I believe we have to stop looking at Agile failures in general and look at _why_ they fail in particular. There are very well defined patterns of failure with fairly clear reasons for them. I have identified many of these in the past but merely got the label "basher" for my efforts. I have since re-focused my efforts on what to do instead of what not to do since there's not much audience for the later.
But knowing what to do is only half of the story. In my 21 years of experience with XP, Scrum and other methods, I rarely hear promoters of an approach look at the cause of failure other than attribute it to management or unmotivated workers. Which, of course, is ironic, because one of Agile's cornerstone's is trusting people which implies to me, anyway, not to make them wrong.
We need to look at failure not as a necessary result but be discerning about what causes it. We must have no loyalty to our own methods merely because they are our own and it hurts our ego to seem them be ineffective.
This is part of the essence of what we mean when we say Disciplined Agile is agnostic. We don't regard our approach as better than anyone else's just because it's ours. When we are proven wrong about something it is merely is an opportunity to learn.
Why do organizations fail with Agile?
Posted on: July 24, 2020 10:32 PM |
Permalink
Comments (4)
Please login or join to subscribe to this item
I totally agree with your point of view Al.
Reminds me with the DA Guided Continuous Improvement motto: Failing Fast is Fine but succeeding early is better.
Reminds me with the DA Guided Continuous Improvement motto: Failing Fast is Fine but succeeding early is better.
Also totally agree Al.
Probably not quite a perfect quote, but:
"Show me someone who has never failed (at anything), and I'll show you who has never tried (anything)".
My favorite enabler comment on "failure" is:
"Ooh that's not good, sorry to hear that. Do you think we can fix it? Oh! Well, what can we learn from it for next time?"
Probably not quite a perfect quote, but:
"Show me someone who has never failed (at anything), and I'll show you who has never tried (anything)".
My favorite enabler comment on "failure" is:
"Ooh that's not good, sorry to hear that. Do you think we can fix it? Oh! Well, what can we learn from it for next time?"
Goes back to a bad system beating a good team of people most days! Thanks for the reminder, Al!
Thanks for sharing
Please Login/Register to leave a comment.
ADVERTISEMENTS
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." - Mel Brooks |