The cult of Agile revisited
From the Agility and Project Leadership Blog
by Don Kim
Almost a year from today, I wrote a post on the cult of Agile where some in the community were so adamant in their beliefs and passion for Agile being the one and only true way to manage software development projects (and in some extreme cases, all projects), that they come accross like cult leaders that borders on religious extremism.
A case in point: my blog post on the metaphorical comparison of Scrum, the most popular of Agile methods, and how the popularity mimics the rise and success of a global brand such as McDonalds, was shared on the Scrum Alliance LinkedIn group to see what other Agile PM professional thought about it.
Here's a response from a Scrum Alliance group member Ken Ward, an Agile trainer and proponent (I would normally not list a person publicly in this instance, but the person in question did post his opinion in a public forum so I think it's fair to credit the statement to him):
"Is Scrum becoming the McDonalds of Agile?" what you mean the old 'waterfall' and 'PMP' way was better? does not that imply the 'PMP', 'Waterfall' way is the 'cesspool' of past failures!!? Scrum does 'get it' 'Done" if companies can not adopt the Agile or Scrum frameworks and do it correctly because they cannot give up the 'old school' 'command and control' failures of past days the failure is the fact that they, the company only wants to 'throw it over the wall' and then 'blame ' the failure' on the IT department . they have to get into the game and accept their responsibility to drive the development and take the 'ownership' of deciding what it is they need in terms of software and take the responsibility for their own 'failures' if they can not determine what it is they need developed!! Lets say 'PMP' and Waterfall" is the 'cesspool' of IT failure and not compare Agile and Scrum as a "McD's'...
Personally speaking 'McDonalds' is the cesspool of 'fast food' and cannot, should not and will not be compared with the likes of 'Scrum', McDonalds is Scum, and 'Scrum' is Agile. I take offense at the charactization of 'Scrum' with McDonalds and "I'm not loving it"! Bad choice of comparison. Yes that is the 'point' I was making!!
This was my response:
I think a vitriolic attach on "waterfall" or "PMP" is not warranted and will only polarize the traditional and Agile camps even further. In addition, it discredits the movement as well, which would be a shame since in certain situations Scrum is a great method. I've been involved in software waterfall projects that went quite well due to having the same ingredients required for Agile to flourish (organization support, adoption, etc.) and just as there are multiple flavors of PM techniques, there is correspondingly a wide diversity of projects which require an evaluation into whether Agile, waterfall or a combination thereof is needed. Rationalism should prevail.
To me this is a cautionary tale to not take our pet methods or practices too seriously. They are just tools to help us complete projects, for as I stated nearly a year ago, "in the end, all that matters is whether your project was done on time, within budget/scope and most importantly, to customer satisfaction. No one will care whether you did Agile, traditional or voodoo magic."
Posted on: January 05, 2013 01:21 PM |
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Comments (4)
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Kenneth Katz
Release Train Engineer/IT Project Manager| UnitedHealth Group
Enfield, Ct, United States
I am a big fan of agile in general and Scrum in specific, and have been a strong advocate of same in my company.
I cordially detest the cult of agile, whose true believers preach that agile is a panacea and perfect, and if you deviate even one millimeter from doctrine, you are evil and a heretic who will burn in hell and doomed to failure. I'm a big boy, and generally regarded as fairly intelligent, and when I deviate from Truth it's not because I am ignorant and misguided but because I recognize that some of the necessary conditions for Scrum "by the book" are not present, and so I need to adapt. I have had true believers in the cult explain to me that I need to essentially let projects fail to show the powers-that-be that only the One and True Path should be followed. But they seem to lack understanding that (1) I don't run my organization, and (2) I'm not paid to implement the One and True Path. I'm paid to manage projects, in the messy real world where things are not optimum, and as long as I do that competently and with some success -- which I do -- I am satisfying the people who pay my salary. And if I must choose between pleasing the cultists and pleasing the people who pay my salary, I know what will be my choice.
As I said, I really do like agile, but the cultists irritate as much as the their predecessors, who promised me salvation if only we had one more document and did better on defining requirements.
Completely agree with the views above. I think we need to really take a look at what suits our project and organizational context. By definition, a project is unique and so one approach/methodology will never fit all. We need to look at both PMP and Agile as a set of best practices from which we choose what works for our context.
http://www.hrishikeshkarekar.com
Harlan Bridges
Consultant, Coach, Trainer, Speaker, Program Manager, Project Manager| Entrepreneur
Seguin, Tx, United States
One of the constant misconceptions I see over and over is that the PMBOK and project management is somehow tied to waterfall and is inflexible. I have managed many kinds of projects, IT, business, product development and communication among others. Truthfully, the only place where I have experienced this confusion of development process (Agile/Waterfall, etc) and project management is in the IT world. SDLC and PMLC are different processes. They may overlap but they are not the same.
No where does PMI advocate an inflexible application of the processes and tools of project management. In fact, the PMBOK advocates a flexible application of process based on the needs of the project and the needs of the business. So many of the criticisms leveled at project management by the Agile community are often the result of a poor application of project management.
I have been a PM of multiple projects that have used Agile processes. In many of them, the software development was only a part of the overall project, sometimes a small part. Frankly they were often frustrating projects. It was very difficult to status the project, to identify and manage project risk, to integrate the IT portion with all the other project work and the IT teams resisted any kind of reporting and documentation. Once the project was completed, there was almost no technical documentation from the IT team. The refrain was always, "the code is commented, its all the documentation needed." Some of the results of that philosophy are that maintenance of the code has become a nightmare.
I believe Agile definitely has many good applications and has its place. However, just like a poor application of project management, poor or slavish application of any process will result in less than satisfactory performance and outcomes.
Just my two cents worth.
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