Missing the Point —When “Agile” isn’t “agile”…

I touched on this topic in a blog post awhile back (You’re Not “Agile” Unless You’re “agile”…) but it’s a point well worth repeating in this context — agility is not something you do, it’s something you are. You can adopt all the trappings of any Agile methodology, you can mix and match them until you’re blue in the fact, and you can talk the talk of repeating the principles of the Agile Manifesto, but until or unless your company actually accepts what it really means to be “agile” at a very core level, you’re setting yourself up to fail…and likely to fail miserably.

BEING “AGILE” IS NOT SOMETHING YOU DO AS A COMPANY; IT’S A QUALITY THAT YOU EITHER HAVE OR DON’T; IT’S SOMETHING THAT YOU EITHER EMBRACE OR COMBAT.

Here are some warning signs that your “Agile” world isn’t really “agile”:

• If your management still wants requirements defined as fully as possible up front, you’re not agile.
• If your developers are being handed specs or designs from which they are not permitted to deviate, you’re not agile.
• If you’re working from 9/12/18 month roadmaps that define or promise deliverables at the feature level, you’re not agile.
• If your backlogs and priorities are shifting so fast that nobody knows what the next most important thing to do actually is before they commit to them, you’re not agile.
• If your developers just want to go off and do what they want, then come back and deliver whatever it is they thought was best, you’re not agile.
• If you have daily standups, but no sprint plans, no retrospectives, and no demos to actual stakeholders, you’re not agile.

Everyone who wants to be “agile” should go back and re-read the Agile Manifesto until they can recite it from memory, and they should be willing and able to push back and help educate others in the organization about what being “agile” really means — ultimately, it’s a way of approaching the business, the market, and the product as whole, not “just” a development ideology (as discussed here — What “Agile” Means to the Business). Then you should measure everything that you do as a company against these principles — do you really value “Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools”; do you really value “Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation”? If not, challenge it — and work to improve it. Until or unless a company actually adopts these principles in practice and in culture, it’s exceptionally difficult to be successful with an “Agile” approach.