Improvisation at work? “Agile” is not without principles and rules
Improvisation at work usually has quite pejorative associations – strategies, plans, systems, principles of action and cooperation seem to leave no room for spontaneity. On the other hand, “Agile” appears as a remedy for rigidity and the need to adapt to changes in the environment or react to the unpredictable.
Where to find the golden mean? How to create space for self-organization, creativity and initiative in the rules and principles?
“Agile” as improvisation in the face of environmental variability and multitasking
It should be remembered that “Agile” is not devoid of principles and rules, because working in iterations is an imposed solution.
Unfortunately, quite often we may come across the erroneous understanding of agility as the speed of reacting to the changing environment, creating and implementing ideas without time to think. The result is most often wasted energy, not only due to the implementation of unverified ideas, but also many ideas at the same time.
The fact that multitasking is ineffective is proven by studies such as “Multitasking: Switching Costs” conducted by Stanford University, in which scientists focused on examining the effects of switching between tasks.
Participants had to perform two tasks simultaneously, such as tracking an object on a screen and remembering a sequence of digits. Researchers analyzed the time participants needed to complete the tasks and the quality of performance.
