How Agile Is Akin to Improvisational Theater
During the past twelve years the term agile has evolved to describe a particular approach to software development. Additionally, there are now several metaphors that compare and contrast agile to more traditional approaches other than software.
A recent blog post by improv actor Ian Schempp compared agile approaches to improvisational theater, suggesting that agile is to waterfall as improv theater is to scripted theater. In the post, he identified traits of improv theater that seem to mirror the values expressed in the Agile Manifesto, including customer collaboration, responding to change, and focusing more on entertaining the audience (aka working software) than delivering a coherent message (scripted theater).
Schempp is not the first person to identify the similarities between improv theater and agile. A few other members of the agile community have found that the collaborative, emergent nature of improv theater is a good way to explain the intangible nature of agile approaches. They have also employed some exercises that improv troops use to help teams improve their collaboration.
Kupe Kupersmith, a trained improvisational actor who also happens to be a business analysis professional, shared some of the exercises he learned as an improvisational actor with the attendees at Agile2012 in his session “Improving Collaboration and Communication Through Improvisation.” According to Kupersmith, some improv exercises can help teams with active listening, improving trust, and being open to accepting everyone's ideas.
In on the act of using improv exercises to help teams improve their collaboration, Paul Goddard has written a couple of blog posts about the techniques he uses to help teams. One of them—questions only—is a good way to teach ScrumMasters and delivery team leaders to avoid taking responsibility for and prematurely solving a team’s problem. The idea of this exercise is to give people practice in answering questions with questions to help a team solve their own problems.
Finally, Arlen Bankston and Jessie Shternshus run a workshop where they help teams improve their daily standups using improv techniques. One technique they use—“and to make matters worse”—helps identify impediments to effective daily standups. Another technique Bankston and Shternshus use involves pairing people up and having them alternate when telling a story in which each sentence must begin with the last letter of the last word of the previous sentence. This technique forces people to concentrate on what their partner is saying and prevents people from only paying attention to what’s running around in their heads.
Like every metaphor for agile, improv theater does fail in some points, but it can be helpful when viewed from the perspective of collaboration.
