I know I'm not alone with this one and it isn't anything new but thought I'd write something about it as I find it's persistent presence really quite fascinating. What am I talking about? The Agile cargo cult.
For those not familiar the term cargo cult comes from the second world war where the natives on a South Pacific island observed how the Allied forces were receiving regular deliveries of cargo. After the forces had left the island the natives wanted to continue receiving the cargo for themselves and so would elaborately copy all of the actions and routines they observed the allies undertaking. Obviously this didn't achieve anything. The natives were undertaking a reenactment of visual ceremony without understanding the real mechanisms of delivery.
You never have to look very far to find a team carrying out the equivalent with Agile software development. It's as if the mere ritual of standing together in a huddle every morning will somehow lead to a magical transformation of performance and results, obviously it doesn't. This is often accompanied by the strange assumption that some form of 'planning' every couple of weeks somehow leads to an automatic delivery of value, obviously it doesn't. Stick a cancelled Sprint demo onto the end of it all and you've got yourself a Scrummaster standing at the end of the runway looking up at the sky and unable to explain the actual reasons for lack of delivery but promising that something will show up soon. Well, it might, but nobody knows what or when.
So why does it happen? Surely it's obvious when following a particular approach doesn't deliver any tangible benefit? Well it is - if you understand what that possible benefit is in the first place. I find many teams who's understanding of Agile starts and stops with Scrum. Actually, that statement is perhaps overly generous. Some teams have a grasp of the ceremony and artefacts of Scrum but not necessarily any real understanding of the intent behind it. So what's the fix? Better education perhaps. When teaching new teams about Agile rather than jumping straight into a particular process I think it's important to develop an understanding of Agile values, principles and ideas in general. Only once these are grasped can a team really begin to understand how to effectively utilise a particular tool or framework.
I saw a question posed a little while back (I can't remember where) asking whether it was more important to be Agile or to deliver value. I struggle to make the distinction between the two parts of the question. If you're not delivering value then I don't see how you can be Agile. Perhaps the question should ask whether it's more important to look like you're doing Agile or to be actually doing Agile and thus delivering value. If our aspirations are higher than merely implementing a cargo cult then the answer to that is surely a no-brainer.
As noted at the beginning of this post Agile cargo cult teams have always existed and continue to do so. There has arguably been a gradual shift in thinking over recent years which poses an ironic conflict with the values of the agile manifesto. Engage someone in discussion these days about Agile development and it's likely that they'll immediately start talking about Scrum or Kanban or another specific process or methodology. Moreover, the Agile world is awash with discussion around Scrum vs Kanban, pitching them against each other as if they're unrelated in concept or intent. Based on this a newcomer to Agile could easily be forgiven for thinking that the whole thing is about process, prescription and compliance. This new way of thinking is leaving us on the wrong side of the first value in the agile manifesto:
People and interactions over processes and tools.
So what do we need to overcome the persistent problem of the cargo cult, a new way of thinking perhaps? I'd argue that we need a shift back to the old way of thinking, taking our focus back to exploring and understanding core Agile values and principles. Lose sight of these and we lose sight of the purpose of our Agile endeavours in the first place. Do that and we'll soon all be looking up and wondering where the next shipment of new functionality is coming from. Who knows, but let's hope it drops out of the sky before the next demo!
No comments:
Post a Comment