You know I want to get something off of my chest - and that is the word "agile" I hate it! Every company, left, right, and center seems to spout th...
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Agile is the opposite of waterfall. Waterfall is based on the "failure is not an option" dictum. Agile is based on "failure is the only option" dictum.
Any team who is not working following the "failure is the only option" dictum is not doing agile. It's as simple as that. No need to make it "Buddhist" or any other similarly silly complication.
Why is it silly to compare secular Buddhism and Agile? Both are non-religious philosophies that
In fact, I deep dive right into why “retrospective meetings” are not dumb and in fact are one of the healthiest things you can do:
Fixing Bad Habits By Learning To Love Them: Agile Retrospectives
Cubicle Buddha ・ May 15 ・ 5 min read
Not silly to compare it. But I'm a big fan of Occam's Razor, so I prefer not adding complexity.
+1 great point
I'd say Agile is a state of mind -- I'd rather avoid any religious implications because that's a big part of the problem with how some companies practice Agile: they adhere to a set of rituals without really understanding the rituals' intent, and they think they have to religiously stick with those rituals because the rituals themselves are the key to success.
The Agile manifesto is very short/simple. The great irony has been that one of the manifesto principles -- "people over process/tools" -- has been completely flipped. Now, some companies think that the process (which usually includes at least one tool like Rally/Jira/Aha/etc.) is the thing, and you better follow that process or else. They think the process is a (magical) formula which will help you beat the competition.
Sadly, they don't see that teams should be constantly challenging the process/formula to ensure that it serves its intended purpose: deliver value as quickly as possible.
Agile has been the object of a lot of hate in the last few years, but that's really because of misguided people who think imposing some set of practices is the way to achieve the intended results of Agile. Frankly, those people are often managers who are insecure about having a truly empowered, self-organized team. Those managers wonder, "Why am I here? Am I deemed necessary? Do I have job security if I'm not... ya know... managing?" They aren't comfortable with truly extending trust. Yet, without trust, there's really no point in even pretending to believe in Agile principles.
This is all so true. Especially about the ceremonies. It seems like companies just do them because everyone else is doing them. You say: "Why do we have a board?", "What is the purpose of stand up?", "Why do we do what we do?" And it's all blank looks or "Well, we do it because we're doing agile, not waterfall!". There's no understanding of the purpose behind anything so all the value gets lost.
I have worked on a team that did everything by the books, had all the ceremonies, followed all the rules (i mean, being 100% inflexible and intolerant of mistakes and delays) but in the end, the results were not being delivered, customers were pissed off.
They attributed that bad result to the "costumer is not used to being agile
You rang? But seriously, there are a lot of parallels between Agile and Buddhism. So I think it’s okay to think about it in a spiritual/philosophical sense if it helps embody the values and not the process of Agile:
Samsara: 5 Agile Techniques to End Suffering And Increase Learning
Cubicle Buddha ・ Apr 7 ・ 6 min read
see also
No, you are not wrong, the modern version of "agile" doesn't really look anything like functioning agile principles.
Agile isn't worker focused or about allowing coders to decide what to work on. If anything it's a strategy of risk management, communication and pragmatism