Andy Hunt, co-founder of The Pragmatic Programmers and author of many books, recently posted Stage 0: Not Ready for Agile where he was disallowed to give his Pragmatic Agility talk in an organization because the hiring manager didn’t go through the “proper channels” even though no such channels existed.
I really liked the whole article, but he noted a number of behaviors that indicate a company is not ready for Agile that I found particularly insightful:
You’re not ready for agile if you … grow uncomfortable with uncertainty. In an agile project, you will not know the project end date or even what features will be delivered in the next iteration. You cannot stand this, and will insist on fixed dates and costs right up front.
You’re not ready for agile if you … treat developers as a commodity; a uniform, fungible resource. They are all alike. You can’t trust them to think for themselves, you’ve got to make the important decisions for them.
Personally, I feel quite comfortable with uncertainty - especially with software – where it is an act of invention, not an act of manufacturing. And I think the best asset you can have on any software project is highly skilled craftsmen (not “fungible” developers).
But you need a team to make Agile work – not just one person. So the question for me is this: How can you shift this mindset for the various players in your organization?
Tags: agile, business culture, project management, software development
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