SABOTAGE GUIDE

In our quest to improve ourselves, we often strive to become faster, more efficient, and better. However, in war, the opposite is true. On 17 Jan, 1944, the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS), today’s CIA, created the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual”. This now declassified manual outlines simple actions that ordinary citizens can take to destabilize or reduce progress and productivity without drawing attention to themselves.

 “Interestingly, some of the manual’s recommendations still manifest in our work today, albeit unintentionally.”

Interestingly, some of the manual’s recommendations still manifest in our work today, albeit unintentionally. You may have come across one or two of these “recommendations” in your own interactions with others. Here are a few examples from the manual that we should strive to avoid with our agile methods:

1.  “Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don’t deliver it until it is completely ready.” Agile working is founded on the principle of continuously delivering valuable software products early in the development process. This iterative approach, also known as Continuous Integration (CI), maintains product quality and ensures that the product meets the customer’s needs.
2. “Make speeches. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your points by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.” Timeboxing avoids endless discussions by limiting the duration of certain meetings. This enables the team to remain productive while only certain team members dive into separate, technical discussions. The task of timeboxing is assigned to Scrum Masters.
3. “In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers or poor machines.” Prioritizing the product backlog is one of the main tasks of the product owner. Communicating the content and priority of the backlog items transparently ensures maximum value is created with given resources.
4. “When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration”. Attempt to make the committees as large as possible - never less than five.” The size of teams should be carefully considered. Each additional person in a team multiplies the communication channels and leads to increased complexity. According to the ScrumGuide, teams should be small enough to remain nimble and large enough to complete significant work within one iteration.

It’s fascinating to see how a document from 1944, designed to cause chaos, unintentionally supports Agile way of working, which emphasizes early and often value delivery, close collaboration with team members and customers, and continuous improvement through iterative work. This sharp contrast highlights the importance of fostering an Agile Mindset, as well as Agile Methods and Tools.

The entire “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” is available on the Homeland Security Digital Library.