Ron Jeffries, one of the better known authorities on eXtreme Programming (XP), recently posted an article on his XP blog that really resonated with me. He calls out, for what is certainly not the first time, the idiocy of adopting an Agile methodology without doing the whole thing and then faulting Agile when it doesn't work out for you. Readers of my 2nd AgileMan book will recognize that I witnessed that first-hand, and the results were just as Jeffries describes them.
The following paragraph, in particular, paints a compelling portrait:
"Well, my dear little children, I’ve got bad news for you. It is your precious context that is holding you back. It is your C-level Exeuctives and high-level managers who can’t delegate real responsibility and authority to their people. It is your product people who are too busy to explain what really needs to be done. It is your facilities people who can’t make a workspace fit to work in. It is your programmers who won’t learn the techniques necessary to succeed. It is your managers and product owners who keep increasing pressure until any focus on quality is driven out of the project."
Setting aside the condescending tone, it all sounds eerily familiar. In a funny way, I guess it's sort of comforting to know that what we went through was far from unique in the annals of Agile. But only sort of.
No comments:
Post a Comment