Adopting Agile Across Borders: A Guide to Navigating Cultural Complexity in Agile Teams and Organizations

By Glaudia Califano and David Spinks

People are conditioned culturally from an early age, with each of us developing a set of values and behaviors that differ from those in other parts of the world. When adopting Agile, do cultural behaviors and values prevail, or is there a universal “Agile culture”? How have people from different cultures adopted Agile to suit them? Are some cultures naturally more suited to adopting Agile than others? Adopting Agile Across Borders answers all of that and more.

Teams in all industries are more globally distributed and diverse than ever. Authors Glaudia Califano and David Spinks reveal how people across the world have embraced Agile values alongside their own cultural values, and what this means for the adoption of Agile. In Adopting Agile Across Borders, a rich array of experiences are shared through real-life stories told by members of the global Agile community.

Whether you are an Agile practitioner, a product manager, HR personnel, or simply someoneinterested in leading people more effectively, this book provides essential teamwork insights across the board. Califano and Spinks showcase case studies from around the world to address the opportunities provided by ever greater mobility and advances in technology. Adopting Agile Across Borders is here to ready you for a diverse, more connected future.

What You Will Learn

• Gain an awareness and understanding of different cultural types, behaviours, and communication styles 
• See how diversity spans a much wider set of factors than nationality, race, and gender
• Discover how multi-cultural Agile teams can reach high-performing states by acknowledging their diversity and finding ways to better integrate with one another

Who This Book Is For
Agile practitioners, scrum masters, Agile coaches, product owners, team members, product managers, and anyone responsible for, or interestedin, leading people. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apress
• Release date: Jun 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781484269480

Book preview

Part IGetting Started

Started

There is more that unites us than divides us.

—Mauricio Macri, President of Argentina from 2015 to 2019

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021

G. Califano, D. SpinksAdopting Agile Across Bordershttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6948-0_1

1. Welcome to the World

Glaudia Califano¹   and David Spinks¹

(1)

Milton Keynes, UK

Thousands of teams from all around the world have been building products using iterative and incremental methods since the 1990s, with traces of the techniques going back as far as 1957.¹ A number of lightweight frameworks such as RAD, DSDM, XP, and Scrum subsequently emerged, and in 2001, 17 pioneering figures in the field of software development met at a resort in Snowbird, Utah, to discuss these development methods. Out of this historical meeting, this group published the Manifesto for Agile Software Development:²

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Seldom can a group of statements have had such a profound impact on the way we work and tackle problems as those of the Agile Manifesto. The pace of change in recent years has increased exponentially, and innovation spans just about every industry. The way we communicate, how we shop, the means of doing business, when, how, and where we work have all changed and continue to evolve. We are in the midst of a revolution, and Agile is at the core of it. And the revolution is global.

As visualized in Figure 1-1, the 4 values of the Agile Manifesto, together with the accompanying 12 Agile Principles³ are embodied in what seems like an unlimited number of practices, tools, and processes. Without the mindset at the core though, the tools and practices achieve little.

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Figure 1-1

The Agile Mindset is described and defined by the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and implemented by an almost unlimited number of practices (image courtesy of Haroon Khalil)

Adopting Agile then requires a shift in mindset. But what impact do national, organizational, and people’s own values have on their interpretation of the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto? And how does this affect attempts at the implementation of Agile practices?

Given the range of circumstances in politics, economics, and history across the world, can it really be true that ideas emanating from Japan and developed in the United States can find acceptance and be effective in all cultures of the world? National cultures have evolved over hundreds of years with different values, behaviors, and belief systems. How and why has Agile gained such popularity in such a relatively short space of time? Are some cultures naturally more suited to adopting an Agile mindset than others? What impact do national cultural behaviors have on the adoption of Scrum and Agile methods as they have spread across the world? Is there such a thing as an Agile culture that results from adopting Agile ways of working? Or will aspects of national cultural behaviors prevail?

These are the questions that prompted us to begin the journey that led to this book.

Top Ten Experiences

The Heart of Agile Teams at 10Pines (Page 32)

10Pines, a software development services company in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is also known as la empresas sin jefes (translated as the company without managers). But how does this work in reality? In this story, 10Pines partner, Federico Zuppa, discusses how 10Pines has a focus on creating great teams by putting people at the heart of everything they do.

Glad, Mad, Sad in Japan (Page 157)

Agile Coach Donna Marie Lee, originally from the Philippines, tells a story that demonstrates that techniques that work in one culture will not necessarily work well in another culture, as she recounts her first use of the Glad, Mad, Sad retrospective technique while working with a team in Japan.

Building Trust, Learning, and Understanding: An Agile Approach to Project Discovery (Page 81)

There is much uncertainty at the start of a project, and the Agile mindset of emphasizing discovery and learning can be disconcerting to those of a more traditional mindset that seek the comfort of defined budget, scope, and timelines upfront. Juan Rucks, Senior UX-UI Designer at UruIT, a software development company in Uruguay, explains the Agile approach to project discovery from his and UruIT’s own experience.

Agile Organizations Set the Stage for Emergent Leaders (Page 252)

Elroy Jumpertz is a professional software engineer who started his career in his home country of the Netherlands. Elroy discusses his experience of working in companies that support individual’s development, and he shares what he believes are the traits of organizations and leaders that enable leadership to emerge naturally.

Finding My Voice (Page 308)

Courage is one of the Scrum values and a core behavior for any Agile adoption. What courage means is going to be context specific. In her story, Khwezi Mputa, a Certified Scrum Master/Agile PM Practitioner in South Africa, talks about the courage needed to stand up and speak out.

Trust: The Basic Building Block of Agile Teams (Page 115)

While building trust is fundamental to any Agile team, in some cultures it takes on extra significance. In his story, Pranshu Mahajan, a Scrum Master with many years of experience working in a number of different roles in India, shares his experience of trust as the basic building block of Agile teams in India.

Forced Fun (Page 278)

Knowledge work requires people to work collaboratively, thus the need to build trust and understanding. But every team is different and some team-building activities or meeting formats that work for one team may backfire when used with other teams. Ilona Kędracka, based in Poland and Product Owner/Blogger at Poczatkujaca.pl, shares her own experiences and examples that she has encountered when teams become frustrated or uncomfortable with activities designed to be fun, but have questionable practical value.

Accelerating the Supply Chain of Goods and Services (Page 62)

Agile ways of working are not just for software development. Claudia Liliana Toscano Vargas, Agile Coach at EPM, tells the story of the approach she used to help non-IT teams implement Agile ways of working. Claudia shows us how she presented the adoption of Agile as an experiment to be tried with hypotheses on expected improvements that could be tested. Taking this approach, she gained buy-in from the teams involved and was able to work with them to achieve success.

Retrospectives at Every Level (Page 51)

Change should be embraced across the whole of an organization. The retrospective is an effective tool to instigate change, yet many organizations see retrospectives as something that is done at the team level. Renato Otaiza, Agile Practitioner and Coach at Scotiabank, shares his experiences on the importance and effectiveness of running retrospectives at every level of an organization.

Learntor: On a Mission to Create a Level Playing Field for Africa (Page 325)

Mercy George-Igbafe has the mantra, True greatness is not in being great but in the ability to make others great. She shares her personal story where, despite a life of adversity, she achieved a university education and went on to found Learntor, a digital consultancy and training company based in Nigeria that is on a mission to create a level playing field for women and youths in Africa.

Understanding Culture

As the world becomes more globalized, with increases in mobility and migration, finding tools to help us to understand each other is becoming evermore important. This is as relevant in the field of software development as in any other industry, where many teams have members distributed across different geographical locations and are made up of people from a number of different nationalities.

When Cultures Collide

Our nationality, region, language, religion, generation, political persuasion, economic status, gender, profession, and many other factors feed into what makes up our culture as an individual. Some of these various factors are illustrated in Figure 1-2.

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Figure 1-2

Some of the many layers of culture (image courtesy of Haroon Khalil)

Many of the misunderstandings that we have with others arise when we have a clash of culture. One of the greatest sources of frustration is as a result of us being unable to relate to one another culturally. We know that good collaboration is a critical part of the success of Agile teams. If we are to have highly performing teams and organizations, the ability for individuals to interact successfully is essential. Awareness of each other culturally is key to this, both within teams and across our organizations as a whole.

The different components of culture also make up the layers that influence a corporate culture. After all, companies are made up of individuals. However, often companies have, over time, built up a unique identity and their own corporate culture, diluting the influence of some of the layers of individuals’ own cultural aspects. This may not always be the case though. For example, there are significantly different perceptions of organizational wrongdoing, such as sharing passwords or piracy of software, depending on where you come from.

A study focusing on South Korea⁴ found that different cultures may have differing influences on the occurrence of misuse, and differing perceptions on the seriousness of it. In the United States, organizational rules are communicated, with IT security and HR departments laying down the law of what is permissible. However, the opinion of people in someone’s social network has a higher influence in South Korea. Here, embarrassment and the loss of face caused by the discovery of misuse is of greater concern than any organizational policy. At the same time, in a South Korean organization, someone seeing others committing an offence and getting away with it is far more likely to commit the same offence. In this example, the importance of harmony in South Korea is so important that actions that appear unethical to people in the United States are fully justified to people in South Korea if they prevent conflict and discord.

It is these alternative perspectives that are based on individual values and may be at odds with one another that lead to tensions, arguments, disengagement, apathy, and many other negative behaviors to the detriment of collaboration. We would argue that clashes of culture are at the very heart of most of what holds teams and organizations from fulfilling their potential.

At the Risk of Stereotyping

German people are efficient. The Swiss are always on time. Dutch people are direct. Americans are loud. Japanese are shy and quiet. Italians are always late.

These are sweeping, stereotypical statements. Surely we should not group people in this way because not all people categorized into groups based on nationality are going to behave in the same way. We need to be careful with our generalizations about culture. As we have discussed, culture consists of so many layers and we as humans are all complex individuals.

When we began our research into the topic of Agile adoption in different countries, we found a number of generic statements from often frustrated Agile practitioners who expressed doubts that the society they worked in would be able to adapt to more Agile ways of working. Commentary came up such as if Agile would ever really be embraced in a country where traditional hierarchical structures and the behavior of top down control are embedded. Or where the cultural preference is for keeping harmony above having transparency.

When we started our journey to find out how culture impacts Agile adoption around the world, we quickly found ourselves treading a minefield. There were the dangers of stereotyping by national cultural categorizations and having biased opinions. Identifying groups based on data can be a useful starting point though. When developing a product, be it software or some other product, using archetypes or personas is a common way for designers to build empathy with the potential users of their product. Empathizing with our customers is an essential aspect of Design Thinking.⁵ However, this is just a starting point. Our knowledge and understanding of user behavior develops over time, allowing adaptation to their needs as we learn more about them.

Just like designers looking for a starting point to build empathy with their users, models can be part of the starting point to build empathy with people from other cultures.

Such a model would help us for the purpose of social study, something that would give us a cultural reference point and allow us to form hypotheses on how Agile may be used in different contexts. This could then form a basis for analysis and testing of our hypotheses to validate or invalidate the assumptions we and our fellow Agile practitioners make.

Categorizing Behaviors

Given the number of factors that could feed into a definition of culture, any attempt at categorization could result in the creation of dozens, if not hundreds of different groups. The dilemma is clear: for a cultural model to be useful, it needs to provide a level of succinctness while also taking into account the complexity involved. There have been many attempts by sociologists in creating cultural models. We give a brief introduction and overview of two such models that have emerged: the Hofstede Model and the Lewis Model.

The Hofstede Model

The Hofstede Model⁶ is one of the best-known models of national cultural behavior in the workplace. It is based on the extensive research carried out by Professor Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, and their research teams. The research was carried out between 1967 and 1973 and was based on data returned from some 116,000 questionnaires from more than 70 countries.

The model consists of six dimensions, each dimension representing a preference for one state of being over another. Countries are given a quantitative score indicating the degree to which their culture exhibits these preferences.

The six dimensions consist of:

Power distance index

The power distance index is a measure of how less powerful people in society accept and expect power to be distributed unevenly. High power distance index scores indicate a higher acceptance of hierarchical structures.

Individualism vs. collectivism

Individualism refers to loosely knit societies where individuals look after themselves. Collectivism refers to societies where groups will unquestioningly look after each other.

Masculinity vs. femininity

Masculine societies display characteristics such as rewarding achievement, heroism, and assertiveness, whereas feminine societies show characteristics such as cooperation, modesty, and valuing a good quality of life.

Uncertainty avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance is a measure of how much a society is comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. It includes the extent to which the society believes in trying to control the future.

Long-term avoidance vs. short-term normative orientation

This category refers to a societal preference to established, long-term traditions as opposed to its willingness and pragmatism toward change. Low scores indicate a preference to adhere to traditions and a suspicion of change, while high scores indicate societies that take a pragmatic approach to prepare well for the future.

Indulgence vs. restraint

This is a measure of the level of restraint that a society shows in gratifying their needs and desires.

There is an online tool at www.hofstede-insights.com/product/compare-countries/ where different countries can be compared according to the Hofstede dimensions. For example, Figure 1-3 shows comparison between Argentina, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

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Figure 1-3

Hofstede six-dimensions comparison between Argentina, Japan, and the United Kingdom

According to the Hofstede Model, we can see that the United Kingdom has a much more individualistic culture compared to those of Argentina and Japan.The United Kingdom scores much lower in the category of uncertainty avoidance, meaning people are comfortable with ambiguity and relaxed with the fact that the future can never be known. Japanese culture is very long-term oriented, while Argentina’s is at the other end of the scale, with the United Kingdom in the middle. Japanese culture stands out as being very masculine yet significantly less indulgent in nature by the Hofstede Model’s dimensions definitions, when compared to the other two countries.

The Hofstede Model has been used across the world for a multitude of purposes. It has been used in industry for management and leadership strategies. It has been applied as a basis for further research and study. We found that there has been some study of the effect of culture on Agile adoption using the Hofstede Model as a guide. These include those by Bas Vodde,⁷ co-creator of the LeSS framework, and Jaakko Palokangas⁸ for his MSc thesis at the University of Tampere.

The Lewis Model

The Lewis Model was developed by Richard D. Lewis who published his work in the book When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures.⁹ This book has now sold more than 1 million copies worldwide and it has been published in 15 different languages.

Lewis formed his cultural categorizations from data gathered during visits to 135 countries. He spent significant time working in more than 20 of these countries. Data gathered from 50,000 leaders and executives on residential courses and 150,000 online questionnaires across 68 countries provided the basis for the Lewis Model.

Lewis considered other cross-cultural experts were at risk of creating confusion due to the number and types of categorizations that were being produced. Lewis wanted to go beyond academic thinking and supply business leaders with a simple model to avoid this confusion, provide succinctness, and something for use in the real world.

The model created by Lewis is based not on nationality, but on observations of human behavior. Lewis came to the conclusion that humans can be divided into three clearly distinct categories. This was an extension of established expert opinion at the time which included the definitions of monochronic and polychronic of the Northern and Southern hemispheres that had not recognized a very different set of behaviors in Asia. Lewis named his three categories as Linear-active, Multi-active, and Reactive. Lewis identifies a common set of behaviors for each of his three categories. These can be seen in Table 1-1.

Table 1-1

Common behaviors of Linear-active, Multi-active, and Reactive categories (copyright Richard D. Lewis)

The Linear-active category contains behaviors that include a tendency for logical thinking and argument. Linear-active behavior consists of making detailed, step-by-step plans. It includes respect for job-titles, officialdom, and hierarchy. Social and professional lives are largely kept separate.

The Multi-active category includes traits of being highly verbally communicative, showing a comfort, and often even a preference, for multitasking. Openly displaying feelings and emotions is evident in confrontations.

In the Reactive category, behaviors include attentive listening, politeness, and the tendency not to display feelings and emotions in public. It is very important to avoid both confrontation and losing face.

While each category is distinct, it is important to note that no one set of behaviors will apply in its entirety to a particular individual or group. While one category’s behaviors may dominate in an individual or group, there will always be elements of behaviors from the other two categories present. It is a question of which behaviors are dominant and by how much.

The behaviors in each of the categories should not be judged as either positive or negative. Making such a judgment is an indication of our own cultural bias. An individual that exhibits the behavior of being flexible with the truth may be doing so because they value diplomacy over candor given the context of their situation and environment they are in.

Based on his research, Lewis created a visualization of his three categories, plotting nations onto the model depending on how strongly the behaviors of each category are exhibited. This is shown in Figure 1-4.

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Figure 1-4

The Lewis Model Triangle (copyright Richard D. Lewis www.​crossculture.​com/​)

The model is relative. There is no intention of giving an impression of scale along the triangle’s axis. It is important to understand that countries may be at similar points on the triangle but not necessarily for the same reasons – there could be different behaviors from a category that are more evident in each case. Within each country, we would expect variation in behavior. For example, some people in Reactive Vietnam may well have more Multi-active traits relative to other Vietnamese people; however, in comparison to other parts of the world, they still remain relatively more Reactive.

Lewis found that there is a link between individuals’ behaviors and their area of study and profession. Examples of this from those that were surveyed are as follows: engineers and accountants – whose professions require attention to detail for example – have more Linear-active traits; teachers, sales people, and those in people-centered professions demonstrate more Multi-active behaviors; while lawyers and doctors who we expect to be good listeners, for example, are inclined to be more Reactive. Those that are in a profession that is a poor fit with their culture as an individual are likely to be unhappy and poorly performing.

Lewis’s research shows that a high proportion of Linear-active behavior is seen in Northern Europe such as in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, as well as in North America. Scandinavian countries exhibit some Reactive traits along with Linear-active ones. Multi-active behavior is encountered more in the Latino nations in South America such as Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. Parts of Africa and Arab countries also display Multi-active tendencies. Societies dominated by Reactive behaviors are in countries that are mainly in Asia such as Vietnam, Japan, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines, for example. The model is periodically updated and positions are not fixed – countries can move on the scale as time passes and events affect societal behavior.

The model is not intended to stereotype nations, it is rather just a starting point to explore how we can develop our intercultural sensitivity.

The CultureActive platform tests according to the LMR Model, based on the Linear-active, Multi-active, and Reactive categories originally derived from Lewis’ writing. Through the completion of a self-assessment, it can be determined where on the scale an individual’s personal cultural profile would fit. The results then enable groups of people to compare their results and to start building cultural awareness and understanding of one another.

Oftentimes, we are compelled to hire people who are similar to us, those that share the same values, mindset, and behaviors. However, and especially in Agile teams, a greater diversity of people will bring with it a wider spectrum of backgrounds, ideas, thinking styles, and perspectives, enabling wider creativity and greater innovation. A team of people that are mostly Linear-active in their behaviors are likely to be working efficiently but could also be held back by a lack of innovation and problem solving. A team of people who are mostly Multi-active in their behaviors may generate lots of ideas but could lack focus. A group of people who display mostly Reactive behaviors may have harmonious teams, but struggle to come to a decision. So in order to have highly performing teams, a conscious effort can be made to build a team with a mix of styles and behaviors using the Lewis Model and the LMR test.

Having a team with a wide range of diversity is likely to cause conflicts. However, by understanding cultural behaviors, making them transparent to all, and coming up with strategies to integrate and leverage those differences, teams can reach higher levels of performance and innovation.

A Basis for Study: Cultural Behaviors and the Agile Values

The Lewis Model in particular gives us a good basis for forming hypotheses of behavior for Agile teams in different parts of the world. In Lewis’ work, we could see that some of the main aspects of his research focused on areas such as communication, values, behaviors, leadership styles, negotiation techniques, and team dynamics. These are certainly areas of interest when it comes to forming highly performing Agile teams.

We felt that the simplicity, the focus on workplace behaviors, and the purely qualitative nature of the Lewis Model would be a better guide for us in studying Agile teams than other models, including the Hofstede Model. We also believed that no studies had taken place using the Lewis Model as a reference to the way Agile teams and organizations work in practice.

Lewis’ discussions on behaviors could help us to understand what was behind our observations and anecdotal evidence from the field. Given many of the behaviors as described in each of the cultural categories in the Lewis Model could be seen to work well or impede Agile ways of working, our intention was to test the hypothesis that culture impacts how Agile is adopted. Our method was to gather qualitative evidence directly from Agile practitioners around the world.

With this hypothesis in mind, we began our journey.

On the Road

Driven by our passion for Agile and understanding culture, we began travelling the world in January 2018, talking to Agile teams and visiting organizations adopting Agile methods to see how Agile was being used in different parts of the world. We wanted to talk with people using Agile in their day-to-day working lives and observe teams in action. The aim was to understand how culture impacts Agile adoption around the world by looking beyond the mechanics of any particular Agile method. Figure 1-5 is an illustration that captures a flavor of our journey and just some of the countries that we visited.

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Figure 1-5

A flavor of our journey and some of the countries that we visited (image courtesy of Tasia Graham)

We gathered qualitative data of Agile teams in their workplaces, with a mixture of direct observation and anecdotal evidence provided by expert Agile practitioners working locally in the field. The intention was never to restrict our observations to teams and organizations that were using any particular Agile method. Rather, we were interested in meeting teams and Agile practitioners with experience with the implementation of any Agile method such as Scrum, XP, Kanban, or any hybrid approach.

Given the breadth of the undertaking, we focused our attention on visiting countries at different extremes of the Lewis Model triangle, though took advantage of opportunities to go to companies and talk to practitioners when they arose. This was often through referrals as the Agile community supported our journey. No restriction was made regarding the size or type of company that we visited, though we acknowledge the large part that the size, structure, and corporate culture of a company has on the workplace culture. However, it could be argued that our collective individual cultures and national culture influences company culture, and that the company culture is a reflection of the culture of the people within it.

From our own experiences as Agile practitioners and countless anecdotes of the difficulty that many organizations have in adopting Agile methods, especially those transitioning from traditional ways of working, we narrowed our observations to organizations that had been practicing some form of Agile for at least one year. This was to ensure that there was some level of understanding and experience of Agile in those that we were speaking to.

Regardless of experience or specific practice, it was more important to us that we saw certain fundamental characteristics in the ways of working to consider teams or organizations Agile.

Incremental and iterative. Instead of a big bang single release of a completed product, Agile methods evolve products in iterations, releasing successive working product increments regularly.

Self-organization. The people doing the work are the most suited to decide how the work should be carried out and are trusted to do so. No one tells those doing the work how to perform the work.

Collaboration. Silos of knowledge and specializations are broken down. People on the team help and support each other. Collaboration reaches out beyond the people doing the work, with regular communication between the delivery team and stakeholders, fostering a sense of collective responsibility for success or failure.

Sustainable. Environments are such that people are motivated, and have been given the tools and support to be able to carry out their work to the best of their abilities.

Continuous improvement. Teams and organizations strive to get better at what they do through regular reflection and experimentation.

Transparency. Problems impeding progress are surfaced so that they can be eliminated. Knowledge is shared, a common language is used and the current state of work items are visible.

Inspection. Frequent inspection of various artifacts are performed for understanding of progress toward the fulfillment of goals.

Adaptation. Direction is based on feedback, understanding changing customer needs, market and environmental conditions.

Empirical. Empirical processes operate under the assumption that the future is unknowable. Progress is made through forming hypotheses and validating them through the scientific method. Empiricism is founded on transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

We travelled across South America, Asia, and Europe. Along the way, we met many people working in a country that they had moved to, and so were able to provide a unique perspective as a foreigner. We had numerous conference calls with people in parts of the world that were not on our itinerary. This includes calls with people in Africa, which we were unable to travel to due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Though the Agile movement originated from the software development industry, Agile methods can suitably be applied anywhere. We found instances of Agile practices being applied in a retail company, in marketing departments, in the registration and student administration processes of a university, and many other places outside of software development.

This book is not intended to be a presentation of a scientific study. Instead, we wanted to produce something that was accessible. We have presented the four values of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development together with the categories and behaviors of the Lewis Model to encourage you to think about the underlying influences of both people’s culture as well as the Agile mindset that may be affecting the practices, techniques, and stories shared by the community with us in the sections that follow.

As we shall see, we both learned so much during our study; we learned many new Agile tools and techniques that we would come to apply in our own work as Agile practitioners. But above all else, we heard many great stories of Agile in action.

What follows includes stories, case studies, tips, tricks, and the best of the experiences from those we met on our journey.

Footnotes

1

Weinberg, G as quoted in Larman & Basili. (2003). www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Iterative-and-incremental-developments.-a-brief-Larman-Basili/058f712a7dd173dd0eb6ece7388bd9cdd6f77d67 (pp. 47–56 "We were doing incremental development as early as 1957, in Los Angeles, under the direction of Bernie Dimsdale at IBM’s Service Bureau Corporation")

2

Beck et al. (2001). Manifesto for Agile Software Development. https://agilemanifesto.org/

3

Beck et al. (2001). Principles behind the Agile Manifesto. https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

4

Hovav, A. (2017). How Espoused Culture Influences Misuse Intention: A Micro-Institutional Theory Perspective https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/41891

5

What is Design Thinking? Interaction Design Foundation. www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular

6

Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN-13: 978-0803973244

7

Vodde, B. (2012). Scrum doesn’t work in China. www.odd-e.com/material/2012/10_scrum_barcelona/culture.pdf

8

Palokangas, J. (2013). Agile Around the World – How Agile Values Are Interpreted in National Cultures? https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/94766/gradu07165.pdf

9

Lewis, R.D. (2006). When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures (Third Edition). First published in hardback by Nicholas Brealey Publishing in 1996. ISBN-13: 978-1-904838-02-9

Part IISouth America

South America

Curiosity, courage, and compassion. Resilience, resourcefulness, and respect. These and other cultural traits that we saw in South America would seem to be well aligned with the values of the Agile Manifesto.

With nearshoring being an attractive alternative to offshoring, South America has seen a rise in software development teams in the last decade. This in turn has given rise to the widespread adoption of Agile software development.

The very first Latin-American conference on Agile development – Ágiles Latinoamérica – took place in 2008 in Argentina, with 900 Agile enthusiasts attending. Since then Ágiles Latinoamérica has been a recurring event, and interest has been steadily growing across South and Central America. Local meetups are popular places to share, collaborate, and learn. A sense of community is strong.

Agile techniques could be the factor to unlock the continent’s full potential. An ability for generating grand ideas in spades and a focus on building relationships – whether with colleague or customer – ahead of the formality of contracts and plans may appear chaotic to those from Europe or the United States. But if the South Americans can meet their partners halfway, if those same partners can loosen their ties a little and collaborate through conversation, then great things could happen for both sides.

If they can shrug off the decades of political and economic uncertainty, perhaps, in the age of Agile, South America will become the next big thing.

Agile Community Events and Meetups

Ágiles Latinoamérica: www.agiles.org/

Agile Women: https://agile-women.org/

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021

G. Califano, D. SpinksAdopting Agile Across Bordershttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6948-0_2

2. Argentina

Glaudia Califano¹   and David Spinks¹

(1)

Milton Keynes, UK

The streets of Buenos Aires hint at a people that are stylish, courageous, and cool. Warm and welcoming, fun and friendly, gregarious, passionate, and proud. The Argentine socially oriented psyche, where empathy for people, intolerance for wasteful activities, and an innate willingness to experiment would seem to be a perfect cultural fit for Agile.

Our visits and conversations in the Agile community in Argentina revealed some of the most experimental and forward-thinking Agile people anywhere in the world. Self-organization and people-orientation, both in the teams we met and in the consideration for the end customer above all else was central to the Argentine mindset.

Perhaps it is only the country’s complicated political backstory and economic volatility that is holding Buenos Aires back from being the Silicon Valley of the South Americas.

History

Before the Inca Empire added the territory in the Northwest in the 15th century, the population of what is now Argentina was made up of a number of thinly dispersed indigenous groups. Many of these had been conquered by the Mapuche who had spread into Central and Southern regions from present day Chile. The Incas control of a large region of Western South America lasted until their fall at the hands of the Spanish in the 16th century.

Early Spanish explorations focused on the false premise that there were vast quantities of silver to be discovered – Spanish explorer Sebastian Cabot gave the river Rio de Plata (river of silver) its name, and part of the area was called argentum, Latin for silver. Once it was found there was little mineral wealth in the area, the port of Buenos Aires was considered little more than a backwater as the Spanish focused on the riches to be found in the gold and silver mines of present day Bolivia and Peru.

Buenos Aires turned out to be an ideal port for trade, but restrictions by the Spanish crown meant that most of this was in the form of smuggling. Either way, this contributed to the growth of the city. As silver mining declined in the 18th century, restrictions were relaxed and Buenos Aires was made capital of the new Viceroy of the Rio de la Plata in 1776. Attempted invasions by the British in 1806 and again in 1807 united the locals and contributed to growing confidence to become independent alongside a growing dissatisfaction with Spanish rule. A process began which was to lead to Argentina becoming the successor state to the Viceroyalty and formal independence was declared on 9 July 1816. Regional political differences meant that conflict and civil war followed for much of the 1800s.

During a period of relative peace and stability in the late 19th century, new laws enabled Argentina to open up to foreign investment. Cattle and cereals were exported, and the economy grew substantially. However, perhaps the bigger impact was on Argentinian culture and demographics, which were shaped by waves of immigration from Europe. This immigration was on such a scale that Argentina was second only to the United States in terms of the raw numbers of people coming into a country. Italians and Spanish led the way, with more people arriving from France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, India, and others. Britain became Argentina’s main trading partner up until World War II. There are even Welsh settlements named Y Wladfa¹ in the Chubut province that still exist, and a form of Patagonian Welsh as a language. Today, around 85% of the population of Buenos Aires is of European descent.

This age of prosperity in Argentina’s history has been all too rare. The flood of immigrants that swelled the population of Buenos Aires, doubling its size to 1 million people, sparked a social crisis as it just could not cope with the numbers. After the military seized power in 1929, an obscure colonel named Juan Domingo Perón rose to power, who, together with his wife Eva (Evita) Duarte, influenced Argentine politics, arguably to this day. Both revered and despised, the Peróns social-welfare reforms have had a lasting effect on Argentinian spirits and economics.

The 1970s and 1980s saw more violence, first the so-called Dirty War where the government – the result of another military coup – used brutal tactics to suppress the Montoneros – an extreme-left Perónist guerrilla group – whose own tactics consisted of bombings and kidnappings. Anyone thought to be associated with socialism or showing dissent were at risk of becoming victims of state terrorism. This was only ended when, after an ill-judged attempt to raise nationalist sentiment, the military-led government invaded the Islas Malvinas. The uncompromising British fought back, the Falklands War resulting in Argentine defeat and the military being forced to withdraw from power.

A history of conflict and uncertainty has meant the economy of Argentina has perpetually struggled. Since the 1980s, inflation has been difficult to control for successive governments. Private industry has been sold off and borrowing has soared. Periods of spiraling unemployment have been common. That is not to say that there have not been booms along with the busts. Following devaluation of the peso and the defaulting of AR$140billion of debt in 2002, a subsequent period of stability for the currency followed, making Argentina’s exports suddenly cheap. Argentina enjoyed a booming economy during the mid-2000s, though the next economic crisis never seems to be far away. In 2018, inflation rose while the value of the peso plunged, sparking a new recession that was still ongoing when the coronavirus pandemic hit.²

Insights

We must acknowledge the scale of Argentina geographically (it is the eighth largest country in the world after all) with a diversity of people and cultures from the Gauchos, to the people of Tierra Del Fuego far to the South, and those of the northwest who have more in common with the indigenous people of Chile, Bolivia, and Paraguay than the so-called porteños people of Buenos Aires.

Given the dominance of Buenos Aires in commerce and international business, we were drawn to the Agile community in the country’s capital.

By sheer coincidence, our time in the city coincided with the very first visit of all of the board members of the Agile Alliance who were flying in for a breakfast meetup with the local Agile community. We had been in Buenos Aires for just four days, but decided that this was enough time to consider ourselves as locals, so we joined the meetup. Figure 2-1 is a picture of the meetup attendees.

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Figure 2-1

Desayunando con el Board del Agile Alliance Group meetup in Buenos Aires, Jan 2018. Glaudia is far left, David is slightly left of center at the back

When we first arrived, we felt a little bit like