Why the “ Agile Experience Matrix” Needs to Go
(...along with tools like it)
This blog is going to be a bit of a hot take. Industry leaders that have been relying on the “Agile Experience Model” might find what I’m going to say a hard pill to swallow. However, I cannot sit back idly and continue to see a tool used that at best, falls short of the value it was meant to provide and at worst, can lead to unconscious cultural and gender bias in the classroom.
What is the Agile Experience Matrix?
For those who have been through Agile training of any sort, I am sure you have seen the chart below. I grabbed this example from SAFe’s core coursework, but it is used in many Agile coursework materials.
The object of the activity is for individuals to, either in person or virtually, put themselves and their knowledge into a quadrant on the matrix.
The purpose of the matrix is to inform instructors at the beginning of the course who in the room has the most experience, who has the least, and the general range of knowledge. Instructors use this information to tailor exercises and lectures accordingly.
All and all, not a bad goal, and I admit to knowing that having that knowledge at the beginning of the course does help me as an instructor to provide a more focused and valuable course to my clients.
However, I believe the “Agile Experience Matrix” is not the way to continue to gain that information from our Agile community for two reasons:
Reason #1: The terms “Experience” and “Agility” are far too subjective in the Agile Experience Matrix
Take the phrase “Agility at Scale” for example. This is too broad of a term nowadays to be used to effectively gauge knowledge or understanding. There are now multiple frameworks, books, and schools of thought around scaling Agile. How am I, as an instructor, meant to gain that information from folks on what *they* mean by “Agility at scale” from this matrix without asking more questions that takes time away from the courseware.
Furthermore, what does “experience” mean in this case? Does experience mean, “coached?” “Been on an ART?” “Read a book about it?” Depending on your understanding of experience, and how much you feel that the more you learn, the less you truly know, this might change how you rank yourself on this scale.
Speaking of…
Reason #2: This matrix invites cultural and gender bias, both conscious and unconscious, right at the start of your classroom experience.
The subjective nature of the exercise and people’s ability to rank their own knowledge and confidence in understanding creates a space for bias to breed.
For example, I have done this exercise probably a dozen times, both as an instructor and a student, and have only been in one class where a woman did not rank herself lower than most of the men present. In fact, most classes I have been in all the women rank themselves lower than the men, including me. This is particularly embarrassing in person where you see the women huddled together in the “less experienced” section while the men stand proudly in their “experienced” section.
Some individuals that I have talked to about this matrix and the bias I have seen, have given me the feedback, “Well it is because women have a hard time expressing confidence in their knowledge, they should fix that, that is not the exercise’s fault.”
I fundamentally disagree with that thought process, not because I disagree with the sentiment, as women do tend to have lower levels of confidence around expressing their expertise. But, I disagree that it is a problem that needs to be fixed in this case.
When going into training, from my experience, women are there to learn and grow, we are there already understanding that we need to learn something to become better. So, in the classroom, we are not going to place ourselves at the top of experience in all things Agile. We come in with doubt and questions, and that is a good thing. Why is it a bad thing to think critically about what we do and do not know in terms of experience when a subjective question is asked of us?
There are lots of other examples I could give to break down the feminine psychology here, but the point is that whether you are white, black, asian, female, male, southern, northern, etc an individual’s personal relationship between knowledge, confidence, and social pressure varies widely and invites bias without giving the instructor the true value of the exercise:
What does my audience know and what do they have experience with?
So…How do we fix it?
To answer the question: “What does my audience know and what do they have experience with?” We need more specific and evidence-based questions that individuals can clearly articulate without having to engage with relative ranking systems.
The chart above is just an example of something an instructor could use to solicit a more focused and specific picture of the class's range of experience. Depending on your courseware and the framework you are teaching, this may change, but as an example, each of these questions are direct and easy to prove from a knowledge and experience perspective. They also build on each other in the same way as the “Agile Experience Matrix”: “Being a part of an Agile Team” can be very different from “Being a Scrum Master of an Agile Team.”
If I was teaching a SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager class, for example, and this was the spread of the knowledge in the room, I would know that most of the class does not have much knowledge or experience in Agile above the team level. I would also cater some of the coursework to allow for teachback moments for the individuals with a lot of experience to help with those with little to no experience.
This exercise can be just as interactive while taking out the ambiguity and cultural/gender bias that comes with relative ranking tools. It provides more knowledge to the instructors on what the class knows, and what they have personally experienced while illustrating to everyone else what logical progressions of knowledge and experience look like.
