Now that Agile has “crossed the chasm” according to the 2017 State of Scrum Report, and become mainstream, is it losing its way?
Consider:
A quote at a keynote address: “I love agile but I hate the dogma associated with it”
Or Susan Cain’s Book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – Stop the madness for constant group work.
Or a RFP for a government IT contract for 400 points of work .
These are all signals that agile frameworks like Scrum and SAFe are beginning to be perceived as not better ways of working.
Scott Schnier fears that agile is becoming “the man” as opposed to the liberating enabler for more productive and fulfilling work that he first met in 2000
Now that agile is mainstream many people and organizations dress up and claim they are doing agile but not really embracing the values. They tarnish the name and reputation making true adoption harder.
What should we do?
Listen and coach. Offer people enabling suggestions.
Engage a CIO or VP who wants to mandate “All new projects/releases must be Agile” in a conversation. ” Why do you think your staff isn’t begging to be agile? Shouldn’t they just need permission rather than a mandate?
Consider converting a scrum team of 7 to a kanban team of 11 and allow more individual or pair work. respect and work with the introverts.
Be a better scrum master, or kanban master. For teams beyond shu step back and challenge them more to take their own path.
Promote model teams that are happy in your organization.
Don’t bid on contracts where the customer is off the rails on agile expectations. Unless you feel extremely confident you can gain the customers trust and manage the process.
Offer micro training in disguised settings. (discovery meetings)
Your ideas?
Finally “Be agile”
