Back in 2001, without knowing it, I took the first steps on my Agile journey. The steps were not taken in my Organizational Behavioral class at Cornell University as you might assume (although I do wish I had kept that textbook–it would be fascinating to read and reflect on now!), but rather in the Formula SAE lab in Cornell’s Upson Hall. Let’s take a quick time-travel journey back so that I can explain.

 

Cornell’s Formula SAE team has existed since 1986 and has won multiple world championships at the annual FSAE student project team competition since it was founded. As you would expect at a college or university, the students on the team were constantly changing each academic year, so the continuity of team members was not what set this team on a repeated path to success. What was consistent for the team was their advisor, Professor Albert George, and his focus on supporting the broader team with two ideas—continuous improvement and cross-functional teams.

 

Without Agile labels (the Agile manifesto was literally being written the same year I joined the Cornell FSAE team), the team was testing and iterating on their individual component designs, looking at how they worked together for system dependencies, and seeking feedback from stakeholders on an ongoing basis.

 

I get it. This sounds like a hardware story for how I was learning Agile. But it really isn’t. For me, this story is about the first chance I had to see teams work in this way and could think about what that would mean for my contribution to the team. I was on the team as part of the Business Team. I was in charge of the fundraising materials for corporations, alumni sponsors, and local businesses. We had to secure more than $30,000 in cash and in-kind support to ensure that we had all the parts and resources to build the car that the team designed. Indeed, this role made sense for me because I had just spent a summer interning at the Michigan Women’s Foundation, learning about grantmaking, and was thinking about entering philanthropy for my career (which I did in 2002). In my role with the FSAE team, I learned to secure cash and in-kind donations from corporations by trying different email outreach messages and phone call scripts to help keep my message focused, and then adapting based on which ones worked. I also learned that alumni of the team were incredibly proud of their past role in the team and were eager to support us either with cash donations (they had never been asked before!) or with connections to their employer’s giving program. What made the work even better than what I had originally created? You guessed it—the input of my peers on the team. Although none of them were in the fundraising space, their technical expertise helped to make my work better every time—to ensure that the language I used to describe their mechanical designs was accurate, and to confirm the way I described the types of in-kind support that would be meaningful for the team (I gained a new appreciation for heat-treating car parts to make them stronger and less likely to break in competition!). I learned to value feedback from those with different roles and backgrounds than mine to make the work I was trained in stronger, just like those heat-treated car parts.

 

As much as I learned from iterating on the fundraising work I was specifically contributing to the team, I also had a front-row seat to watch how students on the team were learning through iteration in the weekly meetings, where team leads would showcase the latest progress in their engine build or the custom shocks or the body design. I watched other students and, occasionally, our advisor give feedback and ideas for consideration. When someone was giving an estimate for how long a large project would take to complete, I listened to Professor George say more times than I could count, “Add a zero and change the units.” I watched a team of 30 students take sketches literally on a whiteboard and in design software, and turn them into a functioning race car that went 0 to 60 in approximately 3 seconds.

 

 

Can you spot me in the 2022 world championship team photo?

 

It took time in my “professional” Agile journey to realize where my Agile roots were really based—and now as I retrace my steps, I can see a clear path back to where I learned to iterate in a team setting. I’m curious to know, as you retrace YOUR steps, where you learned to iterate. I’d love to hear in the comments!