When groups invite me to help them in successful new collaborations, I use the model I've evolved over the past 20 years called the Agile Canvas. It's a set of 5 conversations that keep people continuously focused, realistic, aligned, inspired and productive in any kind of collaboration. The Agile Canvas is designed to simply and successfully guide any kind of group through any kind of new collaboration. New collaborations are characterized by a dynamic constellation of common realities.
- From beginning to end, there are more unknowns than knowns
- It is human nature to feel a sense of loyalty to our assumptions
- Everyone comes to the table with their own agendas
- There is no single right way to define success
- The group never has all the resources it desires or demands
Each of the 5 conversations on the Canvas works from each of these factors.
No matter what a group encounters in a new collaboration, the Agile Canvas guides them in a way that engages their strengths and realizes their potential together. Without a model like this, groups unnecessarily struggle, waste time, argue, fracture into factions, get off track, disengage people, make things more complicated than they need be, do more talk than action, create more motion than traction and ultimately define success as bringing in someone who can save them.
None of these things happen because we lack the right people, resources or support. It's because we haven't yet start using the right model to energize and organize our collaboration.
In the Agile Canvas world, whatever people, resources and support we have are always the ones we will succeed with. The Canvas is a simple, portable and powerful model that makes this difference.
