Last week I visited a customer of mine. He showed me around in his new office and explained to me how his business unit was doing agile. He introduced me to agile team members and showed me around in the agile room where all four walls were covered with post-it notes. His goal for this year was to make his business unit an example of agile adoption for the rest of the company and prepare for the whole company to become agile next year. I asked him: “Why do you strive for this goal?”. “We need to implement agile since this is the way we do successful projects”, was his response. Agile has become a goal in itself, rather than a means to achieve your objectives.
The method that delivers results
I learned a valuable lesson in one of the first commercial bid processes I ran. I asked the executive contact of my prospective client: “What method do you prefer for running this project ?” He looked at me and said, “I want you to use the method that delivers me results.”
Agile has become a set of rituals
Over the past few years being agile has evolved towards using scrum, sticking post-it notes on the wall, doing obligatory 15-minute stand-up meetings, working in sprints and doing planning poker. We are agile when we execute the rituals of the methodologies and are constantly looking for confirmation that we are “doing agile right”. Herds of agile coaches are standing by to tell us what you can improve, and we accept this since we all know agile is based on continuous improvement.
Let’s think about the question “What is Agile?”
It is a mistake to classify agile as a gathering of methods and tools. Agile is a property and indicator of specific behavior. A cheetah can move in an agile way, it is not agile. The same for a team of developers. The team itself is not agile, but it can demonstrate a flexible and goal-oriented behavior. Let alone an agile wall…. will this wall spontaneously move around… don’t think so. What does the senior management want to achieve when they ask us to “implement agile”?
Our executive management want us to “Maximize the business value of our work”.
And to make this happen, we do certain things. We uncover risks in an early stage and manage uncertainty. We respond to changes in requirements, business priorities, technology, and our customers. We know our management is impatient, our product manager is impulsive, and our customers are erratic. We deal with change all the time and minimize the cost and impact of change when it happens. And we accept reality is always different, despite the best-laid plans
Our management and our customers want maximum value from our effort. And we think that working in an agile manner is the best way to achieve this. Keep this in mind.
Why use an agile methodology
The objective is not being agile; the objective is to achieve business results. When you get this you are half way in adopting agile practices. Keep your eye focused on achieving the result. Sometimes being agile really does not help to get you there. Thinking for yourself and making sensible decisions about your work does. And you might discover that these practices will probably end up being agile practices. Not because you want to be agile, just because you need to achieve results. So please stop trying to be agile and consider using agility in order to achieve your business results.
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