10 years of Agile

Written by Angeline Tan Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:04

One of the last essays from our shoart-list of entries to our essay competition. The winners will be announced tomorrow (16 September 2011). Without further ado here is Angeline Tan's story of 10 years of Agile.

10 years of Agile: Still more of the same

Some months ago I blogged the top ten list on how to spot a rogue Agile Silverback.  The feedback was varied with many questioning what I was hoping for to come out from my blog post. Some friends were worried about my standing in the Agile community as my describing the behaviors of some Agile Silverbacks who were also signatories of the Agile Manifesto was considered to be bridge burning and professional suicide.

My goal is simple. I want to share my sentiments that there is not need to put up with and condone bad behavior and for a community to be vibrant there has to be accountability by its thought leaders. Agile is not a cult, Agile is a way of work and a way of life. It is all about continuous improvement and integration. So, does Agile walk the walk and talk the talk? My contention is no.

It is appropriate to be deferential to the thought leaders who have paved the way to make Agile main-streamed, changing the way we work.   It is even perfectly alright for them to make a living out of their intellectual property, they worked hard and deserved being paid for it. However, there is a time when they get carried away and stop being the venerable and respected member of the very community they started. What went wrong? The stranglehold they have on their product? Idol worshipping by sycophants too heady and exhilarating to give up? Or, it is just the malaise of the human condition to look at the established existing leaders of the community without open dialogues, only behind close doors and whispers.

And we ask, what could we do about Rogue Silverbacks?   What could we do for the growth and innovation in our Agile community? By being deferential to the Agile Silverbacks, are we, as a community holding ourselves back like sheep in a herd.

The Japanese model of learning Shu, Ha, Ri translates roughly to start learning by following closely, then as one progresses, learning evolves to adapting when rules are broken for adaptation or adjustment. Finally, when one departs from the basic framework to each his/her own comfort to use the knowledge to innovate, transform, or revolutionize the craft. I brought this up because in the last 10 years of Agile, it has been more of the same. The only difference is that there are more certifications for the various frameworks of Agile. Scrum, the predominant framework has seen negligible evolutions except for the evolutions the “Certified Scrum XX” certifications. The Project Management Institute (PMI) is certifying Agile now. For full disclosure, I was on the PMI Agile Content Validation Task Force as a PMP Agile practitioner. Why? you ask, I thought that if PMI is going to certify Agile, I wanted to assure the Agile content being tested are not flimsy as in other certifications. And yes, I still have some some residual PMP in me. Scrum and PMI Agile are not the only culprits in the certification circus. I have some wanting to certify Kanban, XP, TDD; some wanting to be a book-keeping service to certify certifications like the International Consortium of Agile (ICAgile) , and true story, I have met someone who proudly told me that he has certified himself Certified Lean Agilist. Seemed like everyone is pursuing some kind of certification or busy trying to create the need for certifications. The energy is put in all the wrong places which, in my opinion, could be better use to improve on the currently Agile frameworks that help people do their best work in the best possible environment for quality products.

I think Agile at 10 is past the Shu and Ha stage. There has been some Ha activity but still more of the same. Somehow there is an unspoken reluctance, albeit it may be my own imagination, for the community to move into the Ri stage. I would hazard a guess that since most of the status quo are still pushing and profiting from the same o same o, there is very little incentive or motivation for any action just as long as the Agile cow keeping provide the constant flow of milk. I am not against taking profits but as attention is put on that it is tantamount to being complacent while the impatient fringe minority is trying to do something about it. As I am writing this, this tweet came into my timeline: jasongorman I love that #ALE2011 seems to be inspiring some notable folk to question and even resolve to drop the "Agile" label #agilewilleatitself 9/8/11.

At the recent Inaugural San Francisco Agile Conference 2011, Lean Startup was introduced as a track and the Agile community who attended was blown away at how it answers the questions and plugs the holes of existing Agile Frameworks. Lean Startup did not come from the “Agile Community” per se, it took an entrepreneur, Eric Ries, who culled from Agile and created a framework that has hypothesis testing, measurement, and validation. These steps are to provide data for make pivoting decisions. Many supposed a pivot is a change of decision/s, it is not. Pivoting is a change of strategy/ies. Similarly, Steve Blank, an entrepreneur turned professor came up with iterative Customer Development. While the face of Agile is changing, most Agile workers, trainers, coaches are still, for example: teaching planning poker to estimate stories complexity instead of uncertainty. We as a community should start to continuous improvement, demand for quality in Agile, yes, Quality in the frameworks and most important of all, hold the thought leaders responsible for the updating their materials, revising old ideas, and be engaged with the community to have ears on the ground. And we need new blood in the Agile body of knowledge. Even so called waterfall PMI has a new edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) on a regular basis updating and reflecting the “real time” state of project management. Some Agilists may have disdain for PMI but there is no argument PMI is at least better in its attempt in continual improvement revising and updating the PMBOK.

Come on! Agile community lets wake up from our complacencies, we are capable of challenging the status quo, come up with fresh ideas, have better processes to make work rewarding and fun, lets stop relying on the Agile Silverback to set and provide the context. I am not calling for a revolt. I am calling for action. Action to stop taking the same old route and make existing frameworks better, or hell, come up with even better frameworks. And yes, you can do it. You are on the field fighting Agile battles, convincing the unbelieving, leading the way how work doesn’t have to be drudgeries. Yes, you can because you do the work and you know what works and doesn’t. As I have told a young man who wants to write some pretty hot software and when told it was already done, he accepted it without much thought. I asked him a question; even if it has been done, why can’t you make it even better? Revolutionized what has already been done? This, my Agile friends is what I want to leave with you. There is no right way but always a better way. I am not encouraging you to burn bridges because I would have been cavalier and irresponsible. Agile is about people, people are resources and support. However, I want to play devil’s advocate by sharing the following quote with you about sometimes necessary and bravery needed bridge burning:

“I hope that all those bridges i burn light my way to bigger and better things. - Unknown”

 
Reference
'How to spot a rouge Agile Silverback', http://agilemeister.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/how-to-spot-a-rogue-agile-silverback/.