip #5: Ditch perfectionism

[Heather Ronnebeck]

I'm looking forward to giving this new course a run through to see how it's different than other Agile training courses. 

[Sam Nadarajan]

Can you tell us about a method you use to make sure you are always ready to pivot?

While it's hard, once I develop a plan I will identify a couple of parts in the plan that are less certain and need more room for flexibility. For example, if I had a 10 step plan, I would review it and note that steps 2 and 8 are the most vulnerable to change. This allows me to stay in the mindset that my plan is not entirely rigid and foolproof, while also preventing me from wasting time deriving multiple plans to cover different scenarios.

Where do you have room to improve in being flexible and changing your plan as needed?

My ego is the biggest area that needs improvement in regards to pivoting. Somewhere along the development of a plan, I subconsciously believe that it becomes more fail-safe and accurately reflects what needs to happen. I become more confident in the plan, which in turn leads to more frustration when the plan needs to change.

Do you have a trick to jog your memory or help you stay ready to pivot?

I think of the previous time I experienced a pivot due to a plan I created. Then I remind myself that it wasn't as serious as I worked it out to be in my head, and that despite the hiccups things worked out in the end. Pivoting doesn't always lead to this kind of a positive outcome, but in my experience, pivoting doesn't have the disastrous effects that I identified in my head.

[Jaime Netzer]

Let us know what you think, @Heather Ronnebeck !

[Jaime Netzer]

If this isn't the 'it me'-est thing I have read in a minute, @Sam Nadarajan : "My ego is the biggest area that needs improvement in regards to pivoting. Somewhere along the development of a plan, I subconsciously believe that it becomes more fail-safe and accurately reflects what needs to happen." Thank you for all of your engagement!!

[G subramanyam]

Thank you @Jaime Netzer for starting this Agile series posts. They are very helpful.

[Jaime Netzer]

@G subramanyam it is totally my pleasure — don't hesitate to add in your own example if you'd like, as we'll be awarding a little something special to our most engaged users at the end of the month! 👀

[Monique vdB]

+1000 points for the GIF of Ross and the couch. 😂

[Jaime Netzer]

Lol a true classic, no @Monique vdB ?!

[Andy Gladstone]

Can you tell us about a method you use to make sure you are always ready to pivot?

This is more about being ready to accept the pivot than being ready for it. Anytime we have a project or plan that needs to change due to any number of factors I remind myself that there are two competing factors I will need to address - intellectual and emotional. The intellectual approach is understanding that the needs of the company come before my own versions of reality. The emotional one is being ready to let go and move on, without looking back at the could have/should have. It makes pivoting easier having a mechanism to handle it, even if I don't know exactly what the pivot is.