Agile Of The Spheres: 4 Agile Lessons From Coldplay

Unfortunately came to an end Coldplay's “Music of the Spheres” Brazil tour. I am completely sure, not even close, I am the biggest fan of the band but some elements really caught my attention and awakened the desire in me to explore and connect them to our reality. The same one that makes us to take a deep dive into the business every single day aiming the product success.

A Coldplay concert is a masterclass in offering a great experience to their fans. They have been hugely great at not just making and putting music at the top of the charts but also winning over the hearts of people, and by doing that, have been able to establish a unique emotional connection with their customer base.

As a matter of fact, we could take advantage of the following lessons connecting to any other business area such as revenue management, customer success, marketing and others but reflecting on some experiences now as an Agile Professional, I can see many similarities in the way agile product and software development teams work compared to a rock band such as Coldplay.

1. ABOVE ALL, HAVE A CLEAR PURPOSE.

The quote “If you don’t know where you are going any road can take you there” never made so much sense. It is striking to see how the purpose of the band is communicated in a bunch of different ways - sight, hearing and touch - and how much they are committed to environment and sustainability, and addition to that, social inclusion. By the way, on this last item, if you have already attended an agile event, know how much important it is for the agile sphere/community.

On the product management side, the product goal is a reflection of the product vision, the bridge built by the sprints. Understanding and connecting “the why” of your product to that of your business is a critical first step in building alignment (or connection). Your product vision is one of the key pillars of a strong and effective strategic foundation – and Coldplay shows us in an exemplary way how to do that. Based on my exchanging experience with my colleagues, if you connect your product vision to your organizational purpose, surely will give you greater chances of keeping stakeholders, teams, and individuals to converge and maintain alignment.

2. KEEP COLLABORATION ALIVE.

Who is always keeping up with the band certainly knows that collaboration is a key factor which goes beyond the team members. For all those who have already experienced the Coldplay concert, know they usually install kinetic floors, meaning that whenever fans dance or jump up and down on them, it will create energy to power parts of the show. Fans can also hop on an exercise bike in the stadium to generate some green power. Is it interesting to see how purpose, collaboration, communication, alignment, strategy, engagement and results matches in the same sentence, isn’t it?

Similarly, collaboration between product owners, scrum masters, developers is key for the success of a software product. Each team member has a part to play in the creation of products, from deciding what the business builds, to testing the user experience, to discussing the technicalities of how it will be built.

By bringing together their individual expertise, an Agile team can make better decisions and ensure they all share the same vision. Without that collaboration, the resulting product might be something that the customer or the company doesn’t need. Agile teams are multidisciplinary by nature, and they are designed to stay close to customers and adapt quickly to any changing conditions, delivering the maximum value to stakeholders through incremental development and continuous improvement cycle. Real Collaboration = Real Engagement = Real Result.

3. ADOPT AN “EXPLORER” MINDSET

Not everybody knows that Phil Harvey is known by fans and the other Coldplay members as the fifth member of the group due to his irreplaceable as creative director and for supporting the band from the very beginning.

At the end of the day, creative directors want to take to the next level and elevate the brands that they are working with. In the music industry creative directors see brands through products; they see sonics, personalities, and individuality of each element and use that to create the magic, in other words, they have the right sensitivity to translate the artist vision to the fans bringing to life the vision that will ensure the success of the product through the integration of technologies and visual storytelling. That’s a good and interesting way to build connection with fans, explore innovation and making sure the journey doesn’t start and stop only on a concert – look at me being impacted positively by Coldplay concert, writing an article for example.

In the GROWTH MINDSET, people are obstinate for the new, challenge, growth and the difficult is not an obstacle. Making mistakes is part of the continuous improvement process and for this reason they prioritize learning to overcome limitations, in addition to understanding that the way they think and act determines their chances of success.

4. FIND YOUR WAY AND RHYTHM

What would become of a rock band without having rhythm such as the visual effects out of sync with the lyrics, the musicians playing in different times or the fireworks which explode in the wrong time? Surely, the delivery quality for fans would be a disaster, right?

That’s the same story in the agile world. Everything within agile has a rhythm, and the goal of agile is to have an appropriate balance. Keep on mind it is such a steady rhythm, like the continuous beating of a heart because when these rhythms get out of balance, generally dysfunction occurs. As a result of it, we probably will have a decline in quality, unreliable estimates and productivity.

It worth to highlight that agile is not about working faster or working harder. Agile is about finding a sustainable rhythm that will enable the team to continue indefinitely delivering value to all stakeholders in an incremental and iterative way. At this point I ask you: Do you want to go fast or want to go far? Which one is better? I say it depends on the context that you are living in.

As said by Kate Dames: “Sometimes you need the one, other times the other. But you can’t run an entire marathon at the pace of a short distance runner.”

Conclusion:

It doesn’t matter if you do not like Coldplay. Cherry-pick the band you most like or think about new possibilities that you can use as a type of benchmarking. It may be a good way to make sprint ceremonies more interesting by giving it a theme, becoming useful for adding some spice to your team culture and to foster team building with engagement and fun.

Summing up the story in a few words: be adaptive, be the change, build a long-term view, improve the system thinking, try to look where no one is looking, think inside and outside the box, take care of people helping them to be their best version, be a fast mover and measure what really matters for your business or project.

Lastly, do not forget that each project is a journey full of curves, mistakes, ups and downs, failures, defeats, tears, and surely, successes and victories with lots of different stories written and built along the way. Embrace the learning curve once it fits perfectly not only for single individuals but also for large teams in the context of any kind of transformation that you and your team are longing for. Keep rocking!