111: Arie Van Bennekum
Listen to full episode:
Joe Krebs speaks with Arie Van Bennekum about the creation of the Agile Manifesto but also the time before and after the event on FEB 11-13, 2001 at the snowbird in Utah. Arie is one of the 17 authors of the Agile Manifesto, a pragmatist who accommodates his pragmatism in structure, discipline and common sense.
He is not afraid to enter untrained paths and take risks. He has done this since his first days in health care, later in the armed forces, and he continues to do so today. This has led to his special position as co-author of the Agile Manifesto. In the course of his Agile years Arie has become an expert in the field of business transformations towards Agile on the basis of strategic objectives and link this to very concrete objectives. He focuses on delivering value, bringing efficiency and creating support among stakeholders, through role and chain clarity based on the business model and the work packages.
Transcript:
Joe Krebs 0:10
Agile FM radio for the Agile community. www.agile.fm. Welcome to another episode of Agile FM. I'm here today with Ari Van Bennekum, co author of the Agile Manifesto and thought leader at a company called Wemanity in the Netherlands he is Dutch. He has a background and I have to run through this super quickly. This is very, very impressive. He has a background in healthcare, some military in there and then he started developing software in 1987. If I'm not mistaken 1993 We're dating but don't fall back here. You started your last waterfall project, which was shortly after terminated in 94. When you moved to RAD and that was the opening thing, I also see some connections to the DSDM want to explore. But then came that one weekend. And that's what we want to talk about here on the anniversary of the Agile Manifesto. It's turning 20 years. We are recording this at that time. 20 years ago, the manifesto was written and that weekend in 2001. And obviously that was a massive changing weekend for you professionally, personally, everything just changed in 2001. First and foremost, welcome to the podcast and thanks for celebrating this with me 20 years agile manifesto Ari Van Bennekum.
Ari Van Bennekum 1:34
Yeah. What what do you want to know? What do you want to know?
If I go back if, if I listen to you, right, so when I listen to you about, you know, what would you tell him about me if I was young boy, 19 years old, left high school, went into the, into the healthcare. And two years later, I went into the Army was healthcare was not my thing. In the army, I became a platoon commander in the infantry. And that was at 85-86. And then I got into my I remember my, my company commands, hey, do you want to go to the academy? No, Military Academy? I said no, not my thing. He said, If you want to, I can write you a letter of recommendation, you did a good job. No. So then I entered the world of software development. And the reason the reason I emphasize this, I was 15. And convinced I wanted to work in the healthcare, then I did, obviously a good job afterwards in the military. And I always I'm convinced that people are the architect of their own life. Or you have to make your choices and don't let you be held hostage by other people or organizations. Right? So
Joe Krebs 2:53
but these are, these are very distinct, different kinds of things, healthcare, military software, I mean, we're talking about three different, very different pillars of life, which is somehow speaks to you, right? Because you, you made some drastic changes there, and you've gone from one to another to another. And obviously, it's not like that you, you know, especially on the software side, right. So it's not only that you started going into the software world in 1987, is also that you realize something was wrong in 1993 and before. With the industry itself, right? When you went towards the RAD piece. Fill me in a little bit on DSDM. That is a very British thing. I'm based out of the United States, but DSDM, it's a very European thing. Is that the connect your had for the folks with the Agile Manifesto?
Unknown Speaker 3:40
Yeah, yeah, I did. So I am. When you go to healthcare, military software development, I think if you change you have to change really, because people tend to hang on to what they got, actually my oldest son was an Agile coach in Wemanity Netherlands, I work let's say on the international level, he worked on the on the Netherlands level. And he left two weeks ago to become a teacher at high school. He said, That's what I want to do. And I said to him, if that's what you want to do, you have to that's that's what you that if this is your belief, go architect if you don't live and that brought me to being a software developer, but I think also if you go into any kind of company what you start doing the first day you come in you listen to the old guys. Always the old guys, you know, I don't want to be offensive here. But if I look at the two of us guys, and and you do that for a while, and it took me four years and then because I started what's called Ernst and Young today, the Dutch the Dutch branch in 87. And then I switched to consultancy firm became an analyst Technical Designer. You go from one place to another then I got into the Dutch IRS did The Tax office, and there was a project that was completely up. And I thought, I will not be responsible anymore for public money. I don't want this. And I don't say I never did again. But the intention is to feel very responsible, how can I deliver value? So in 1994, I, the project was stopped. This was the last waterfall project that started in 1993, that you mentioned in my introduction. And it was really 10.15 in the morning, kicked out of the building standing next to my car, and I think, Okay, what am I going to do? So I took my car, I drove to the office, and before lunch, I spoke to five of the six managers we had, and I said, this is what I will never do again. And I thought, you know, if they fire me, they fire me, right. But I think it was two weeks later, one of the guys Willem, he gave me a call. And he said, Ari I got something I got for you a rapid application development project, he said, and I think it's really something for you. A rapid application development was time boxing, iterative development, user participation, prototyping. And I started doing this. And honestly speaking, you go to a two day session with people from James Martin associates. And then they expect you like today, you know, you get your scrum master certificate that people think that you're a magician or something. And of course, I was I always said, this is where the experimenting started. And it never stopped since. So in the rapid application development world, that little bubble that I was in, I had a couple of colleagues, we started working at the we had a pilot at the Dutch Navy, Royal Dutch Navy. And that was really going well, by the way. Very nice people good work very committed to Okay, let's try this one out. So I started doing rapid application development projects in a commercial way for the consultancy firm that I worked for, at the time, quite successful. And that is not the what I it's the way of working that made the success. And not always easy. Don't get me wrong, I mean, but then it was 1997 I switched to another company. And there was in the old company there was a guy that I work with Kor he was on my on my LinkedIn yesterday sending me a congratulations. And cautioned me I wanted to Kor after the company. I said, Go join him. And he said, Okay, he said it if we do so let's let's get connected to the DSDM consortium. And I heard about them, you know, you read in the magazines about them. So let's do this, right. And when I first time really was reading something about DSDM, it was the nine principles of DSDM at the time. And I thought, of course, reading my notes, who copied my notes, because the DSDM consortium got the intellectual property from the rapid application development user groups in the UK. So you know, same approach, same gaps, same issues, same common sense solutions. And the funny thing is, I was, I don't know, maybe I think it was late last year, I was in in a talk with Allistar Coburn. And he said to me, you know, Adi, he said, I heard you talking about we wrote the manifesto. And then a month later or so I saw the nine principles of DSDM and he said, Why didn't we put those in and then we would have been okay already, right. So and that's and I got connected to the DSDM consortium, because I am a community man. If I have something to share, I will share I will make people have something to share as well. And then when closer to me, okay, let's, let's connect to the DSDM Consortium. We talked about it, you made a decision. And then I go completely in. And I know you got I got certified DSDM practitioner consultant. And they asked me do you want to be a DSDM assessor? So I got into the DSDM community. It was 2000 that I was in Manchester. I don't know if you're well, you're from Germany, right football. Manchester United Old Trafford, the annual DSDM conference. And we had to do we so we had the UK chapter, we had the Benelux chapter Denmark, Sweden, France. I think it was India, Australia as well. And I was part of a task force the internet task force or the DSDM consortium to make sure that when we had a new chapter that we could roll out within half a day we could out on the website, completely roll it out, including content. And then in Manchester, I met Dane Faulkner and Jean Tabaka. They were from the United States, and they were invited to start North American chapter of the DSDM Consortium. Jean Tabaka sadly passed away A not too long ago, Dane I see every now and then on my Facebook or Instagram. I don't know what one of those. But Dane is a friend of Alistair Cockurn. And then got ahold of Hold on. We're going to have this meeting in Snowbird. And he said, Well, I think you know, in terms of what you guys want to achieve, you need something from the DSDM Consortium. Sure. And then I got the call from the DSDM headquarters. Hey, Ari, do you want to represent us in some way? Yes. And that's, that's the story.
Joe Krebs 10:34
That's the story. And you went there? Obviously, there's, there's a lot of interviews were given and everything. But I just want to ask you some questions about this, because this is the 20th anniversary of the manifesto. So we want to take a little bit of a data, I know there's much more going on in your life and everything. But and we're gonna go there to where it's the manifesto weekend? How did it feel? What was the mood? Like? How did you guys self organize? Like, how do people who are now this is 20 years, there's almost an entire generation now growing through the computer science degrees? Who have, you know, not seen this thing in the creation? Like what we did right? When it came out in 2001? So now, looking at history books at this, but what was the mood? Like? Were you guys in a room? Were you guys self organizing? Or were you guys on the ski slopes are a little bit of both?
Unknown Speaker 11:27
It'll be the vault I guess, know what happened. And actually, I was talking to a to a James Grenning, and Steve Miller was there. And John Kern was also there this week. And what I said over the last couple of years, then you have a group in front of you, whether it's 1000 people, or 100, or something. And I always ask what happens if you put 17 guys in a room? And then the women will shout from the audience? Nothing, right? And I said, Well, maybe but most of the time, and this is seriously the case. Most of the time, the guys will tell the other 16 that their own ideas the best. And John Kern had a beautiful expression this week, he said, we came into the room, the Aspen room, we came into the room. And we all left our ego at the door. And I think that's the one. And the reason I say this is we all started working in a different way. I just told you my motivation , value, you know, wasting public money or not. I know from James Grenning, he's into completely into quality of the big one into efficiency or whatever, you know, we have different focuses. And so people are focusing on 1,2,3 people, some people on the small team, I had 20,30, up to 94 people was my largest team that I work with. And we all had our different angles. But what we did was explaining to each other okay, so you left the old school way, the waterfall. Why, and explain how you and so we started explaining to each other. And explaining to listen 90%, of course. And most people these days listen to criticize, and we listened to understand and I think what John said you're leaving your ego at the door. I love that expression. Yeah. That was just fun. And yes, we were on the ski slopes as well. Yep.
Joe Krebs 13:36
Kind of a working agreement. Right to to leave the ego at the door. Right. And and the skiing too
Unknown Speaker 13:45
Snow, snow snow. Yeah, remember snow
Joe Krebs 13:47
a lot. It's not, you know, for nothing called the Snowbird. Right.
Ari Van Bennekum 13:51
Exactly. Yeah.
Joe Krebs 13:52
Is there anything you would like to like in hindsight, obviously, we're reflecting on 20 years, and it's easier said, you know, like now and then possibly 20 years ago now with all the information together, but is there anything you would like to see have see have not developed this way or changed at that time? Or is there anything you regret about that weekend, we would say, Oh, I wish we had done this more or less this or et cetera. Just curious from your perspective.
Unknown Speaker 14:21
Yeah. It's not about regret or criticism. But the one thing that I have shown should, what I should have done better, is if you if you look at the manifesto, the word software and I know that quite a few people of those 17 were and still are hardcore developers. But software itself doesn't do anything. And it's the way you handle it, the people that handle it, that makes it into success. And if you make a new software based product, it's the education and training of the market is It's the marketing and communication, it's appraised, right? So I would have focused more on the word, product or service. Or worse, I think that the word software has become too big. And it's not about software in the world. I'm so sorry for those who think. And for you to know, I work agile in HR teams, we do Agile recruitment campaigns, we do agile marketing campaigns. If you organize an event, you do it in an agile way. And you're all those kinds of things. And it really is like this. So for me, it's universal concept. I always because I from 1994, on, I always had those multiple teams on the different disciplines that you have to make a full delivery, as I call it. So that's the one thing and this, maybe regret is not the word, but I should have paid a little bit more attention, because now I know that it's become such a dogmatic focus.
Joe Krebs 15:57
It's actually interesting, because me included, where there are lots of people who would point out that word software is it's the one thing that stands out, it's like, it's not all about software, there's a reason why software is being, you know, initiated in those, there's a waiting to reason to fill a gap. And what is that gap? It's business, right? So. But I think we can make that that change right in our heads and apply this, I think, as many of us do. How did I did the manifesto, like in those 20 years, how did it impact your life? Maybe in the beginning? How did it what's the I mean, at the beginning, I remember signing it in the very early days, I saw it on the website, or remember that it was hardly any signatures there. And I went up there and then signed it, but there was not much going on in the beginning. So that was a slow developing avalanche, as we know now too, but how did it change you and your life?
Unknown Speaker 16:53
Yeah, it changed my career completely. A gentleman that I used to work with from the Netherlands in those days said to me once, because we had a DSDM consortium, Benelux and I was on the board. And we had a meeting. And I was just divorced. No, it was before my divorce, I guess. It was it was in the in the in the board meeting. And I don't know what it was. But it was, I think I returned on the Wednesday from Salt Lake. And on Thursday evening, we had a board meeting. And they say, Ari, you know, what have you done last week? And I said, Oh, no, I wrote the manifesto. And I sat down and I opened the meeting. I get these days, I get a lot of questions. Hey, it did you ever imagine the impact it took? No, of course not. That you go to a room? And you say no, I'm going to make something that will flabbergast the world in 20 years? No. But we wanted to make a statement. And we all had our own successes for your hard work. Not always easy. And I think that statement has come through. And I think also that Michael and Mike Beto and Jeff Sutherland Ken Schwaber. You know, they did an awesome job in promoting Scrum, which was easy access to agile and kickstarting a lot. I started No, I kept on doing what I did before the writing the manifesto. Until I think maybe eight, nine and then it became clear, okay, something is happening here. The the, before you take that down, that you see that you get traction in the market, based on what you did in the past, is something that's weird. I can tell you. I'm a country boy, right? I'm living here in Huddersfield, you don't even know what it is, even though you're from Germany, not that far away, you have no clue where it is country village, if I wake up in the morning is because the cows of the neighbors and make noise. And there you are. And it changed the world. You know, we created together a complete new professional domain, which is in hindsight that you think was this right. So we didn't foresee that impact. But what you need to know is that in 1997, I switched to a company in the Netherlands at the time called sufficient rebaptized shortly after in deficient web, and this was by far, the first completely agile organization. This is the late 90s. So before writing the manifesto, in at least at least in the Netherlands, but I think in Europe or the world, completely self organizing teams, we did everything in terms of hiring, firing, marketing, the delivery, of course, everything was there. We had seven on the people at the turn of the century, there were there were four founders of the company. You know, there was no no management. There was nothing in between it was just what we did. And when you read the manifesto, we talk about you know, trust people to get the job done and when you do Talk about things maximizing the work not done. Those were where my heart is, right? It's like, okay, this is because now I burn, steal money from my client. But I burn it in a very efficient way. And you get failure as fast as possible. So, for me that background, I was in hindsight already from 1997, when I joined supervision, I was on this jumping board and doing something different. And going, I remember going to Salt Lake, I remember that my wife said goodbye to me at the airport, you know, on your focus on I'm going to do this, that kind of commitment we all had. And that was helping me a lot. But did I foresee the impact? No. No,
Joe Krebs 20:44
of course not. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's impossible to foresee. Right. But I think one thing you are pointing out is like, just like what we talked about, before we started this this podcast together as there were several trends even in my life, like, what was the Objectory and Jacobson and use case modeling? And then yeah, there were a lot of things that had led to 2001. Right. When you when you select this as a statement, I think you just said that very nicely was a statement in the industry. That was necessary, right. But there were the years leading up with the organization you worked on the things we did in those 1990s that were indicators for change.
Ari Van Bennekum 21:27
You know, I? Because people asked me about your what do you think time? The timing was the thing? Yeah. I don't know. I think we have approximately the same age. Right. So we know, I have to explain to my boys that they're 28 and 24. How you dial a number, right? This? This video of young young guys like, yeah, 10-12 years old, an old cassette? Yeah. And they do like, Yeah, you don't know what to do with it, right. I mean, we ended, I think, from 1985 to 2005. The technology pace of innovation accelerated so it will never slow down. Don't get me wrong, but it accelerated so much. It needed something. It needed something. And also, this is why in 2001, it was a you know, the pecs was taking up. But in 2005, or 2010. It was already disrupting complete business models. So organizations had to do something. We are I think,
Joe Krebs 22:37
yeah, so some of those other 16 on that agile manifesto that signed and co authored this manifesto with you. Many of them wrote books, you wrote a book, but you're the architect of your own life, right? Yeah, yeah. But you didn't write books with agile and you saw some you wrote some with forwards you contributed. Why is that? Why did you not find your path? You personally like, Hey, let's go into and write some, some books about agile, what path did you choose? And why?
Ari Van Bennekum 23:07
two things I have always difficulty sitting sitting on a chair. So writing a book is very difficult for me. At the same time, the architect of your own life is out. And also, I am this moment in time, I working with an art publishing on publishing my second book, which is called reaching for business agility. And business agility is for me a no brainer. Because people always have to do Agile in the IT department first and then we go, I think we do Agile with a wedge for the business. We don't do Agile for the IT department gonna get lost. I have to do this together. So I am working on this book reaching for, for business agility at the moment. But I have to be honest, sitting down behind the keyboard is not my core competency. It's not Yeah.
Joe Krebs 24:01
Now it's definitely something with the writing, right? It's you're spending hours and then by the evening, you just delete the page again and says like, let's start tomorrow from scratch again, this was not a good day. Yeah, if you don't like that, maybe you need a ghost writer or something for who you just,
Ari Van Bennekum 24:17
that's my way of working. Yeah, yes, my, what I have, I have my PA and I make recordings, and sometimes the 10 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. And what she does is just typing them out, sending them back and then I got through the text. That's how it works. Yeah.
Joe Krebs 24:33
That's very cool. That's very creative. So you're currently a thought leader. Now let's look a little bit forward with a company called Wemanity in the Netherlands but more like interested in like, what kind of trends you're currently observing. I would assume business agility plays a role because you're writing a book and this is obviously a topic that engages you but what kind of trends do you see right now like for people who are like, okay, 20 years ago, the manifesto was written. Now we have seen 20 years of application of all of those things. Where we going with us, do you see anything? Any trends that would indicate we're going on path of XYZ?
Ari Van Bennekum 25:11
Yeah, I see. I have to say that we met at the headquarters in Paris. And I started together with a business development in five years ago. What is it? 2016. I started with Wemanity Netherlands, but I do now the international level. Which means I do I do cross border international transformations. That's what I like. And what I found out is that I didn't find it out last weekend, right? It's, it's still the last 15 years that you see that if you want to work agile, there are a couple of things that you need. First, you need to have the leadership team, understanding what it's all about role modeling agile behavior, leading the organizational change, and sustaining the organizational change, not doing it themselves, but making sure it can happen. So the leadership part is one. And by the way, if you have an Agile transformation that goes wrong, 95 out of 100 is because of this, nothing else. So the trend is now focusing on leadership, which is completely justified because leaders, that's what they do, because leaders are gray guys with beards over 50. Right? Most of the time, guys. The other trend is, and that's one that i The point is when you're in it, you don't see it, right? When I was working with supervision in 1997. We were hiring firing people around marketing communication around delivery with either on feedback, we, we decided on our own salaries, I raise my today I could raise my salary if I want it. So that whole thing about how do you how do you facilitate the people in your organization, a lot of people call it HR, I don't like to call a human a resource. But if you want to HR, if you want to have that real lateral thinking where people say, Can I focus on the organization, but at the same time, you know, I have my own ambition, and I bring that together. And I serve to the best that means that you have to handle your people in a different way. So on one side, how do you lead an organization? The second one is how do you handle your people? Right? Those are the big trends. And if you do that, well, then you will get to business agility because people will do it together. That's the only way. And I remember that there was a quote from Richard Branson from Virgin. And he said, focusing on my clients, of course not. I focus on my people, they will focus on the clients. And that requires something and whether people can define their own salaries or not, but it's about giving people recognition in the expertise that they have, and give them the freedom to that's a self organizing part. Okay, this is where we are sailing as a company. And your your team is okay, if you're delivering this, maybe it's it is HR, it's marketing, whatever, right, and your team has to contribute to that purpose that we are. And you decide how you do that as a team, as long as you are on the outside on the output, sorry, the output, delivering that and that's, that means that on the inside of that same team, you need to help each other as much as possible. You need to create together the platform to make that happen and to have people excel. I think that's that's going to be and it's also the millennial thing, right? And I don't like the word millennial even because that makes it a pound that makes me Yeah, and also it makes me illegal because now I'm doing discrimination based on age. But I think from that perspective, I'm a millennial. And maybe you are too, but in the mindset of you, no, I do not perceive my career in the old fashioned way. I remember way lifework balance how do I do this? So I think next from leadership, it's the how do you handle your people and then get to business agility that will end that will be that will be more than just next year and the year after?
Joe Krebs 29:29
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's a there's a there's definitely the trend of that visible right already with consortiums and conferences and just topics just in general. So while I'm, I'm super thrilled I have a little bit time here in those busy days, I would assume and your calendar where you have a lot of self reflection on what just happened 20 years ago. Makes you feel older, right? 20 years ago when you were like I know exactly where I was 20 years ago. And but for many out there who have I've listened to this podcast, that different kinds of impression here on the Agile Manifesto and some personal viewpoints. So I want to thank you for that.
Ari Van Bennekum 30:09
It's all my pleasure. And I hope that the people who are, have listened to it are all going to listen to it and enjoy it. And I always say to people, you know, I am in the situation that most of the time, when you connect to me on LinkedIn, and you just send me a question, I get it, how do I do this? You sent me the question and nine out of 10, you know, within a day you have an answer. And I think that's what we all should do. If people have a question, and you can help them forward, help them forward. That's good.
Joe Krebs 30:37
Awesome. Here we go. He's a community person, you're asking for feedback, I'm pretty sure you're gonna get some and some questions and feedback, etc. So awesome. All the links, by the way, are on the Show page, for reaching out to you and getting in touch with you, if that's needed, but also to, you know, get a feeling on. You're the architect of your own life book, as well as the business leadership book. We're all looking forward to that. Thank you so much for joining. Maybe we have a chance to talk. Maybe not in 20 years, maybe it's a little
Ari Van Bennekum 31:08
bit sooner than that. Yeah. And face to face with a nice German beer. That would be nice day. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Have a lovely day.
Joe Krebs 31:19
Thank you for listening to Agile FM, the radio for the Agile community. I'm your host Joe Krebs. If you're interested in more programming and additional podcasts, please go to www.agile.fm. Talk to you soon.
