Cargo Cult Agile (2008)
jamesshore.com
jamesshore.com
I know the author meant to contrast real communication or collaboration with process - but I feel the opposite. The most effective orgs I’ve been apart of were characterized by clear ownership and autonomy, not by sharing work and consensus. There were clear owners in each area of the business and they had autonomy to deliver results in whatever way they wanted.
Contrast to most startup management culture I’ve encountered, where nobody is responsible for anything because “everybody’s an owner” and “every decision is a team decision”. The idea of code owners is widely rejected in favor of development by committee, under the guise of agile and sharing knowledge. The now widespread practice of requiring PR approvals to merge anything epitomizes this lack of ownership and expertise hierarchy.
A high bus factor means there’s no lynchpin, but no lynchpins means nobody at the organization is actually effective.
"We have sprints" is not "Agile". Neither "we use Jira", nor "we have retros".
Term "Agile" has been stolen from us, butchered and it's dead body had been turned to scarecrow. And now all those "agile couches", "agile offices", "certified scrum masters" are dancing around it's corpse.
But there are some of us, who worked in truly agile team, we witnessed it in it's glory. We remember when it was alive.
If you worship Cargo Cult, you aren't doing "Agile" despite the name. Period.
Agile certainly works, I see how people around me are finishing projects and customers are happy.
Are you sure people finishing projects thanks to agile and not despite agile?
It is apples vs oranges. Management often means intolerable beraucracy, snail pace and huge amount of useless reports and other never read docs.
Agile is just an approach that tries to minimize all that. Instead, stakeholders should agree on the best way they should work. They are using tools and processes that help, not encumber.
Only according to sellers of agile-snake-oil.