Agile Made in and For the Age of Disruption

FLUID SCALING TECHNOLOGY:

FOR AGILE
AND AGILE AT SCALE
The FAST Guide

Version 2.0
March 2021
Contents
Why FAST? Why Now? ........................................................................................................................................... 2

How is FAST Different? ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Where and When to Use FAST ........................................................................................................................................................... 3

What is FAST Agile? ................................................................................................................................................4

High-level Overview of the FAST Process............................................................................................................................................. 4

How FAST Works - Theory and Science ...........................................................................................................5

Chaos, Complexity, and Self-organising Systems .................................................................................................................................. 5

Open Space and Self-organisation ...................................................................................................................................................... 5

Open Allocation and Self-organisation ................................................................................................................................................. 6

Lattice Organisation ......................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Dunbar's Number and Scaling ............................................................................................................................................................ 6

Dynamic Assembly and Fluid Teaming ................................................................................................................................................ 6

Conway's Law and Reverse Conway's Law .......................................................................................................................................... 7

Intrinsic Motivation, Autonomy, and Theory Y ...................................................................................................................................... 7

Lewin's Equation, Environment and Behaviour ..................................................................................................................................... 8

The Law of Unintended Consequences ................................................................................................................................................ 8

FAST - Values, Pillars, Principles .........................................................................................................................9

FAST Values .................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

FAST Pillars ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

FAST Principles ................................................................................................................................................................................ 9

FAST Artefacts ........................................................................................................................................................10

Release Map – Seeing the Big Picture ................................................................................................................................................ 10

Feature Trees – Thinking Big While Working Small .............................................................................................................................. 11

Iteration Board (Optional) ................................................................................................................................................................ 12

Tribe Agreements ........................................................................................................................................................................... 12

FAST Roles ............................................................................................................................................................... 12

Product Director ............................................................................................................................................................................. 13

Coach ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 13

Tribe Member ................................................................................................................................................................................. 13

Team Steward ................................................................................................................................................................................ 13

Feature Steward (Optional) .............................................................................................................................................................. 14

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FAST Meeting ..........................................................................................................................................................14

Phase 1: Closing the Current Iteration - Tribe Synchronisation via Show and Tell .................................................................................... 14

Phase 2: Starting the Next Iteration - Reiterate Vision and Set Direction ................................................................................................ 15

Phase 3: Emerging Work & Self-selecting into Teams - Create and Open the Marketplace ......................................................................... 15

Adjustment Phase – Only if Needed ................................................................................................................................................... 16

Announcements (Optional) ............................................................................................................................................................... 16

FAST Meeting is Over: Starting Work - Resolve Dependencies, Design, Plan, Collaborate ......................................................................... 16

FAST Cadence and Flow ................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Small, Large, & Enterprise Scale FAST ...........................................................................................................17

Small-scale FAST - Fewer Than 14 People .......................................................................................................................................... 17

Large-scale FAST - Tribe(s) of up to 150 People .................................................................................................................................. 18

FAST in the Enterprise ..................................................................................................................................................................... 18

FAST Prerequisites .................................................................................................................................................18

Co-location, or Not .......................................................................................................................................................................... 18

Office Layout .................................................................................................................................................................................. 19

Hiring, Onboarding, and Offboarding Strategies .................................................................................................................................. 19

Diversity ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 20

Organisational Support .................................................................................................................................................................... 20

FAST and Self-management (Teal) ..................................................................................................................20

FAST Forecasting - Wisdom of Crowds ...........................................................................................................21

Continuous Improvement ...................................................................................................................................21

Reflect and Adjust ........................................................................................................................................................................... 21

Personal Mastery ............................................................................................................................................................................ 22

Setting Up for Success .........................................................................................................................................22

Training, Coaching, and Inner Work .................................................................................................................................................. 22

FAST Differentiators and Benefits .....................................................................................................................23

References ................................................................................................................................................................23

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence;

it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” – Peter Drucker

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Why FAST? Why Now?

We are in the Age of Creative Disruption, where the rate of change is ever increasing.
Innovation and disruption have become competitive advantages and needed core
competencies for organisations to survive and thrive in this era. Nimble start-ups might
have this competency, but larger organisations are often held back by size, structure, and
Taylorist1 governance models left over from the previous era - the Era of Mass Production.
FAST untethers people and organisations from the last age’s limited thinking and practices
to meet this age’s challenges.

How is FAST Different?

The most notable benefits and differentiators between FAST and other agile models:

 FAST is built on fluid teaming rather than static.

 FAST is the same system both at small and large scale.
 FAST increases employee engagement through autonomy.
 Dependency management mostly takes care of itself.

Listed at the end of the document are more differentiators.

Where and When to Use FAST

FAST is ideally suited for business environments or challenges that show complexity, rapid
change, or where there is a need for innovation. This makes FAST ideally suited for
software development and agile at scale because of its typically complex nature. FAST is
applicable to most complex collaborative endeavours; complexity is not only limited to the
software domain.

1
Taylorism is a system of management developed in the late 19th century by Frederick Winslow Taylor.
Taylorism is still prevalent today in traditional organizations.

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What is FAST Agile?

FAST Agile combines Open Space and Open Allocation to create a lightweight, simple to

understand, and simple to master agile method - that scales!

FAST is an acronym for Fluid Scaling Technology.

FAST Agile is Fluid Scaling Technology for Agile - and Agile at Scale.

High-level Overview of the FAST Process

Merge everyone into a tribe, throw the work on a wall, let individuals self-organise

into teams around the work. Repeat the process every two days.

FAST does not build on static teams. Instead, it creates a fluid network where teams form,
change, dismantle and reform dynamically. To transition from static teams to a fluid
network, start by merging teams into a tribe.

The tribe participates in cadence in the FAST Meeting, an event inspired by Open Space
Technologyi. The FAST Meeting is a planning and synchronisation meeting where priorities
highlighted, and teams dynamically form around work. Once assembled, teams break
away, plan, and deliver what value they can with the iteration’s remaining time.

At the end of the iteration, the tribe comes back together. Each team shares its progress
to ensure that everyone in the tribe is in sync with the current state of development.

Making use of the tribe being gathered, these steps are repeated, and teams again form
around work for the next iteration. Iteration length is not prescriptive. Two-day iteration
length is a recommended starting experiment.

FAST is a system for organic collaboration on creative endeavours,

from the small scale to the large.

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How FAST Works - Theory and Science

Chaos, Complexity, and Self-organising Systems

FAST harnesses the same creative organisational and scaling method of the natural world
and the universe itself – self-organisation, also called spontaneous order or natural order.
Chaos Theory and Complex Adaptive Systems show us the power of self-organisation,
simple rules, emergence, and natural order. These scientific theories emerged after
studying natural forces in biology, chemistry, the atmosphere, and the cosmos.

FAST purposefully creates a complex adaptive system sitting at the edge of chaos. In the
Age of Creative Disruption, chaos and complexity are allies to be understood and
harnessed. Chaos enables innovation and spontaneous order. Complex systems are the
correct approach to solving complex problems.

“Self-organisation is the life force of the world, thriving on the edge of chaos with just
enough order to funnel its energy.” - Frederick Laloux

Just as chaos theory marked a phase shift from classical physics and linearity, FAST Agile
is a phase shift for agile, agile scaling, and business agility. FAST is pioneering new ways
of working and is a release from these anchors of the previous era – Taylorism, linear
thinking, determinism, and reductionism.

Open Space and Self-organisation

Open Space Technology2 is a lightweight liberating structure capable of facilitating small,

medium, and large-scale self-organisation. The initial inspiration for using Open Space as
the basis for an agile method and way to scale agile happened at an Open Space

2
Open Space Technology is most often shortened to just Open Space, or its acronym OST.

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conference! Open Space is what makes FAST a complex adaptive system with just enough
chaos built-in for innovation, emergence, and natural order.

Open Allocation and Self-organisation

Open Allocation is a system of working where individuals choose what they want to work
on and rely on influence and attraction to gain followers should they wish to lead an effort.
Work is undirected, and individuals self-manage. Gore3 and Valve4 are the best-known
examples of companies using Open Allocation.

Lattice Organisation

Open Allocation and Open Space both create a complex, fluid, non-static lattice structure.
Other names are Network Organisation or a Team of Teamsii.

Dunbar’s Number and Scaling

Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, suggests that humans have a social capacity of
around 150 - Dunbar’s Number. In his book The Tipping Pointiii, Malcolm Gladwell shares
several studies showing how several groups independently discovered Dunbar’s Number
as the upper limit for cohesion in large groups of people.

Dynamic Assembly and Fluid Teaming

FAST is a facilitation process for dynamically assembling teams

around emerging work.

Drawing from a multi-disciplinary talent pool, the right mix of people swarm to innovate,
solve complex problems, and deliver value. Teams stay together only as long as needed,

3
W.L. Gore and Associates, Inc. produce GORE-TEX fabric.
4
Valve Corporation are a computer gaming company.

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and team composition is fluid based on whatever the needs are for that iteration. The
number of teams and makeup of teams is determined by different reasons such as:

 In doing the work, new work is discovered.

 Assumptions change as experiments reveal new data about customers.
 The surrounding business conditions or strategy changes.
 Constrained skills need to move between work items or workstreams.
 The tribe changes.

FAST’s fluid-structure allows the tribe to adapt to change quicker than a static-structure
could. Another benefit of fluid teaming is that the dependency management challenges
that typically plague agile at scale mostly take care of themselves.

Conway’s Law and Reverse Conway’s Law

Conway’s Lawiv states that any organisation that designs a system will produce a design
whose structure is a copy of its communication structure. FAST creates a loosely coupled,
highly cohesive organisational structure - all desirable facets in software design.

Intrinsic Motivation, Autonomy, and Theory Y

According to Daniel Pink, autonomy is the desire to be self-directed and one of the three
intrinsic motivators of why people work. By making self-organisation inescapable,
autonomy is the core of FAST.

Theory Y management comes from Professor Douglas McGregorv. Theory Y management

assumes employees are intrinsically motivated, enjoy their job, and work to better
themselves without direct reward in return. An organisation built on Theory Y encourages
participation and values individuals’ thoughts and goals.

Build products around intrinsically motivated individuals.

Trust and support them.

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Lewin’s Equation, Environment and Behaviour

B = 𝑓(P, E)
Behaviour(B) is a function of a person(P) in an environment(E).

Psychologist Kurt Lewin came up with a theory, expressed in an equation, that

environment educes behaviour. FAST intentionally creates an environment to foster

innovation, increase collaboration, and -

Untether the human spirit in the workplace.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Attempting to regulate a complex system with a complicated system results in unintended

consequences.

To effectively manage a complex system, project and people management also need to be

complex. Most current traditional business and management models are complicated in

nature, structure, and approach to problem-solving. Complicated systems are linear and

reductionist. Reductionist meaning the parts can be broken down and put back into a

whole. Linear defined as a direct relationship between cause and effect.

Complex systems, on the other hand, are nonlinear and non-reductionist. The whole is

greater than the sum of the parts, and output changes are not proportional to changes in

input.

FAST is a complex adaptive system for solving complex challenges.

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FAST - Values, Pillars, Principles

FAST Values

 Autonomy.
 Shared Purpose.
 Mastery.
 Collaboration.
 Self-organisation.

FAST Pillars

 Chaos Theory, Self-organising Systems and Natural Order.

 Complex Adaptive Systems Theory.
 Open Space Technology.
 Open Allocation.
 Theory Y Management.
 Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose.
 Agility.
 Lean Startup.

FAST Principles

 Do the right thing – for the product and the tribe.

 Mentor and be mentored.
 Be T-shaped – a generalising specialist.
 Law of mobility – if you are not contributing or adding value to your team,
move to another team.

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FAST Artefacts

Release Map – Seeing the Big Picture

Release Mapping is an extension of Jeff Patton’s Story Mappingvi. The difference being that
a Release Map contains high-level elements only. Examples of high-level items are
features, aspects, capabilities, desired outcomes, business goals, initiatives, and
opportunities. The Release Map can be a way to visualise what is in or out of scope for a
release and measure progress at a high level. Finer-grained details of high-level items are
represented in their respective Feature Trees.

Figure 1: Portion of a Release Map

“Information radiators make problems visible, telegraph progress,

and are an enabling mechanism for self-directing work.”

Mary and Tom Poppendieck - Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit

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Feature Trees – Thinking Big While Working Small

Whenever work starts on a high-level item,

create a Feature Tree. Using a Feature Tree,
a team only breaks down a high-level work
item at the last responsible moment. Just
enough and just in time. The goal is
understanding, discovery, and planning how
to deliver a feature incrementally and
iteratively. A Feature Tree is an information
radiator and a way to contextualise and track
work items.

As work gets broken down from high-level

Figure 2: Feature Tree
Showing nodes started, not started, and finished
into subcomponents recursively, a structure
of branch and leaf nodes form. The current
state of progress made toward a feature is
evident by the visibility of nodes as started,
not started, completed (or removing
completed nodes from the tree).

At no point is the goal to break the tree down into its entirety in one sitting. Doing so risks
treating a complex issue as complicated and does not consider nor allow for emergence.
Break down nodes as needed for understanding or progress only .

“It’s in the doing of the work that we discover the work we must do.” - Woody Zuill

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Iteration Board (Optional)

The Iteration Board borrows from Open Space’s Bulletin Board 5. The Iteration Board
visually represents a marketplace of work. The board shows what is happening in the
current iteration and who is on which team.

Each column on the Iteration Board typically represents a physical collaboration area for
work. To constrain work in progress (WIP), limit the number of places available to the
marketplace. On the board, this would mean restricting or removing columns.

Tribe Agreements

Tribe Agreements is a living document that describes the rules and mechanics of working
in the tribe. It is there to create and protect psychological safety and autonomy within the
tribe. It captures the essence of - how do we want to be together? How do we want to
treat and be treated by each other? At a minimum, it must include:

 How do we make decisions?

 How do we resolve conflict?
 How do we change the tribe agreements?

Take caution not to go down the bureaucracy rabbit hole. Keep it light.

FAST Roles

Other than the Product Director and Coach roles, all roles can be overloaded, i.e.,
individuals can fill multiple roles.

5
The Bulletin Board is sometimes called an Agenda Wall at an Open Space Conference.

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Product Director

The Product Director role is one of product management and leadership. It is less a

position of authority and command than of inspiration. Responsibilities include –

motivation, encouragement, communicating a clear vision, direction setting, and providing

feedback.

Coach

This role is to observe the system and to coach. Have at least one coach per tribe.

Tribe Member

A tribe member is a T-shaped team player committed to delivery, collaboration, learning,

and personal mastery.

T-shaped people are generalising specialists. They are highly skilled at a broad set of
valuable things (the top of the T) and have specialisation and expertise (the vertical leg of
the T). Tribe members need to have generalist skills. There may be times when their
expertise domain is not required, but they can then still contribute with a generalist skill.

Team player is a term for individuals with both the capacity and preference for working
collaboratively.

Team Steward

Team Steward is a natural leadership6 role where a Tribe Member has chosen to steward

some work in an iteration. Teams are fluid in FAST. Team stewardship is also fluid,

flexible, and not static.

6
Natural leadership is leadership that emerges from a chaotic event. The FAST Meeting is part chaotic event.

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Feature Steward (Optional)

Because teams are not static, it can make sense for at least one person to stay with a

feature to see it all the way through. Feature Stewards provide continuity across iterations

and are a point of contact for questions from the business. Stewardship can change with

mutual agreement. A Feature Steward is not necessarily a Team Steward. They are not

required or expected to work on the feature they are stewarding in any given iteration.

FAST Meeting

There is one meeting in FAST - the FAST Meeting. The FAST Product Director typically
facilitates the FAST Meeting where the current iteration is closed and the next started.

FAST Meeting goals:

 Collective Consciousness - Everyone in the tribe is in sync with the current state.
 Dynamic Assembly - The emergence of teams around work.
 Shared Vision - Alignment around vision and direction.
 Empowered Execution - Autonomy in the execution of work.

FAST Meeting phases:

Phase 1. Closing the current iteration - Tribe synchronisation via show and tell.
Phase 2. Starting the next iteration - Reiterate purpose and vision, set direction.
Phase 3. Self-organising into teams around work - Create and open the marketplace.

Phase 1: Closing the Current Iteration

- Tribe Synchronisation via Show and Tell

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A representative from each team briefly presents a summary of the work their team
attempted in the last iteration, highlighting value delivered and discoveries made. Show
and tell may include brief demonstrations.

Once all teams have completed their show and tell, the iteration is declared closed. Clear
the Iteration Board - if there is one.

Phase 2: Starting the Next Iteration

- Reiterate Vision and Set Direction

Each FAST Meeting is an opportunity for the Product Director to align, rally and reinspire
the tribe by reiterating the product vision, mission(s), and purpose. The Product Director
may choose to set priorities or direction for the iteration. The Release Map can be a useful
visual aid for this, and why having it on permanent display in the forum is recommended.

Phase 3: Emerging Work & Self-selecting into Teams

- Create and Open the Marketplace

The idea for a marketplace of work items comes directly from Open Space Technology and
is the underlying process for facilitating self-organisation and Dynamic Reteamingvii in
FAST. Any Tribe Member can stand up in front of the tribe and declare their intent to
steward a goal. The goal may be related to priorities just announced. Or not. For example,
a team may decide to do refactoring or architectural work. FAST is a high trust
environment where the FAST Principle of Do the Right Thing should always be one’s initial
assumption.

Once volunteers have stopped coming forward to steward work or the WIP limit has been
reached, the marketplace is declared open. Tribe Members then self-organise into which
team they would like to join. If using an Iteration Board, Tribe Members put their names
into the slot associated with the goal they are most interested in working on.

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Teams might be a component team, a feature team, or other. Teams have the autonomy
to do whatever they feel is the right thing needed to move the product(s) forward. At
times it can make sense for parallel work streams on the same challenge. For research
and innovation, this is particularly true and not uncommon.

Adjustment Phase – Only if Needed

Adjustments are unlikely and unusual, but if needed, they would happen here. If the
Product Director perceives incongruence with current priorities or veering away from vision
or mission, they may suggest changes to team makeup or work items. Again – this is
unlikely and should be used rarely and with caution in a self-organising system.

Announcements (Optional)

The tribe being gathered is an opportunity to make announcements. Announcements may

be unrelated to work in the iteration but still relevant to the tribe.

FAST Meeting is Over: Starting Work

- Resolve Dependencies, Design, Plan, Collaborate

The dynamically formed teams now go to their chosen development area and plan. Each
team tasks out their work and agree on how they will collaborate. Should a team identify
that they are likely to clash with another team or have dependencies, they meet with the
other team(s) and discuss. To resolve dependencies or clashes, they might:

 Merge.
 Pick up some other work.
 Have a design discussion, then plan if and how to divide labour.

The best teams, architectures, experiments, and designs

emerge through self-organisation.

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FAST Cadence and Flow

FAST is a flow system. Iterations are not time boxes for fitting work into.

FAST uses cadence for synchronisation of shared understanding and the pause between

iterations as a sensing point to adjust teams or work items if a better fit makes sense.

What was discovered in the last iteration? Has our understanding of the work and

customer changed as we completed items? Did any metrics change? Etc.

A tribe needs to discover the shortest synchronisation cadence that feels right. A two-day

cadence is a recommended starting experiment.

Small, Large, & Enterprise Scale FAST

FAST is an agile method that works small scale, large scale, and everything in between. It
is the same process throughout, with only a few minor differences.

Small-scale FAST - Fewer Than 14 People

Small-scale FAST replaces and supersedes Scrum7.

Use small-scale FAST when the tribe has about fourteen people or fewer.

In small-scale FAST, collaboration units are smaller than a team but should be at least two
people. When two, pair programming is a recommended collaborative practice for
software development. For collaboration units larger than two, Mob Programming viii is
recommended.

7
What Comes After Scrum? by Ken Schwaber.
https://kenschwaber.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/what-comes-after-scrum/

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Large-scale FAST - Tribe(s) of up to 150 People

The maximum size of a FAST Tribe is Dunbar’s Number: 150 people. Once a Tribe exceeds
Dunbar’s number, split and spin-off a new Tribe. The result is a portfolio of Tribes. In a
FAST portfolio, FAST Product Directors meet for portfolio discussions.

A Tribe is typically responsible for only one product or value stream in its entirety, but
multiple products for a Tribe is feasible. In the case of multiple products, the Product
Director can be singular or plural.

FAST in the Enterprise

In Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World, John P. Kotter

describes strategies for how an enterprise can operate under a dual system. The reasoning
and applicability of his ideas are a perfect match for FAST inside an enterprise.

“Dual systems, which can handle strategy in a very different way than is the norm
today, are helping people to thrive and win.” - John P. Kotter

FAST can fit in with other Agile Enterprise methods such as FLEX, SAFe and BOSSA nova ix.
BOSSA nova is of particular interest as it shares many of FAST’s values and has Open
Space Technology as one of its pillars.

FAST Prerequisites

Co-location, or Not

The most effective and efficient method of conveying and receiving information is
face-to-face conversation.

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It was a co-located Open Space Conference that was the original inspiration behind FAST.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the only option for Open Space Conferences was to host
virtually/online. The technology worked, and patterns for virtual Open Space were proven.
These patterns and technologies promise that FAST can work in a distributed system when
co-location is not possible.

People interactions are always richer and less prone to signal decay when done face to
face. To improve tribe performance through higher quality communication, and increase
the likelihood of innovation from in-person serendipity, co-locate if possible.

Office Layout

An ideal office layout for FAST would be to have a large central forum to facilitate the
FAST Meeting and team collaboration areas coming off or nearby. Having the Release Map
on permanent display in the forum is recommended.

Hiring, Onboarding, and Offboarding Strategies

A FAST tribe needs a critical mass of self-directed and team player people to work. Hiring,

onboarding, and offboarding strategies need consideration for getting the right people and

offboarding those not suited for this way of working. Even more optimally, try to identify

people capable of personal and collective high performance.

Team Players: In the book Tribal Leadershipx the authors describe a tribe emerging once

there is a critical mass of collaborators. Tribal Leadership terminology for this is reaching

Stage 4. This critical mass of people is more interested in winning as a collective than

winning as individuals.

Self-directed: For self-organisation, a critical mass of the tribe needs to be self-directed.

Collective Intelligence and High-Performance Teams: Google’s Project Aristotle is a

revelation into what makes teams high performant. The two traits found consistently in

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high-performance teams were that individuals spent equal time talking and had higher-

than-average social sensibilities.

Individual High Performance: Look for individuals that show a commitment to continual

improvement and mastery of their craft.

Diversity

While the tribe needs to be cohesive, it should not be homogenous. Diversity of people

and thought is important for many reasons, including innovation. At times the tribe may

well be running parallel experiments against the same hypothesis because of diverse

views. Parallel experimentation is recommended for complex challenges.

Organisational Support

Executives and managers in an organisation running experiments with FAST should focus
on creating the environment, workspace, and tools to help the tribe perform at a high
level. This is mostly a matter of protecting the tribe’s autonomy and staying out of the
way for emergence and self-organisation to occur spontaneously. Managers need to act
per Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y.

FAST and Self-management (Teal)

FAST can intentionally be used as a step in a Teal8 transformation, work seamlessly with a

current Teal structure, or work outside of Teal altogether. It is up to each organisation to

determine the boundaries between self-organisation and self-management. Documenting

these boundaries in the Tribe Agreements is an option.

8
Teal is an organisational theory that advocates enabling workers' self-management and to adapt as an
organisation grows. It was introduced in 2014 by Frederic Laloux in his book on Reinventing Organizations.

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FAST Forecasting - Wisdom of Crowds

Traditional estimation methods were designed for complicated systems, i.e., linear
systems that are reductionist and deterministic. In contrast, complex systems are
nonlinear, non-deterministic and non-reductionist. Attempting to use traditional methods
for estimating complex problems is a mismatch, burdensome, and waste of time.

In complex situations, FAST suggests instead using Wisdom of Crowdsxi estimation.

Wisdom of Crowds estimation9 is a quick, simple, and lightweight process. Ask everyone in
the tribe for their guess and average them. Repeat the exercise as work progresses and
discoveries made if there is a need for updated forecasts or accuracy.

Whilst Wisdom of Crowds is the recommended forecasting method when there is a

genuine estimation need from the business, it is not currently a formal part of FAST.

Continuous Improvement

Reflect and Adjust

At regular intervals, the tribe reflects on how to become more effective,

then tunes and adjusts behaviour.

FAST is not prescriptive on how to implement the agile principle of reflect and adjust.
Each tribe should experiment and discover what works best. Some ideas and options:

 Form a FAST Guild that meets on cadence.

 Host a regular Open Space Event with the theme – Reflect and Adjust.
 Add a Turn Up the Good section to the FAST Meeting.

9
Another name for Wisdom of Crowds estimation is Blink Estimation.

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Personal Mastery

Personal mastery is continuous improvement at the individual level.

FAST fulfils two of the three internal/intrinsic motivators that Daniel Pink addresses in his

book Drivexii - Purpose and Autonomy. Do not ignore the third intrinsic motivator -

Mastery. Find ways to invest in and support every tribe member’s mastery of their craft.

Some examples: guilds, communities of practice, daily learning hour, training budget,

conference budget, meetups, research time, kata time, book club, and book budget.

Figure 3 - Daniel Pink’s Three Elements of Internal Motivation

Setting Up for Success

Training, Coaching, and Inner Work

FAST as a method is simple to understand and simple to master. The hard work comes in
the ever-ongoing people and interactions work. When it comes to such work, have at least
one coach per tribe to help people see and become better versions of themselves, be
better collaborators, and all-around better people. Tribe members should continually be
working on bettering themselves and their interaction skills such as listening, learning,
communicating, mentoring, influencing, and leading. Invest in coaching and training.

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FAST Differentiators and Benefits

 FAST builds on fluid teams instead of static teams.

 FAST is the same process at small, medium, and large scale.

 FAST increases employee engagement through autonomy.

 Dependency management mostly takes care of itself.
 Drastically less time spent in meetings.
 FAST is lightweight.
 Low overhead cost, as no agile master per team is needed.
 FAST is a pure complex system.10
 FAST is simple to master.
 Constrained expertise is easily shared.
 Emergence over planning.
 FAST optimises for design, discovery, and delivery - not just delivery.
 FAST is as much a Teal framework as it is an Agile framework.

References

i
What Is Open Space Technology? https://openspaceworld.org/wp2/what-is/ [Accessed 20th June 2020]
ii
Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by Stanley McChrystal
iii
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
iv
Mel Conway’s Home Page - http://www.melconway.com/Home/Conways_Law.html [Accessed 11th Feb 2021]
v
The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor
vi
User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product by Jeff Patton and Peter Economy
vii
Dynamic Reteaming: The Art and Wisdom of Changing Teams by Heidi Helfand
viii
Code with the Wisdom of the Crowd: Get Better Together with Mob Programming by Mark Pearl
ix
Company-Wide Agility with Beyond Budgeting, Open Space & Sociocracy: Survive & Thrive on Disruption
by Jutta Eckstein, John Buck, et al.
x
Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organisation by Dave Logan and John King
xi
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business,
Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki
xii
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

10
Scrum is a boundary transition technique between complex and complicated, i.e., not a pure complex system.
Kanban is a complicated system.
What's next for Agile? With Dave Snowden https://youtu.be/EGgyksE_kgg

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