Agile work as a habit

Not all jobs can be done remotely. I’ll start with this premise, perhaps obvious to many, because I still find myself debating on social media with people who counter with simplistic arguments, trying to pontificate about which tasks are compatible with remote work. The job market has never been in such a state of flux as it is now and, thanks to a major technological push, we can confidently say that Generation Alpha will perform tasks that have not even been imagined yet. On the other hand, repetitive or low value-added jobs are constantly subject to automation. So yes, not all jobs are compatible with remote work, but the trend of jobs that can be done remotely is steadily growing.

With that premise, in the near future every company will inevitably have to structure itself to be full-remote compliant. The remote work experience during the emergency period catapulted companies and employees into the pressing need for IT tools that could enable communication and work from home. However, the urgency with which companies had to respond to these demands prevented them from focusing on other, equally important, aspects of remote work.

As I explained in a previous article: remote work kills. The shift—forced or not—to a distributed model, no longer centralized in the office but highly interconnected, inevitably pushes companies to structure themselves properly, and to kill old and outdated practices. Remote work does not kill company culture, but exposes it, revealing its weaknesses. It goes without saying that introducing remote work into a poorly organized environment or in the absence of a true project methodology is highly risky. And that is what happened in the vast majority of cases during the pandemic emergency. So what are the first precautions to take in order to face this transition effectively and smoothly?

Not an exception, but a (healthy) habit

According to some theories, it takes 21 consecutive, uninterrupted days to turn an activity into a habit. More recent studies, however, have shown that it takes 66 days, even intermittently. Whichever theory you prefer, you must keep in mind that creating a habit has a cost. If the phrase “we’ve always done it this way” locks you into a static balance, you should expect additional costs to shift from sliding friction to rolling friction. Breaking old, well-established patterns to embrace new practices requires a very significant initial effort, which will then tend to stabilize once the organizational machine is up and running.

With this premise, and setting the goal of approaching remote work, we can outline the list of ingredients for a successful recipe:

• Study. As with any new “subject,” the starting point is studying the state of the art. One of my previous articles collects 12 points of reflection as a starting base; in any case, the goal is becoming aware of how a full-remote company operates.
• Plan. Once ideas and questions are collected, you need to start drafting an operational plan, including which business areas will be involved, and what technical or organizational challenges may arise. Organizing the various steps into a timeline with milestones can help track progress.
• Involve. The operational plan, both in its creation and implementation, must necessarily be shared as widely as possible. This process of openness will allow potential issues to surface early, not during execution.
• Destroy. If you imagine that the current project approach—assuming a valid one exists—does not work with the new remote work model, you will need the courage to remove any obstacles to change.
• Rebuild. Starting from the company’s foundations and then working up through the various departments, everything must be rebuilt through agile design that supports remote work.

As you can well imagine, the introduction of remote work within a company is a complex process, of which this article highlights only a few critical points. Beyond being broad, it is also a continuous process over time, so it does not end the moment you are ready for implementation. From my personal point of view, there is no such thing as remote work without agile design. Team decentralization requires a different organization, no longer based on hours, but on goals. The ultimate aim remains to improve company productivity and minimize employee stress.