Comments on: Potemkin Agile http://www.m3p.co.uk/blog/2007/12/30/potemkin-agile/ Working software daily Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:28:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.3 By: Keith http://www.m3p.co.uk/blog/2007/12/30/potemkin-agile/#comment-83 Keith Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:05:57 +0000 http://www.m3p.co.uk/blog/2007/12/30/potemkin-agile/#comment-83 Like Clark I came away from XPDay, and especially the mojo-fest with a pretty sour taste in my mouth. It's great that Gus and Simon are doing well at their client, long may it continue and more power to them. At the same time, I don't think I was alone in finding a (perhaps inadvertent) subtext to the whole "excellence" theme, viz that they are doing it right and we-everyone else-aren't. Handing out sheets with Ken's preposterous claims about the finality and perfection of Scrum didn't help, either. So, I absolutely absolutely agree that "any approach where what people do is misaligned with the organisation is compromised" Doesn't that mean that in, eg, an organization where not upsetting the furniture police *really is* more important than any promised improvement in productivity from moving stuff around to make pairing easier, it is more aligned to not move the furniture? Even as "compromised" as that is? I'm not making this up. Such an organization is surely operating far below its potential, but why is it down to a team of programmers to fix that before they start a project, as uncompromising excellence would seem to demand? You and I both know that one failure mode for Agile is trying to force it into a culture where consistent, on-time delivery of working, tested software in truth simply isn't much valued (whatever the management may say in public). What does the excellence model have to say about that? It sounds as if Gus and Simon have found a client where consistent, on-time etc is valued, and thus their uncompromising stance is actually pushing at an open door. Great! We all should have such clients. But until then, what? Even in such an organisation, many people can make their lives somewhat better by doing some Agile. Are they to be denied this in the name of uncompromised excellence? Like Clark I came away from XPDay, and especially the mojo-fest with a pretty sour taste in my mouth. It’s great that Gus and Simon are doing well at their client, long may it continue and more power to them. At the same time, I don’t think I was alone in finding a (perhaps inadvertent) subtext to the whole “excellence” theme, viz that they are doing it right and we-everyone else-aren’t. Handing out sheets with Ken’s preposterous claims about the finality and perfection of Scrum didn’t help, either.

So, I absolutely absolutely agree that “any approach where what people do is misaligned with the organisation is compromised” Doesn’t that mean that in, eg, an organization where not upsetting the furniture police really is more important than any promised improvement in productivity from moving stuff around to make pairing easier, it is more aligned to not move the furniture? Even as “compromised” as that is? I’m not making this up. Such an organization is surely operating far below its potential, but why is it down to a team of programmers to fix that before they start a project, as uncompromising excellence would seem to demand?

You and I both know that one failure mode for Agile is trying to force it into a culture where consistent, on-time delivery of working, tested software in truth simply isn’t much valued (whatever the management may say in public). What does the excellence model have to say about that? It sounds as if Gus and Simon have found a client where consistent, on-time etc is valued, and thus their uncompromising stance is actually pushing at an open door. Great! We all should have such clients. But until then, what? Even in such an organisation, many people can make their lives somewhat better by doing some Agile. Are they to be denied this in the name of uncompromised excellence?

]]> By: allan kelly http://www.m3p.co.uk/blog/2007/12/30/potemkin-agile/#comment-82 allan kelly Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:04:36 +0000 http://www.m3p.co.uk/blog/2007/12/30/potemkin-agile/#comment-82 To pick up your last point... it might not actually be so important to be aligned with the business. There is some research that shows that effective IT departments which are misaligned are more valuable than ineffective IT departments which are aligned. Link in my own blog about this http://allankelly.blogspot.com/2007/12/it-better-to-be-effective-or-aligned.html And some more where I related this to Agile http://allankelly.blogspot.com/2007/12/business-alignment-agile-failure-and.html To pick up your last point… it might not actually be so important to be aligned with the business. There is some research that shows that effective IT departments which are misaligned are more valuable than ineffective IT departments which are aligned.

Link in my own blog about this
http://allankelly.blogspot.com/2007/12/it-better-to-be-effective-or-aligned.html
And some more where I related this to Agile
http://allankelly.blogspot.com/2007/12/business-alignment-agile-failure-and.html

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