As XP / Agile / Scrum have become more popular, many teams and individuals have wanted to do them, or “be” them. This has led to a school of Agile methods that wants to be called “context dependent”. The idea is that whatever brand of Agile is under discussion is “too rigid” and “doesn’t fit our context”. So we have to modify Agile because God knows we can’t modify our context.
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.
There is an absolute minimum of practice that must be in place in order for Scrum or XP or any fom of Agile to succeed. There are many other elements of practice that will need to be put in place. And yes, the context will matter … and most commonly, if you really want to be successful, it is the context that has to change.
Want to succeed at software? Then it can’t be business as usual. Study the material, do the practices, get help. Or get out of the way.
Let me put it my way…
Too often do I hear: “we don’t do it that way.”
Times change, challenges change, technologies change.
So must ‘we.’
