Agile: The Dogmatist, The Bureaucrats, and The Realists
The Problem
I was asked to write down some notes on Agile at Quandoo. Olga, one of the editors of this publication, wanted to write a piece about the current situation and the changes we went through over the last two years since I joined as an Agile Coach.
Now as I wrote things down a very justified concern grew with her:
[…] there are more and more voices in the industry that sound critical about “Agile” as a dogmatic ideology (and, my voice was among the first ones, back in the day, in 2013, when I started sensing some dogma in what previously had been an authentic movement). As for the present times, the critical attitude to “agile” has become almost mainstream. Check this article, for instance.
The concern is valid. At the last two European Scrum Gatherings I’ve visited in 2017 and 2018, there were many sessions focusing on leadership and culture. Only few high profile coaches and trainers still use the term “Agile transformation” or similar. Instead, “Teal organizations” are trending.
Then Olga asked if we could
[…] navigate away from using the word “agile” […] and try to use some other word instead?
and if both Joakim, my colleague, and I were
comfortable with being referred to as “agile” coach?
This was when my motivation to write this piece was fueled by my anger about dogmatic “Agile Coaches”, people who spoil the reputation of a whole practice with treating best practices as the law and bureaucrats who turn each and every interaction between individuals into a process.
There you got it: The problem is not “agile” as a term. The problem is people who spread dogma instead of valuable situational coaching or advice.
Not giving up my turf
Only because loads of dogmatic people in the trade of “Scrum Mastering” and Agile Coaching ruin our reputation, I’m never gonna give up my turf. Leaving “Agile” as a term behind means surrendering. Don’t get me wrong: Never surrendering as a dogma would be wrong. My No-Go is surrendering to bad things: Dogma, people after certifications, people who want to put culture (agile!) into a process.
These people are plain wrong. Some of them will never change. Unfortunately throughout their career, some of these people sell “Agile” (the bad way) to some companies. Those companies then either
- do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons
- do the wrong thing for the right reasons
- do the right thing for the wrong reasons
but rarely - do the right thing for the right reasons.
They will be spoiled. “Agile” will be spoiled with that management, and it will be spoiled with their employees and wherever those employees move later in their career.
Why not move on to something new?
Let’s be realistic: What happens, if we all abandon “Agile” and move on to a new term?
What happens to us: It will be good. It will be easier to sell this new term, because it’s trending. We keep doing good work, help people, bring them together, help them to help themselves, spreading the same good culture, good development practices.
What will the creeps do? Those leeches, dogmatists and bureaucrats in the dress of an agile coach will run out of business step-by-step. What will they do then? You know it. They’ll just rebrand as well. They’ll follow us. Because we’re successful with what we’re doing, they’ll follow. We can’t stop them.
Sooner or later [whatever we call our new thing] will be spoiled as well. What do we do? Move on? Again and again? I’m not willing to jump on this carousel. I’ll stay right where I am.
How can we defeat the dark side?
We can only defeat the dark side like we do everything else: By fighting the good fight, by leading by example, and by authentically caring about one team and one organization at a time.
Why is it so easy to deceive people with agile bullshit bingo? It’s mainly because Agile makes no sense. Most of its concepts are counter-intuitive at first sight. Many of its practices are hard. Because they require humans to interact with one another. Changing behaviors of real humans is tremendously harder than merely changing a document that describes a process. We can only establish those new behaviors, if we prove them to work.
There will be more about Agile at Quandoo in a series of posts here, soon. It will be articles
- about authentic agile that solves problems
- that stand in contrast to people starting SAFe without having an impact on culture first
- that describe what agile truly is and rub sand out of the eyes of burned managers and teams
