Primer on the OpenAgile Process

What is the OpenAgile Process?
applying the foundations of OpenAgile to the work of individuals, teams, and organizations

Concepts and information about the OpenAgile Process

 * process is intended to be lightweight
 * there isn't silver bullet for all situations

Add a section on "Sustainable Pace":
As you go through these Cycles, it is critical that you move at a sustainable pace. There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost is that in order to be truthful about our capacity to do work, we need to be able to measure our capacity. To measure our capacity to do work, we need to have a standard unit. In OpenAgile, we use the Cycle as that standard unit or container. If we were to change the length of Cycles, or if we were to work eighty hours in one Cycle and then work only twenty hours the next, it would be very difficult to measure how much work we can do on a regular basis. A sustainable pace also requires that our cycles neither be too long nor too short. A Cycle length that is too short will feel rushed and you will not have the mental clarity needed for your work. A Cycle length that is too long will allow you to procrastinate and then compensate with a frantic effort at the end of the Cycle. Finally, a sustainable pace allows us to learn to make and keep commitments.

For "Repetitive Activities" section:
The items in this category are most closely related to the ongoing operations of an environment. These are habits we need to establish or attributes and qualities of our work that we need in order to be considered 'done'. In a sales organization, perhaps there is a weekly quota of cold calls to be made. In a software organization, every Cycle requires that the software be tested.

For "Quality Problems" section:
Sometimes we encounter quality problems in the middle of a Cycle. Because quality is so important, we should strive to fix any known quality problems immediately. At Toyota, this is known as “stop the line”. If there is a defect noticed in a piece of work on the manufacturing line, any employee can pull a chain which will stop the whole production line. Then, the staff do an analysis of the cause of the problem, fix it, and re-start the production line. It is critical to identify the root cause of a quality problem and it, otherwise the same problem is likely to recur.

For "Obstacles" section:
Imagine you are part of a team creating a garden for a park. In your first Cycle you plan to plant some seedling fir trees. In the first day of your Cycle, you request funds from the town to purchase the seedlings. You are refused. Clearly this is an obstacle to proceeding. If this obstacle is not removed, then you will fail to deliver what you have planned. This can be demoralizing. Suppose then that you make do by preparing beds for the seedlings, and find other bits of work to take up the time until funds come through. But they don't. As there are more and more delays, you feel more and more frustrated. It may be tempting to quit, or do a poor quality job. It is therefore important to deal with the obstacle head-on when it is first identified. This may entail calling the town council secretary, using your own funds, arranging credit with the nursery where you intend to purchase the seedlings, and so on. Whatever the case, we must be dedicated to overcoming obstacles as quickly as possible! We should focus all our resources on securing the funds to do the work we have committed to doing.

For "New Artifacts" section:
One good example of New Work is the use of “User Stories” in a software development project as New Work items. To make this concrete, let's use the example of a word processor. These marvellous pieces of software can be used for many types of writing. A very basic word processor need is to allow you to type in and display what you have typed. It needs to allow you to add different types of formatting. It needs to allow you to print out your writing. It also probably needs to allow you to leave your work and come back to it without losing it. In using OpenAgile for software development, these features of a word processor, these New Work items, can be expressed as User Stories as follows:

As a Writer, I can see what I am typing on my computer screen. As a Writer, I can make a part of what I have written appear in a bold format. As a User, I can print out all or part of a document. As a Writer, I can turn off my computer and when I restart it, I can continue typing without having lost my work.

Those four User Stories are in a list, and there would be many more if the goal was to create a real, modern word processing application. These User Stories would need to be prioritized by value.

In this example, there are several things which would not go on the New Artifact category. When writing software, we should expect that it does not crash on us and cause us to lose our work. This is a quality constraint and would not be written up as a separate New Work item. Instead, we might note that in our Repetitive Activities that we have to test the software on a regular basis. Now, suppose that as part of our work on this software we needed to create some really fabulous icons for buttons in the word processor. If none of us are graphic designers, then we would need to create a Calendar Event to meet with a graphic designer (although finding a graphic designer might be New Work if we don't already have one).

The New Artifact items hold a special part in OpenAgile because almost all types of work require the human capacity for creativity. New Artifact is where creativity is applied to working towards our goal.

Each Cycle, during the Planning Meeting, we look at the New Artifacts and decide how much of it to complete in the Cycle. Since it is prioritized by value, we should only be looking at the top items of the New Artifacts. Ideally, we look at the very topmost item and ask ourselves, “can we take this item and complete it in this Cycle?” If the answer is “yes,” then we move on to the next item from the top and ask the question again. We do this until we come to an item where we have to say “no,” or even “we're not sure.” When this happens, we can look more closely at this item and decide if it can be split up into two or more smaller items, some of which might fit into the Cycle. Remember that these smaller items must be valuable in and of themselves!

Need to expand the section on Inside a Cycle: A Positive Attitude
In order to set the right tone for the Engagement Meeting, it is strongly encouraged that those people involved in the Cycle take a short amount of time to orient their thoughts on the principles and attitudes needed. This can be done as a group or individually and usually involves a “check-in” process. Try reciting to yourself the following passage written by 'Abdu'l-Bahá: “I will be a happy and joyful being. I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me. I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life.”

This short passage helps us to make our inner condition ready for an intense learning environment. In such an intense environment we ourselves, as well as the people we are working with, might be struggling, making mistakes, but all trying our best to make progress.

A little detour to look at one of the principles of working in OpenAgile is appropriate here; we need to maintain a very positive outlook and inner condition. This is not always possible, of course, because we get surprised or shocked or even hurt. But despite these trials that occur in all parts of our life, we strive to be positive. This is not to say that we ignore problems. Rather, we accept that our inner condition can influence our environment, just like our environment can influence our inner condition. If we are happy, we express that happiness in many small ways that help the people around us to become happy. If we are content and calm, that inner feeling gets expressed in how we respond to others which in turn helps them to be content and calm. Similarly, if our environment is beautiful – if the words we hear, the music we listen to, and the things we read are positive, we are more likely to feel positive ourselves. Creating an positive inner condition is something that helps us use OpenAgile effectively. This positive attitude should be maintained throughout the whole Cycle, not just the Engagement Meeting.

Quotes
"When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps." - Confucius

"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves." - Buddha

"If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Sir Isaac Newton

Diagrams and Pictures








Axiom, story or example
Imagine that you are working towards the goal of increasing revenue in a small start-up business running a franchise. You might choose Cycles that are two weeks long. Every cycle, you will do many different activities based on the nature of your business. However, in order to ensure that you are moving towards your goal of increasing revenue, you need to ensure that every cycle you do work that is designed to improve revenue. It is true that you may make mistakes; you may do something that doesn't work as you hoped. However, your actions are always focused on your goal of increasing revenue. For example, in one cycle you may decide to launch a local advertising campaign. In another cycle you may decide to try sponsoring a local event, and in yet another cycle you may decide to create a web site for your business. By applying the Learning Circle within every cycle, you ensure that you are measuring your progress and learning from your successes and mistakes.

Work Cycle Flow
In the context of moving towards a goal, obviously we need to take Action. Action can include doing, making, serving, creating, solving or applying. For example, as someone using OpenAgile to create a documentary video, at some point you would need to shoot video footage, create music, scout locations, and whatever else is required to actually put together a valuable, presentable video segment.

After Action, we reflect on our results. What value was delivered? How did we do our work? How did we feel? Did our clients like what we did? Why or why not? How much closer are we to our goal? Reflection is about collecting data, observations, measurements and impressions. Continuing our example, in a documentary video production using OpenAgile, we look at the delivered version of the video to date, we look at how well our interviews are going, we look at footage quality. We look at the length of the video compared to how long it needs to be.

Reflection then provides the foundation for Learning. In Learning we apply principles, search for insights, try to identify where our capacities and skills and knowledge have expanded. All with the intention of building unity and a plan of action. With the documentary video example, using feedback as Guidance from an early audience screening, and from our producers, we consult further about what kind of ideas we might plan to implement for the next Cycle. How do we decide based on the reflection we did? And based on the fruits of our Learning, we move into Planning.

Planning allows us to concretely apply our insights and new skills, combined with the results of our last Cycle, to decide what and how we will move in our next Cycle. It is important to consider both long term and short term planning. Of course, the details of our planning will only be to the extent of the next Cycle, but because we are moving toward a goal, we should still have a path in mind. For the documentary video, we might then decide that we will interview the government official next and then get into the details of how to do that: contact her secretary, arrange a time and location, get any extra equipment needed, fill out paperwork, provide a written list of questions to give to the official, do the interview, edit it, and combine it with the results of the previous Cycle.

Then, of course, back to Action to execute our plan.

Traditional Value Delivery
Delivering value every Cycle is not always easy. In some environments, we treat reaching a goal as a whole project in which we plan the project at the start, execute the project and then assess whether we have reached the goal. This is the typical project management approach. But when we use this approach there is usually no second chance. We make it or we don't. In OpenAgile, the use of Cycles is deliberately designed to give us lots of chances. To take the example of a documentary video, if the first Cycle produces just a script, then you haven't delivered valuable results that you can truly assess if they are contributing to the goal. If instead, you deliver a small piece of finished documentary video, then you can have people watch it. You can convey the message of the whole documentary in just a small piece.

Value and the Learning Circle
The parts of the sequence of the Learning Circle after Action, namely, Reflection, Learning and Planning are required to make sure that we are still contributing value, that our goal is still valid, that we are doing things the best way we know how, and to adjust all these things if needed. With a documentary video, this may mean that parts of what we have done in the first Cycle get cut immediately, or that new ideas are generated that weren't possible at the start, or even that the goal is changed to create a fictionalized version of historical events instead of a documentary! This kind of change is only possible if we are fully open to the possibilities revealed through the Learning Circle by using it every single Cycle. The Learning Circle gives us a model that even allows us to change our goals if we discover the need to do so!

Volunteering for Tasks
Imagine you are working on a task in a Cycle. Suppose you are writing something for a client. Now suppose that a team-mate you are working with finishes his work earlier than expected. He could sit idle, but this would be a waste of his time. Instead, he could look at the Cycle Plan and see what tasks are remaining. Perhaps there are a few, but they are all tasks that normally you would do. Does it make sense for your team-mate to wait while you do the the rest of the work for Cycle? OpenAgile asserts that all of us are able to learn. Your team-mate should choose a task, and if he does not know exactly how to do it, that's okay. It might take him longer to do it than it would take you, but you're busy anyway! By doing this task, your team-mate learns through experience (and possibly research), and therefore becomes a stronger contributor in future Cycles.

Draft for Publication
The processes in OpenAgile are designed so that individuals, teams, and organizations can apply the Learning Circle in a systematic manner.

Goals
All work is done for a reason, to achieve a purpose, and to accomplish a Goal. OpenAgile is a framework for helping us do this as effectively as possible.

In OpenAgile, goals can be lofty or practical, simple or complex, short or long term. It is natural for goals to start broad and become more specific as you make progress. Having a goal allows you to track progress, contextualize feedback, and ensure that the work you are doing is valuable.

Work in Cycles
In OpenAgile all work is done in short Cycles of equal length. Every Cycle can be considered a single step along the path to our goal of producing valuable results. Each Cycle of work builds on the value you created in the previous Cycle. There are three rules to doing this effectively. First, apply the Learning Circle without fail, every Cycle. The Learning Circle encourages the systematic evaluation of our assumptions, actions, and outcomes. Second, use Cycles of equal length. This allows us to measure our progress across Cycles. Third, use Cycles that are short relative to the length of your Goal. Short Cycles, ensure that you frequently deliver value to stakeholders, adapt to change, and emphasize continuous improvement. If you have a goal that is one year away, you might choose Cycles that are one month long. If your goal is only one week away, you might choose Cycles that are four hours long.





Cycle Input: Value Drivers
At the outset, we need a measurable activity or focus to help drive our progress towards accomplishing our Goal. We call these Value Drivers. When achieved, a Value Driver should result in delivering something of value to your stakeholders. Value is defined as a characteristic deemed desirable by stakeholders that is measured in relation to a goal and verified by achieving the intended results by the end of a Cycle.

A Value Driver is best understood when it is S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-bound. We cannot predict the future, so it is important to work on the highest priority Value Driver first. The Growth Facilitator, which we will discuss in greater detail later, is responsible for collecting and prioritizing the list of Value Drivers.

Traditional Value Delivery
Delivering value every Cycle is not always easy. In some environments, we treat reaching a goal as a whole project in which we plan the project at the start, execute the project and then assess whether we have reached the goal. This is a traditional project management approach, but when we use this approach there is usually no second chance. We make it or we don't. There is no ability to react gracefully to change because of the high cost of rework. In OpenAgile, the use of Cycles is deliberately designed to give us lots of chances to truly assess if we are contributing to the goal.

Organic vs. Mechanical Value Delivery
A great analogy to help explain this concept is to look at mechanical systems and organic systems. A mechanical system like a car doesn't grow. It is assembled. A car is made up of many components that are critical to its function – an engine, tires, steering wheel. But if you are missing the engine, the car has no value as a car. You can't easily manufacture a car in small stages so that even the first stage has essential car-ness. Instead, a car only makes sense at the end when all the pieces are put together.



On the other hand, if you look at a tree, every year right from the time it is a seedling, it retains its essential tree-ness. Moments after the seed has sprouted, you can call it a tree. As it grows, there is no point in time when it is not a functional tree. Even if a branch breaks off, it is still a tree.

Mechanical systems respond poorly to change. Change can even be catastrophic for a mechanical system. However, organic systems are much more adaptive to change. OpenAgile is a means for humans working together to respond to change in a way that is more like an organic system rather than a mechanical system.

Value and the Learning Circle
The parts of the sequence of the Learning Circle after Action, namely, Reflection, Learning and Planning are required to ensure that we are still contributing value. We ensure that our goal is still valid, we are doing things the best way we know how, and we adjust all these things if needed. This may mean that parts of what we have done in the first Cycle get changed immediately, or that new ideas are generated that weren't possible at the start, or even that the goal is changed entirely! This kind of change is only possible if we are fully open to the possibilities revealed through the Learning Circle by using it every single Cycle. The Learning Circle gives us a model that even allows us to change our goal if we discover the need to do so.

Engagement Meeting
We begin every Cycle with an Engagement Meeting. In the Engagement Meeting, we focus on Reflection and Learning followed by Planning. We use Consultative Decision-Making to explore all the items in our list of Value Drivers and decide which of these will be done in the current Cycle. We break down each Value Driver into as many independent tasks as are necessary to satisfy the stakeholder.

The result of this meeting is called a Cycle Plan. The Cycle Plan consists of a number of tasks that we do during the Cycle. We will discuss the Core Types of Tasks in greater detail later.

Timing
The Engagement Meeting is the same length of time every Cycle and it is in proportion to the overall duration of the Cycle. For example, a one-week long Cycle for a business would have an Engagement Meeting that lasts between two and four hours, but really shouldn't be longer than that. If there are forty working hours in the Cycle, then the meeting should be two to four hours long. In other words, less than one tenth the overall Cycle duration. If a Cycle is only one workday long, then the Engagement Meeting should be less than forty-eight minutes long. And if the Cycle is three months long, but it is for a volunteer group working on average ten hours per week, then the Engagement Meeting should be less than twelve hours long (12 weeks x 10 hours/week x 10%).

Keeping the meeting short relative to the overall length of the Cycle helps maintain focus. As we go through this meeting, we should not consider the stages of Reflection, Learning and Planning as strict agenda items. Rather, we start the meeting with a focus on Reflection, but some Learning and Planning may take place right at the start. As we progress through the meeting, the emphasis shifts to Learning, and then shifts finally to Planning. As an example of how this might look, consider that you might have forgotten an important fact about the previous Cycle which you only remember near the end of the Engagement Meeting. Rather than rigidly sticking to just planning, you would be welcome to bring up this recollection since it may be important to making an effective Cycle Plan.

Engagement Meeting Output
The output of the Engagement Meeting is a Cycle Plan. The Cycle Plan consists of a collection of tasks. Tasks can be recorded in any manner that is effective for the environment. For example, if we are a small team working in a common space together, then we might record tasks on note cards and put them on the wall so that everyone can see them. On the other hand, if we are working with people we never see because we are dispersed over a large geographic region, then perhaps using an electronic tool such as a wiki or spreadsheet is more appropriate.

Reflection During the Engagement Meeting
In the Engagement Meeting, we typically start with Reflection. Reflection can include seeing a demonstration of work completed in the prior Cycle. It can include personal time to reflect on how we felt and what we did in the prior Cycle. It can include examining the completed tasks of the Cycle Plan for the prior Cycle. Reflection during the Engagement Meeting typically lasts between ¼ and ½ of the overall time of the Engagement Meeting. However, there is no strict rule about how much time we should spend on Reflection.

Learning During the Engagement Meeting
As we are Reflecting on our prior Cycle, we will notice things that are deeper than just what happened – the things we have learned. Learning typically follows Reflection, but there can be some overlap: some of us are still Reflecting, and others of us are realizing what we have learned. We should take care to clearly identify what we have learned so that everyone involved can appreciate our collective and individual capacity building. Moreover, we pause to ensure that we use what we have learned to make our Cycle Plan as effective as possible. Like Reflection, Learning in the Engagement Meeting typically takes between ¼ and ½ of the time.

Cycle Plan
The last part of the Engagement Meeting is Planning, or the act of creating the Cycle Plan. The Cycle Plan is simply a collection of all the tasks we intend to do during the Cycle in order to deliver value. We ask questions and discuss what is required to complete each Value Driver, and we deliberately use our Reflections and Learnings to shape our understanding of the intended outcomes. A Cycle Plan should be tempered with a truthful assessment of our capacity to complete the tasks.

A Note About Perfection
The Cycle Plan is not intended to be perfect. We don't have to follow it rigidly, which in most types of work would lead to disaster. The Cycle Plan is meant to be flexible. One of the key ways in which it is flexible is that we do not decide who will do what task at the start of the Cycle. Instead, we decide as we go. As the team works, tasks are completed, modified, new ones are added to the Cycle Plan, shared, or deleted.

Generating Tasks


In the Engagement Meeting, everyone participating in the work of the Cycle needs to actively participate in generating tasks. This creates collective ownership of the Cycle Plan. Generating tasks can be done in a discussion format or with people working individually and then coming together at the end of the meeting. Generally, any item in the list of Value Drivers can become many tasks. For example, if one of the Value Drivers is to have a meeting with a potential client, then this single item might result in three tasks: confirm the meeting, prepare the agenda, and then hold the actual meeting. The way Value Drivers become tasks is entirely up to the people involved in doing the work. People who will not be working during the Cycle do not have a say in defining the tasks in the Cycle Plan.

The Core Types of Tasks
Let's look more closely at the Core Types of Tasks, which occur in our Cycle Plan.

Calendar Events
The first category of tasks contain those which are based on scheduled dates or times – Calendar Events. A meeting with a potential client, a trade show, a scheduled phone call, a team meeting. All these are Calendar Events and need to be accounted for in our Cycle Plan. At the start of the Cycle, we look at our personal and job-related calendars and create tasks that represent all Calendar Events that occur during the Cycle.

Typically, the Calendar Events do not include the meetings that are part of the OpenAgile process. For example, the Engagement Meeting, even though it happens at a specific date and time, is not considered one of the Calendar Events.

Repetitive Activities
Tasks in this category consists of things which must be done on a regular basis. For example, every month a report is created. Or every year, certain government documents need to be submitted. Or every week, plants in an office need to be watered. The tasks in this category are most closely related to day-to-day operations. These are habits we need to establish or attributes and qualities of our work that we need in order to be considered 'done'.

Repetition does not just refer to a time period. For example, there may be specific activities you take each time you get a lead for a new client. You don't know exactly when you will get new leads, but you do know that certain activities have to be repeated for each lead. Tasks in this category are most often represented by a list that states what the work is and how often it must be done. In planning a Cycle, we need to look at this list and see if anything in it needs to be brought into the Cycle Plan. A Repetitive Activity is often written so that it can follow this template: “Every ____ we will _____.” For example, we might have a Repetitive Activity that says “Every day we will check voice mail.”  Or, “Every new lead we will enter their contact information into our customer relationship management system.”

Quality Problems
Quality is closely related to Truthfulness. In OpenAgile, we strive to maintain a very high standard of quality, and to constantly work on improving that standard. Whenever we find a defect or an error in work we are doing or work we have delivered in previous Cycles, we must try to resolve the problem as soon as possible. When we plan our Cycle, we examine the work of previous Cycles to check if there are things we need to fix. If so, these repairs become part of our Cycle Plan.

Sometimes we encounter Quality Problems in the middle of a Cycle. Because quality is so important, we should strive to fix any known Quality Problems immediately. At Toyota, this is known as “stop the line”. If there is a defect noticed in a piece of work on the manufacturing line, any employee can pull a chain which will stop the whole production line. Then, staff do an analysis for the cause of the problem, fix it, and re-start the production line. It is critical to identify the root cause of a Quality Problem to prevent it from recurring.

Obstacles
Obstacles prevent us from getting work done efficiently. As we do our work, we encounter Obstacles. These Obstacles can be a lack of resources or knowledge, a physical obstacle, personality conflicts, organizational culture, or a number of other sources. We therefore need to identify and remove Obstacles. The OpenAgile system regards the overcoming of Obstacles as very high priority. This is critical for short-term productivity and long-term success. The Process Facilitator, which we will discuss later, is responsible for removing obstacles.

New Artifacts
New Artifacts hold a special place in OpenAgile because almost all work environments require the human capacity for creativity. New Artifacts are tasks which result in the creation of something concrete. These tasks channel our capacity for creativity into working towards our goal of adding value for stakeholders. The creation of a document, a process, or a tool, or changing existing documents, processes or tools are all examples of New Artifact tasks. A task in the New Artifacts category must be sized in such a way that, if it is worked on in a Cycle, it can be completed, verified to be complete, and is useful in relative isolation.

Specialized Tasks for Non-tangible Artifacts
Teams will occasionally want to allocate time for specific tasks which have no specific benefits other than some knowledge for the team. They are however, necessary for the advancement of the knowledge of the team.
 * Spike - A short duration, time-boxed allocation of time for the team to research or investigate a specific idea or possibility which is then shared with the team to determine it's future value.

Commitment to the Cycle Plan
Everyone needs to participate in making a commitment to the work of the Cycle. This can be done in a number of ways, but in OpenAgile we focus on the idea of being truthful about our capacity. Deliberately over-committing is strongly discouraged. Instead, we carefully look at the quantity and quality of the tasks in our Cycle Plan. By considering everything together, we can learn to make reasonable commitments to our team members. There are many advanced techniques for measuring capacity and estimating the amount of work in a Cycle Plan. However, the simplest approach, and the one that we normally start with, is to have consensus agreement: everyone in the group must fully agree to commit to the whole Cycle Plan. If anyone is uncertain, then remove some work from the Cycle Plan until everyone is certain. By the end of the Engagement Meeting, everyone involved in doing the work of the Cycle should be fully committed to finishing all the tasks in the Cycle Plan.

Once we have a Cycle Plan that we are committed to, then we take Action.

Inside a Cycle
The OpenAgile system includes important structures for ensuring that a Cycle goes as smoothly as possible. Let's look in more detail at what should happen during a Cycle.

Every Cycle starts with the Engagement Meeting as we already mentioned. It includes Reflection, Learning and Planning. Following the Engagement Meeting we start working on completing tasks in the Cycle Plan. We participate in relatively brief Progress Meetings several times throughout the Cycle. These Progress Meetings are regularly spaced throughout the Cycle. The times between Progress Meetings in which we do our work are called Work Periods.

A Positive Attitude
A little detour to look at one of the principles of working in OpenAgile is appropriate here; we need to maintain a very positive outlook and inner condition. Tests and trials occur in all parts of our life, and maintaining a positive attitude is not always possible. However, we still strive to remain positive and seek opportunities to grow from all the challenges we encounter. This is not to say that we ignore problems. Rather, we accept that our inner condition can influence our environment, just like our environment can influence our inner condition. If we are happy, we express that happiness in many small ways that help the people around us to become happy. If we are content and calm, that inner feeling gets expressed in how we respond to others which in turn helps them to be content and calm. Similarly, if our environment is beautiful – if the words we hear, the music we listen to, and the things we read are positive, we are more likely to feel positive ourselves. Creating an positive inner condition is something that helps us use OpenAgile effectively.

In order to set the right tone for the Engagement Meeting, it is strongly encouraged that those people involved in the Cycle take a short amount of time to “check in” before beginning the work. This can be done as a group or individually and is intended to transition the group into a stronger sense of presence and connection to the work at hand. Try reading or reciting meaningful passages from uplifting sources to help orient your thoughts on the principles and attitudes needed. For example, try the following passage written by 'Abdu'l-Bahá: ''“I will be a happy and joyful being. I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me. I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life.”''

This short passage helps us to make our inner condition ready for an intense learning environment. Even though we might struggle or make mistakes, we are all trying our best to make progress. This outlook assists us to maintain a positive attitude that extends from the Engagement Meeting throughout the whole Cycle.

Volunteering for Tasks
Team members volunteer for tasks, usually taking on only one task at a time. No one on the team or outside the team is allowed to tell a person which task to do. This volunteering behavior is so that the team will be most effective: people will naturally volunteer to do tasks that they are most capable of.

Imagine you are working on a task in a Cycle, for example writing something for a client, and a team-mate finishes his work earlier than expected. He could sit idle, but this would be a waste of his time. Instead, he could look at the Cycle Plan and see what tasks are remaining. Perhaps there are a few, but they are all tasks that normally you would do. Does it make sense for your team-mate to wait while you do the the rest of the work for Cycle? OpenAgile asserts that all of us are able to learn. Your team-mate should choose a task, and if he does not know exactly how to do it, that's okay. It might take him longer to do it than it would take you, but you're busy anyway! By doing this task, your team-mate learns through experience (and possibly research), and therefore becomes a stronger contributor in future Cycles.

Tracking Progress
The Progress Meetings are similar to the Engagement Meeting in that they are very much about pausing to learn. The purpose of these meetings is to ensure that we are progressing through our Cycle Plan and that we will do the best job possible to complete it. The Progress Meetings are brief. We don't want to interrupt our work too much, so we keep these meetings short compared to the amount of time between these meetings. The work time should be about 30 or 40 times longer than the time spent on these Progress Meetings. For example, if we wish to have a Progress Meeting daily, then it should only last about 15 minutes. Generally at this meeting, people take turns and focus on very practical, tactical responses to the Reflection, Learning and Planning parts of this meeting.

The Progress Meeting will potentially result in changes to the Cycle Plan and will also allow us to make sure that we are getting tasks done in a timely manner. We should see that gradually over the course of the Cycle, more and more tasks are completed and fewer and fewer are left to be completed. In general, the number of tasks remaining in the Cycle Plan should gradually get closer to zero as we approach the end of the Cycle. This is a good way of understanding if we have over-committed for a Cycle – if we can see that the number of tasks remaining is not going down quickly enough, we may be able to make adjustments to the Cycle Plan.



There should be at least four Progress Meetings in a Cycle. If there are fewer, then there are not enough opportunities to learn and to adjust over the course of the Cycle. Likewise, we generally should have fewer than twenty Progress Meetings in a Cycle. Too many of them and there won't be much actual progress and learning to discuss.