Why I'm avoiding to call myself an agilist
Although my Linked In title, and how I have to introduce myself when I'm at events attending or speaking — otherwise, people will not understand what I do. I'm taking a little bit more care to refer myself as an agilist lately. But, Why am I doing this?
Well, I’ve been talking with a lot of agilists, agile coaches, scrum masters, agile masters or any other titles people are using recently and I realize that most of them are blindly following the Agile Manifesto, but without analyzing if the values makes sense to the context that they are living, and their companies are passing at the moment.
Do you remember the agile manifesto values? Let’s take a look:
Some agilists forgot that even the Agile Manifesto says that:
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
So! Actually there is value on the right side of the statement. But it seems some people read it in a different way, like:
That is, forgot everything on the right, the only value is on the left.
When you focus on individuals and interactions and completely forget about processes and tools you are creating a culture full of happy people, with high autonomy, but zero alignment. People do not have a defined process, or a pattern of tools to work. And what will it cause? A total mess on the company process, and completely chaos during the onboard of a new comer. Agilists must understand that process must serve people, you don't let process aside, you adapt it to the context. Otherwise, you will get an Extreme Go Horse Process, with a lot of happy unproductive people.
The second value is working software over comprehensive documentation, you saw it? Comprehensive is the word, not none. Even a good written code is a documentation. If you focus in a working software, that only the person that wrote it will understand. What will happen when it needs maintenance or evolution? The only person that could provide it, is the one that wrote it. And what if she or he leaves the company? Will you never touch it again? Will you rewrite the code from the zero? A working software culture is awesome, since it generates a readable and maintainable software.
The third one, about the contract negotiation, since I'm not a business guy, or a sales one, I really prefer to not talk about it now. So let's jump to the last value.
Responding to change over following a plan. I really love this one. Agilists thinks that it means, no plan at all! let's follow our hearts! But following a plan sometimes it's good. Changing a lot, responding to a infinite number of changes may sounds awesome. But, what could you deliver, if you are changing every time? I always remember the tweet a friend of mine made a few months ago:
Imagine how many times you get lost, or you made your team get lost by making unnecessary changes, just to be "agile". How many capacity or velocity went to the forecasting's heaven, just because you wanted to "change fast", with no good reason, just to be "agile". Remember, sometimes setting a plan is already respond to a change in a chaotic culture that have no patterns or processes. Thanks Lucas Mazza! I always remember this tweet when someone talks about responding to change.
I don't want to be an agile hater, not at all! Even because agile pays my bills :P I just want to understand a little bit more of the purpose of it into the mind of some agilists.
It may sound crazy, but I still see people-centric agilists that don’t really cares about the process and only look at mood histograms to manage teams and projects. And when I talk a little bit about goals and data analysis they look me as I’m a executioner, using metrics as guillotine.
I just wrote this to take a weight out of consciousness. And to read, read, read and read again, and try to figure out “Am I being too grumpy?”. But, after write a lot, and do some critics to the Agile Manifesto’s A side and how agilists are applying it, I didn’t answer why I’m avoiding to call myself an agilist, right?
The point is, I believe that some agilists became a certain kind of radical religious people-centric individuals. That don't allow you to talk about process or data, only people are important and nothing else matters. It’s like the agile manifesto turned into a dogma and who dares to question it, deserves to be burned at the cute retrospectives bonfires. So, if been agile is to blindly follow a dogmatic truth without questions or adaptations, or even evolutions, then I prefer that people call me a project manager.
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