As a Scrum Master, have you ever been in a situation where you were in a team discussion and you agreed to a team decision because everyone was in for it, although deep down you were not really inclined or in agreement with the decision? Also, did it happen that at a later point in time, most, if not all, of the other team members shared a similar feeling that they agreed to a particular decision because they didn’t want to disagree with the rest of the team?
If you have found yourself in the situation above then you have encountered the Abilene Paradox. I came across this concept a few days ago while reading a management article and could relate to it.
The Abilene Paradox
The idea was put forward by management professor Jerry B. Harvey in the early 70’s in his article "The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement". The core idea is, often a group of people collectively take a contrary approach/decision to their own individual preference just because they want to avoid a disagreement or want to be a part of the group. In Gen Z terms it can be termed as FOMO ;).
The Context
To explain the idea further Professor Harvey describes a story of family drive to the city of Abilene.
There is a family of four - Father, Mother, Daughter and Son-in-law. On a hot afternoon in Texas, they are playing dominoes while sitting on their porch. When suddenly the Father suggests that they make a trip to Abilene to have dinner.
The mother thinks to herself, "why would anyone want to go to Abilene in such hot weather, I would rather stay at home." But instead of sharing this thought she says - "of course let’s go, I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time," thinking that the father is enthusiastic about the trip she doesn’t want to be a spoilsport.
Hearing the mother’s agreement, the daughter chimes in saying - "I am ready for an adventure." However, the thought that is really crossing her mind is quite opposite - “Abilene, in such heat. Absolutely not. But Mom and Dad sound so enthusiastic, let me not spoil their mood. Let me be a good daughter.”
The son-in-law who is usually very reserved and is not at all interested in making this trip still says - "sounds good to me," because he thinks everyone else is onboard and doesn’t want to come across as antisocial.
So now they all get in their car and go on the drive. The drive is long, dusty and really, really hot. When they arrive at the restaurant in Abilene, the food is not good and the whole experience is just awful.
The Aha Moment
On the way back, someone says (dishonestly) that it was a great trip. The mother now jumps in stating that she would have preferred to stay at home but joined in just because of the enthusiasm of the father. The daughter states that she came along only to keep Dad and Mom happy. The son-in-law says that he didn’t enjoy it at all but didn’t want to be considered antisocial so he went along to keep everyone happy. The father states that he only made the suggestion because he thought everyone was getting bored sitting at home.
Now everyone is sitting dumbfounded that they all took a trip which none of them actually wanted to go on. They all would rather have enjoyed the afternoon sitting and relaxing at home.
The Paradox:
Despite the fact that not a single person in the family wanted to go to Abilene, they all ended up going because each individual mistakenly believed that everyone else wanted to go. They acted contrary to their own desires because they perceived a false consensus within the group.
Why Understanding Abilene Paradox is important for Scrum Masters
For Scrum Masters, the Abilene Paradox is an important concept to understand. It is all about group dynamics. If people do not speak up because they just want to feel part of the group, that’s sheep mentality.
This also highlights that the Scrum Team doesn’t provide psychological safety for people to speak their mind. When people don’t challenge ideas, don’t speak up for themselves or simply agree for the sake of it, collective ownership of the team is lost.
Thirdly, Scrum Teams thrive on Transparency and are supposed to make critical decisions throughout the product development process and at various events and activities, whether it is Sprint Planning or Product Backlog Refinement. Decisions made under the influence of the Abilene Paradox will be suboptimal and lead to waste.
Understanding the paradox keeps the Scrum Master vigilant about it and its subtle implications on the Scrum Team.
What is the Impact of Abilene Paradox on Scrum Team
When a team is infected with the Abilene Paradox, it leads to a lot of negative consequences. To list a few:
Loss of Transparency
When team members simply want to conform to the common notions without any rationale or evaluation they stop making their thoughts visible. When team members stop sharing their ideas and just want to get along, it leads to loss of transparency. Over a period of time this will eventually erode the trust within the team.
Stifled Creativity and Innovation
When there is lack of transparency, team members often stop challenging each other’s ideas. No one is willing to evaluate the pros and cons of different possible solutions. Diversity in thought is lost. Teams start to settle for “whatever” everyone agrees upon instead of finding better alternatives.
False Agreement and Commitment
Since mostly team members just want to get along there is a false sense of agreement. Even though someone disagrees with a particular approach they just back the popular thought. And since one is going along with a popular thought even though they don’t agree with it, there is never a 100% commitment.
Reduced Team Morale and Engagement
When teams do not commit to common goals, do not really collaborate but just have a handshake in name of collaboration, bad things happen. First and foremost, quality goes down; that leads to increments which are not production ready. Secondly, no increments leads to no feedback thus no improvement. Thirdly, disgruntled customers. All this impacts team morale and engagement.
Conclusion:
Being the facilitator, whose key accountability is to improve effectiveness of the Scrum Team, a Scrum Master has to be aware that they are not falling for the Abilene Paradox. They are not conforming to the decisions of the Scrum Team for the FOMO factor. Also, they need to be sure that other team members are not getting impacted in this way and that they are not conforming to a decision or a choice because they incorrectly believe that’s what the majority of the team thinks.
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