The Art of the Possible

  Agile   Scrum   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)   ProjectsAtWork  

Sometimes the true spirit of Agile gets lost in burndown charts, daily standups and endless debates of what it is and isn't. That the Agile Manifesto is uncomplicated and open to interpretation presents both challenges and opportunities. So do what makes sense and continually re-evaluate what that means.

“They will NEVER be Agile!” said my colleague recently when I mentioned that I am working on an Agile transformation for a very large U.S. federal government agency.

“Well, it depends…” I replied, with a sly smile. “If you mean that they will never be like Menlo Innovations or Google or Amazon in the degree of their adoption of Agile practices, then, I would agree. If you mean that they will never be able to adopt even one Agile practice that provides value and makes them better than they are today, then I completely disagree.”

There is a tendency among some Agilists to have a “pie in the sky” ideal of what “Agile” is or should be. The standard litany goes something like this: “If they aren’t doing x, then they aren’t Agile.” Really? That sounds a lot like other comments I have heard in the past, like: “If you do not have a WBS, you are not doing project management properly.”

The best approach I have found is to look at things pragmatically, with a mind toward continuous improvement and customer delight, as Stephen Denning has proposed in Leader's Guide to …

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