Scrum Gathering Paris – “Shu Ha Ri” and Spiral Dynamics

The first day of the Scrum Gathering in Paris is finished. It has been really a great day. The sessions I have attended were mostly about the same theme: “Expanding an Agile Culture in a Complex World”. This theme aims to define cultural tools (patterns, management practices, methods, etc) helping to install in a sustainable way an Agile culture within organizations. Below the sessions I liked most and my main takeaways:

“Cuture > Process” – Henrik Kniberg
The opeining keynote from Henrik Kniberg showed what “agile culture” really means and how this is achieved in Spotify the company where he actually works.
My Takeaways:
Shu-ha-ri  (Follow the rules, adapt the rules, Ignore the rules)
“People > *”  (People are more important than everything else)

Agile à la mode? The long-Term Viability of an Agile Culture in France – Petra Skapa and Mack Adams
This session showed how it’s difficult to have an agile culture in French organizations: the French values are not in lines with the agile ones.
My Takeaway:
The transformation to agile in France is more difficult than in other Countries. Agile is a mindset and it’s adoption and success is directly influenced by the Country’s culture.

Changing Cultural DNA with Spiral dynamics to become thouroughly Agile – Dajo Breddels
Interesting session on how the humans interact and behave according to the spiral dynamics theory and how this theory can help on the cultural change needed for agile transformation.
My takeaway:
Spiral Dynamics theory can be helpful for the agile cultural shift.