Agile understands the requirement of going slow sometimes so that the idea of the direction we are heading, defining our priorities, and bringing positive noticeable change can be achieved. Understanding fast and slow thinking helps us find more rational solutions to issues we are facing. As a human, we think that we are more rational with our thinking but our human thinking is more biased, oversimplified, and distorted. With fast and slow thinking we can identify our thinking and rectify or fine-tune thinking so that we can make better decisions and face situations more clearly.

1. How Fast and Slow
Thinking Helps in Agile

3. Being agile means exploring various options and changing behavior for
betterment. Agile starts from a change of mindset. The traditional mindset that,
obtaining success always requires speeding up the process of working as well
as thinking, is not what agile considers. Agile accepts the new concepts and
processes that can help for growth then it may be for change in processes or
thinking. One such concept that agile appreciate is of thinking fast and slow.
Agile understands the requirement of going slow sometimes so that the idea of
the direction we are heading, defining our priorities, and bringing positive
noticeable change can be achieved.
Understanding fast and slow thinking helps us find more rational solutions to
issues we are facing. As a human, we think that we are more rational with our
thinking but our human thinking is more biased, oversimplified, and distorted.
With fast and slow thinking we can identify our thinking and rectify or fine-tune
thinking so that we can make better decisions and face situations more clearly.
Whether agile or not human thinking has two systems which are explained
below.

5. System1: It is more based on emotions. It acts speedily and subconsciously. It has
no sense of voluntary control and takes little or no effort to act. Examples of
system 1 thinking involve, calculating 2+2=4, one stick is longer than another, and
one person is standing away from the other. This system 1 helps in keeping you
away from harm as it warns us about danger and acts on it in a matter of seconds.
A large part of system 1 is based on emotions.
System 2: It is based mostly on thinking logically while taking time to act. It is
more reflective and comparatively less panic driven. Examples of system 2
thinking involve, calculating tougher solutions like 245x 524= 128380, how far the
person is and what’s the length of the stick. System 2 thinking operates slowly,
reasoning and taking time for calculating. This involves our conscious and
deliberate mind thinking.
In agile we observe that most of the time teams speed up the process racing
towards the goal post without scoring any goals often just to complete the event in
the provided timeframe. These results into;
· Working on symptoms rather than on root cause.

6. • Same items are repeated as no one is ready to own the responsibility of them as
everyone is busy with delivery
• Not enough time is taken to analyze and understand the situation
• Learning is not done from the mistakes making to repeat the mistakes regularly
•Considering agile, let’s see some examples of activities in agile that should be
done fast and slowly. With this example, it will be easy to understand where faster
thinking and slower thinking should be applied in agile.
•Assuming what users will be thinking or acting on is the worst method to lead the
whole product design. There are various and quicker ways to go with product
design testing and design solution. It is good to have design product development
with prior feedback and testing from the users on what they want. It’s advised to
keep testing quickly whether at the start of the product development or after it. Try
to get early feedback from users to better the product and avoid putting your
assumptions about it by thinking yourselves. There are 1-2 hour tests and also 5
minutes of tests to carry out the task.
•

7. •Documentation is required for further references and time saving but putting an extra
lot of time is documentation will only delay the product development. Having neatly
organized documentation is good but this can also be done by sticking notes for
essential points without wasting any time thinking.
•Developing an Information Architect (IA) of a product is a task that should be done
with slow thinking. As structural change may create a mess, developing product IA
from start will be more demanding and time is required to have a market study, and
understand users.
•The blueprint of the product requires a slow thinking process as the development of a
product is dependent on the blueprint. It should involve a collective process, adapted
from product needs and user requirements findings.
•Events in agile are also an important part of agile working, proceeding with
timeboxing the events is required but that doesn’t mean going with faster thinking, it
will be good to prioritize the top 2-3 items or even one item with slow thinking to obtain
quality and reliable results from the event.

8. In short, we see that slow thinking processes must involve norms, memorable examples,
coherence, emotions, habits, and cognitive heuristics. Whereas, fast thinking must involve,
suspended judgment, logical thinking, de-biased, getting more data, formal models, soliciting
reviews, and considering alternatives. These both are required to be applied for obtaining the best
results.

9. About Advance Agility
We, at Advance Agility, are the new-age Agile Coaching, Consulting and IT services company.
We enable end-to-end Digital Transformation. Agile execution is integral to our being. We are
doing SAFe implementation with small, medium and large organization across the globe. Our
vision is to be the leading Agile execution player globally. To keep adding value at every
process stage. We are on a mission to empower our clients, move from concept to cash in the
shortest sustainable lead time by adopting human centric approach to business agility.
Embracing the change is in our DNA. Things that keep us apart are Quicker and Seamless
execution with End-to-end gamut of services. Our Global presence and Stellar Track Record
give us an edge over our competitor.
Connect with us at advanceagility.com to learn about SAFe and SAFe Implementation. We
provide various SAFe certification courses along with DevOps, Scrum, Agile Coaching and
more trainings. Write to us a contact@advanceagilty.com for any agile training or consulting
needs. We are always looking for competent agile trainers as well. So if you are a good trainer
or want to become one, do get in touch with us to that we can learn, grow and achieve together.