If you intend to look up “impediment” in the dictionary (and I know you do) you’ll find the following:
I think that the definition perfectly encapsulates the array of challenges that agile teams face when trying to deliver products or services in complex environments. But at times, the word “impediment” can be too broadly used to describe what’s happening on teams, and sometimes obscures the likely path to resolution. Consider the following things you might overhear in a daily scrum meeting or retrospective:
“I’m not sure how to keep my development environment in sync with production.”
“A team I’m dependent on can’t tell me when they’re going to finish. I’m stuck.”
“Our team is spread across multiple different time zones, so…”
Each of those things might be a hindrance or obstruction in doing something, they may slow the team down. But they’re very different problems that require unique approaches to resolution.
What do walls, dumpsters, and slides have to do with impediments!? If you’ve completed our Accelerator module, you know.
We teach a Hard Yards Accelerator module on dealing with impediments. In it, we have three different designations for things that slow teams down. There are things they can solve on their own, such as cross-training/onboarding. We refer to those things as “Blockers.” There are things they need some outside help with, such as program-level prioritization, we call those things “Impediments.” And lastly, there are things that just “are”, that is to say, things that are beyond the control of the team that they must contend with, such as widely distributed teams, or global pandemics. We call those things “Obstacles”.
However, a funny thing happens in the session. Invariably, something the team imagined to be an Obstacle or an Impediment begins to get talked about differently. As the team shifts its way of thinking into what is possible instead of what isn’t, a transformation takes place. It happens almost every time. By the end of the session, teams are walking out energized and ready to tackle problems they previously hadn’t imagined possible.
There’s a great scene in the movie Apollo 13 where a group of stranded astronauts must manufacture a “square peg” to fit into a round hole using only spare parts available to them on their spaceship. In fact, their life depends on it. I won’t ruin the movie for you, but Tom Hanks does make it back to Earth, only to find himself stranded on a desert island five years later. Which, when you think about it, is really bad luck.
What I love so much about the scene is the way in which the group approaches the problem. It’s a puzzle to solve with an obvious set of constraints and limited time, so they put their collective heads together to imagine all the possible solutions. Their circumstances force innovation and creativity in a way that an ordinary situation might not.
As Agile Coaches, we rarely find find ourselves in life and death situations, but I still believe there’s something to be learned. We can create environments that foster innovation. When we give our teams the time and space to open the aperture and think creatively about problem solving, we create an environment not of obstructions, but rather, of innovation. It becomes all about the art of the possible. Even better, once the team gets in this creative headspace for solving their own problems, it quickly carries over into solving customer/product problems as well. It doesn’t really matter what you call them: “blockers”, “impediments”, “obstacles”. When you create an environment on your teams where even the wildest of ideas are welcome, where failure is prized for the learning that come out of it, and where collaboration is the norm, you’d be surprised at what puzzles your teams can actually solve.
Learn more about the art of the possible and how we can help with your impediments.