Off late I am hearing a strange statement and very often. And that too from my close circle of friends those who are working in different MNCs at different positions, mainly Software Engineer, Sr. Software Engineer, Testers etc.
The statement is, “We hate Agile.”
Gist of most conversations is like this: Our company adopting to Agile and now we are doing projects in Agile. We deliver in sprints. ‘What’s the issue in that?’, I inquired. As Agile encourages to welcome last minute changes, we keep getting lot of changes from client regularly and that too at last moment of planned sprint delivery. Our PM/management too supports that. We must stretch and try to meet sprint delivery/ client demands which asks for lot of rework and burning. We have to stretch and work Saturday and Sunday also to meet demand. We really hate Agile.
I wondered in amazement is this Agile Project Management philosophy stands for!! What is going wrong?
Knowledge is Power. But knowledge misused could turn out to be a tool for exploitation too. With fire, food can be cooked and serve to others or fire could be used for destruction too. Everything depends on who is using and with what intention and how.
Sure, that Agile stands for customer satisfaction, incremental, time boxed delivery, welcoming changes at any phase of delivery. But at what cost? Or the beautiful philosophy of Agile which encourages too for team empowerment, collaborative approach of project delivery getting deformed and misinterpreted?
If any philosophy is adopted, it should be implemented for what it is stand for, not for benefiting a segment by deforming the meaning of principles.
Few pointers on Agile Transformation among many–
Customer (Business provider) Satisfaction – Yes, should be taken care. But care should be made not to cross the laksman rekha. I read tag line of a company which says, “Those who interacts with us are customer - external or internal”. In that sense, employees too are customer for an organization. So, Agile principle works here too.
Sprint/Incremental/Time boxed Delivery – Developers, team members should be empowered. They must be given the power to decide what to deliver in a sprint once prioritization is set. In ideal situation, PM or Scrum Master doesn’t dictate the team. Target which are not met for any reason are transferred to other upcoming sprints rather than stretching out.
Our focus mostly revolves around above 2 principles while we talk about Agile, but we forget that that is not all about Agile. Without embracing below principles, Agile transformation often turns out to be Fr-Agile
Sustainable Pace – this is an important principle of Agile is to work at sustainable pace rather than getting burned out.
Organizational & Cultural Alignment – the most important factor in Agile transformation for an organization. Half-baked transformation attempt often fails and attempt of Agile becomes Fr-Agile. Collective effort and measure should be taken by all from top to bottom for the transformation.
Embracing failure and learning – Agile encourages to be courageous to create an environment which is ready to embrace failure and learn & grow from it, not punishment.
Customer Involvement/Collaboration - This is most important factor of success. Involvement of Client/Business SPOC/End Users with delivery team is very important through out the project for the success of project and in every aspect. If that comes with Agile mindset, that adds more value. Silos - are a great risk for Agile delivery and derails complete process and outcome.
How apt Ken Schwaber was when he pointed out: The problem we face has nothing to do with process and technology, but with People.
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