A Psychometric based Tool for Assessing and Developing Agile Mindset

1. The Motive:
Instead of just discussing whether an Individual/Team/Organization should have an Agile
Mindset we instead worked upon developing a tool that could help assessing whether an
Individual/Team/Organization has an Agile Mindset and based on this the Coaches could
work on focusing on a few key areas and then we could use the tool repeatedly as we saw
progress.
Do we need Yet Another Tool:
While it is well known that an Agile Mindset needs to be developed for a successful Agile
transformation, there isn’t much available that will help DEVELOP the Agile Mindset.
Vision​​:
This is our attempt to fill in that missing piece of HOW to develop the Agile Mindset which
can help the team start their journey towards adopting Agile.
Steps to define
We have developed a tool called AgilOMetric that will give indications as to where the team
is with respect to its Agile Mindset journey. In addition we are also working on a playbook
that will further help in this direction.
MVP
AgilOMetrics is a Psyscometric test for Agile Mindset Assessment and Learn-as-you-Use
model which will help the practitioners decide where they are on the Agile Mindset Journey
as well as Grow.
The playbook is an accompaniment to AgilOMetric and provides a more detailed
The Initial tests will be one the lines of below...
A] To build a product the team comes to you with suggestions to add new features and
the choices you have are:- (Less is Enough in the Agile world)
1. Lets do only what is needed at this point of time
2. Lets do only what is needed at this point of time but lets take these ideas up after the
current product is completed
3. Lets do only what is needed at this point of time and discuss these towards the end
of this delivery
4. Lets do only what is needed at this point of time but lets also quickly look at the
new features and see what is more important
B] You have joined ABZ Associates recently as a manager and are currently working with
2 teams. You have always been a performer in all the organizations you have worked in, and
in the current organization also you feel you have been doing a good job
1. Feedback would be too early at this point of time and so you continue working since
you are on tight schedules to meet the targets since tangible results are the
best form of feedback

2. 2. You get feedback on your WoW but know that targets are more important than
feedback and so continue working on achieving the targets
3. You get feedback on your WoW and act upon that feedback even while juggling
between the feedback action items the goals
4. You get feedback on your WoW and act upon that whenever you get the time with
the primary focus being on the deliverables
C] New initiatives are risky. (Risk)
1. Since they are risky it is not worth pursuing limited company resources on these
initiatives
2. Risks with limited upside can be taken subject to continuous monitoring
3. Risks need to always be taken
4. Risks can be taken for some initiatives subject to the discretion of the management
D] We are prioritizing features to be rolled out in the next couple of months.. (Focus value)
1. Clients never know what they want and hence we can deliver features which we
think the clients would like
2. Clients have told us in the past what their expectations are from the product and we
will focus only on those for now..
3. We collaborate with the clients on what they want and focus on those
4. We reach out to the SMEs in the industry and go with what the SMEs think the clients
want
E] While delivering the product … (we = development team) [ Skin in the game ]
1. There are some features that the Product Owners wants but we think they are not
useful – the Product Owner is an SME and so it is better we allow the experts to
take the decisions regarding the features
2. There are some features that the Product Owner wants but we think they are not
useful – the Product Owner is an SME but we still decide to share our views with
the Product Owner
3. There are some features that the client wants but we think they are not useful but
we go along since it is a T & M (Time and Materials) commercial model
4. We ensure that the clients take our development team’s inputs at all times

3. Question # Most Medium Less Least
3 (Less is enough
in the Agile
world) D
C D A
4 C D B A
5 B (Risk) D C A
6 C (focus value) B D A
7 B (skin in the
game)
A, c, d