Agile work in companies suffers when teams fall back into old patterns of control and micromanagement under economic pressure. Two schemes from the emergency services help with the diagnosis: AMPEL checks previous history, medication and last energy interjections; ABCDE evaluates freedom of communication, timing, decision-making channels and protective space. Healing requires patience and targeted individual measures instead of further layers of methods.
Key Takeaways
- Companies in crisis automatically fall back into old control patterns because agile working never became part of their real DNA, but was only imposed.
- The ABCDE scheme from the emergency services can be applied directly to ailing agility: airway, breathing, circulation, injury and environment as a priority sequence for diagnosis.
- Anyone who introduces too many agile measures at the same time loses track of the effects and interactions, just like a doctor who administers all medication at once.
- The term agility already triggers a defensive reaction in many teams, which is why the same concepts are packaged under new names such as New Work or learning organization.
Agility is not dying, but it can be ailing
Agility as a way of working is not disappearing. What is faltering in many companies is the actual implementation in the workplace and the way it is talked about.
The idea behind agile working is older than the Agile Manifesto of 2001. Lean has agile elements in it, and even early large-scale projects came close to cross-functional teams with iterative work. So anyone who talks about the death of agility rarely means the principle. What is usually meant is what has been rolled out in a particular company under the label of agility.
This is precisely where another question is worth asking: is agility ailing a team, or did it never become part of the way of working? This distinction determines whether a revival makes sense or whether a different approach is more appropriate.
Why companies fall back into old patterns
In tense situations, companies fall back on familiar patterns. When funds become scarce and doubts grow about years of agile initiatives, the organization switches to survival mode.
In this mode, the same thing happens as with people under pressure: you act the way you have always acted. For managers, this often means more control and micromanagement. “We’ll do it the way we did it back then, when it worked” becomes a reflex movement.
This reflex shows that agile working has never become part of the DNA in such companies. Where agility is truly anchored, the question of falling behind does not even arise.
Some companies can’t help but be agile
Some companies take agile working so much for granted that they can’t even name it. Born-digital companies and large cloud service providers respond to the question of how they became agile with a lack of understanding: “How else?”
These companies have never worked any other way. Agility is part of their survival mechanisms, which is why there is no founding story behind it. They will continue to work in an agile way because it is part of their structure.
Where an agile working style has not settled in by itself, there is a reason for this. Agile work is often incongruent with everything else in the organization: the rules of the game, structures and mentality do not fit together. Two worlds collide. In critical situations, something that has been introduced with great force is then difficult to maintain.
When does agility fit, and when doesn’t it?
Not every retreat from agile forms is a failure. Many companies have rolled out agility across the board in a grand gesture because it was popular. Today, organizations are taking a more conscious approach and asking where agile forms of work are really needed.
There are sectors in which classic, highly controlled project management is the better choice. Those who act in critical situations do not work in an agile way. In the emergency services, for example, clear schemes, rules and guidelines give employees the security they need to remain capable of acting.
The lesson here is that clear rules are not a contradiction to good work; in some contexts, they are a prerequisite for it. So you shouldn’t ask whether agility is good or bad, but where it is the right approach in your organization.
The traffic light system as a diagnosis before the intervention
Before you intervene in an organization, you need a picture of its condition. The traffic light system from the emergency services provides a structure for this. Each letter stands for a question that you ask about the situation.
- A for allergy: Is the organization allergic to something? For many, the word “agile” itself is the trigger. Then the same thing is repackaged under new names: effective working, learning organization, new work.
- M for medication: What was the last thing that was administered? A Spotify model, OKR, five Agile Coaches: the last measures reveal a lot about the previous treatment.
- P for patient history: Has the company been in crisis for years anyway? Was there a major break in the past?
- E as in events: What specific event has led to the current situation? A workshop, a change of managing director, after which nobody talks about agility anymore.
- L as in last meal: Who is still putting energy into it? If a lot of energy was recently invested in new methods, the team will throw up at the next suggestion.
The last image goes a long way. A doctor does not administer medication to someone who has just eaten a large plate of pasta. Similarly, the attempt to introduce five other methods fails when a team is just digesting OKR and others. “How are we supposed to digest all this?” is the most honest reaction.
Assessing the acute situation with ABCDE
The ABCDE scheme from trauma management is suitable for more serious cases. It sorts the problems according to priority: the first problem found is dealt with immediately before moving on.
| Letter | In the rescue service | Transferred to the team |
|---|---|---|
| A (Airway) | Is the person breathing? | Are you still allowed to talk, complain, speak your mind in the retro? |
| B (Breathing) | Are they breathing in time? | Is there still agile pacing, iteration, flow, or just bottlenecks? |
| C (Circulation) | Is the circulation stable? | Do the communication channels work? Who decides, who has what authority? |
| D (Disability) | Where is the break, the bleeding? | Which values, behaviors or methods are blocking? |
| E (Environment) | What is the environment like? | Does the company still have the protective space for agile working? |
The order is not arbitrary. If the airway is blocked because something is stuck in the windpipe, you don’t need to look any further. In other words, if a team is no longer allowed to talk openly, any discussion of methods is of secondary importance.
The E often reveals the real cause. Agile working works within an individual team with its own safe space, but not on a large scale. Then it’s down to the environment: the other teams, the attitude of the company, a safe space that is no longer maintained.
Taking away often works better than putting on
The most common mistake when agility is ailing is the reflex to add something else. Someone comes back from a conference, wants to introduce OKR or more retros, and everyone rolls their eyes because they can’t cope with the existing methods.
Sometimes reduction is the better therapy. Fewer meetings, shorter meetings, one method removed instead of one added. This simplicity allows a team to breathe again.
There is a scientific principle behind this: if you add one thing and keep all the others constant, you can observe the effect. If you constantly add something new, you never know what has worked and what interactions occur. For the same reason, a doctor does not administer all medications at the same time.
One measure after the other, with plenty of time and rehab. A recovery process takes time.
Miriam Sasse
Healing needs patience instead of weeks
Damaged agility can rarely be repaired in a week. If you injure a shoulder, it may take a year to regain full mobility. The same order of magnitude applies to a severely injured working method.
This is where management often fails, expecting everything to be up and running again next week. This pressure prevents recovery. Give the process time, take one measure at a time and plan a real rehab phase.
The metaphors from emergency medicine create the necessary distance. They help you to look at the situation soberly instead of getting carried away by it. And in many cases, where you stopped breathing a moment ago, the organization is bouncing around the playground again shortly afterwards. With small, targeted steps, more can be saved than it seems at the moment.
