Editor’s Note: This newsletter was originally published on July 26th, 2021.
Happy 20th Birthday To Agile!
It’s humbling to think that I’ve been IN software development for longer than the Agile Manifesto has been around! I started in May-June of 1998 alongside one of your fellow subscribers.
#ShoutOut to Scot Chartrand (@sflone) himself!
Side notes for Scot:
- Congratulations on UF’s single-year residence atop the SEC East. (Be sure to keep things tidy as the actual property owners atop the mountain will be retaking the spot! LOL!)
- Thanks for the addition of Kyle Pitts for our Atlanta Falcons as his freakish skills will be most welcome for the next few years.
- If your extensive travels find you near Autin, Texas, or Normal, Oklahoma, be sure to relay our most gracious welcome to the soon-to-be newest members of the middling class of the SEC (Oklahoma & Texas) who will no doubt find random moments of success against its upper echelons.
As I mentioned, I’ve been involved in software development since before the Agile Manifesto (February 2001) and it’s amazing to see how quickly its ideas both took hold and, alternatively, became an industry unto themselves.
I’ll share some observations and links in this week’s larger writeup, but it is interesting that some of our most valuable analyses of Agile thought and processes still deal more with the interactions between people and how we work as opposed to the work we’re doing. It is also important to look for areas where our Agile exercises have struggled.
If you are in software development like me, I would love to hear how your experiences with Agile Transformations or working in Agile organizations. If yours is similar to mine, the smaller the focus and smaller the groups involved, the quicker and more effective the progress we’ve seen.
As with everything, the problems and wars are fought along the boundaries. That’s also where the best stories are born!
P.S. Last week’s newsletter (A Little Bit of “Normalcy”) shared some preliminary thoughts relevant to Agile Transformations. Specifically, how we’ve evolved from a focus on co-located teams (both positively and negatively) as well as thoughts on Ownership and Accountability which underlie some of the most difficult challenges in organizations trying to introduce Agile principles.
If you didn’t check it out, be sure to go back so you get the more complete picture.
Assuming that you’ve read last week’s ideas on Accountability, Ownership, and Prioritization that were in the Week 55 newsletter, those topics are fundamental to evaluating success for Agile Transformations within organizations.
In the twenty years since the Agile Manifesto, there have been many methodologies developed for the implementation of its basic principles. Some were in use or formulation with the original publishing date; others have evolved since.
Interestingly, challenges that existed before or have arisen in the subsequent decades often manifest in the same ways that they always have.
Prioritization / Importance
The Agile Manifesto is a simple and easily understood set of principles. While simple and easy to understand, they are more challenging to implement (and even more difficult to follow).
The challenges with Agile Transformations (as with other endeavors requiring human interaction & coordination) are frankly us, the Humans. Human capability and performance are the variables in projects. It is those variables that leaders and planners have been trying to “manage” for millennia.
Specific to Agile, one problem arises when implementors and adherents misinterpret the Manifesto’s meaning as it relates to which things we value over and more!
The above quote intentionally highlights those things like “Individuals and Interactions”, but it more distinctly highlights the fact that we value them over the others and more than the others. By valuing them over and more, that in no way means we do not value the others!
If you are experiencing challenges and conflict in your Agile Transformation, be sure that your teams are not misinterpreting lesser importance for some activities as no importance. For many software developers and technical professionals, activities like documentation, contracts, processes, and tools are “not as exciting” and an Agile Transformation poorly implemented can empower them to ignore them altogether.
Along The Boundaries
A second challenge that arises often manifests near the collaboration points between “Agile” teams and other “non-Agile” parts of an organization.
Conflicts of “Agile Estimating & Planning” quickly arise when organizations create Yearly Budgets and multi-year plans within their Accounting and/or Finance groups. They usually spring up where there are dependencies upon IT organizations (following process-heavy mythologies like ITIL) or Customer/Product Support groups who operate in a much more tactical, response-based environment.
Often, these problems highlight the differences between “doing Agile” things and “being Agile” from a cultural standpoint.
Individuality In The Team Setting
The third challenge for implementing Agile methodologies comes from the difficulties of managing individual capabilities and performance within a truly team-based setting.
Agile’s principles are based upon the idea of self-organizing and self-managing teams. Under this model, the participating individuals are fully engaged and avatars as it relates to their cross-sectional skills and personalities.
In the real world, some personalities don’t mix well. More socially comfortable and extroverted team members can often overwhelm their quieter companions. Technically experienced members can discount newer colleagues (along with their ideas) even when their fresh perspective might bring greater benefit. Some people are simply unable to separate personal differences from their professional experiences damaging team capabilities and performance.
Add to this list the cultural shift away from co-located teams and to more remote interactions, it is easy to see how the promises of Agile Transformation often fall short in its delivery.
Note: For some hints on having more effective virtual meetings, you can check out this link.
Was It Worth It?
Even with these three big challenges to Agile implementations, the benefits we have attained over the past two decades speak for themselves.
- We are definitely better off starting before we know “everything” and making forward progress on work enabling us to see value and results earlier.
- We are definitely better off having people doing the work estimating its size and scope.
- We are definitely better off allowing customers and users earlier opportunities to provide feedback and enable pivots/adaption.
- We are definitely better off enabling conversations and closer relationships between those asking for features and those who are providing them.
The paces of change and advances that we have enjoyed since the creation of the Agile Manifesto would have been impossible were we still developing software the way we did 30-40 years ago. It is difficult to imagine a 2021 reality using 20th-century capabilities like “green screens”, tab-focused data entry, and batch-based processing.
We have truly come a long way in the past two decades so a Happy 20th Birthday to Agile Principles is well deserved!
It will be equally exciting to consider the future of Agile as we continue trying to resolve some of the above challenges that still plague us. The next 10-20 years are likely to be just as exciting (if not more).
Editor’s Note:
For those who have read the history of how the Agile Manifesto came into being, there is a humorous footnote that I shared with my wife, Stephanie as I was gathering my thoughts for this post.
Her quote summed it up: “It really had to be a bunch of Computer Geeks & Nerds who met at a ski resort for the weekend and came out with a set of principles focused on software development!”
How’s that for some #Bazinga humor?
For those checking out the book reviews, I reviewed E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. You can check out my notes at this link.
Keep a lookout as I just finished One Million Followers by Brendan Kane and will be posting my notes for that one soon.
On the topic of Work and How We Work, this was a quick hit video that I did previously highlighting one challenge in the software development realm. Everybody loves the productivity and capabilities of the “Cowboy” or the “Magician” who can act/make changes with “agility”. The conflict arises when we try to “create a process” around what they do.
Note: We’ll pick back up with Reading Seth Episode 2 next week.
Other Links
Here are some additional links if you’d like to read some more about the Agile Manifesto, its history, challenges with Agile Transformations, and how it is evolving today.
- The Importance Of Being Agile
- Agile Software Development Principles & Team Structures
- Old versus New Agile
- Agile At 20: The “Failed” Rebellion
If you need some help with your Agile Transformation, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email so that we can chat.
Being Is Harder Than Doing
This post highlights the difference in our actions versus instilling a vision & values. While the decision to change behaviors is a big first step to any change, it is the mental aspects and beliefs that enable long-term success. By focusing on the journey as much as the destination, we can initiate growth and consistency.
Alternative Investments to Look Into (Gary Vaynerchuk)
As with the rest of our culture, the world of investing is in a constant state of disruption. Along with historic vehicles (like stocks, real estate, etc), there is an influx of newer, early-stage investment categories and platforms. While it is a dangerous game to play where you are unaware, focus and education are more widely available than at any time in history. There is usually little success in perpetually switching contexts and focus, but small-scale pivots and experiments can often reap solid returns.
As a child, I did things I shouldn’t have done because I worried what others might think of me.
— Ryan Deiss (@ryandeiss) July 25, 2021
As an adult, I didn’t do thinks I SHOULD have done because I worries what others might think of me.
Peer pressure is painful.
And expensive.
