The next thing in agile
When look at the current state of Agile where will we be in the years ahead?
Personally, I think the next thing will be the eventual death of Agile. There will be a shift to good business practices that embrace agility. Many things we do now as part our Agile practices are becoming standard practice, an example is daily stand up. This is encouraging, but some of the practices, such as introspection and adaption can get lost in noise of a framework.
I can’t remember where I heard it, but Agile should always be by invitation and never by force. Each time an Agile framework becomes a whip, removes the safety and is strictly enforced Agile as a whole dies a little death.
The problem arises when these practices are abused and moved to something they were never meant for. The daily stand up is a classic example, the accountability can be used to castigate rather than as a point of syncronisation. When scrum is used as an excuse for a team “going rogue” rather than to provide a safe place to grow productivity we have problems.
I love this Agile space. I’m a latecomer. I’ve lived in the land of waterfall and all the risks that they entailed, and I saw every risk realised. I love the emphasis it puts on a team having valuable input its destination and the positives of not burning people out. The core of Agile makes as much sense today as it did when the manifesto was created.
Having said that, I have seen colleagues battered, bruised and scarred from Agile implementations to the point where some almost twitch when you mention XP practices or scrum ceremonies. To be completely fair this is a people problem. The frameworks can work amazingly when implemented with compassion and respect. Too often though it seems the framework forgets the human.
I now need to introduce “agile” practices under the radar and never use the “A” word. I’m a developer, not the team lead or product owner, so anything I introduce is by invitation only. It helps. Mention Scrum and you get push back in big ways from those who have suffered under a Scrum Master that was dogmatic to the point of damage or those who had been savaged in conflict filled “retrospectives”.
When we stop using “Agile” to sell and start using agile practices to create amazing things that deliver business value without breaking the people who make them, we will have then moved on to the next thing in Agile.
