What Agile Cannot Do

I went to a Meetup recently of local Agile folks in the Atlanta area. We intended to discuss epic slicing and acceptance criteria.

And we did discuss those things...for a bit.

Then, as these things usually do, the discussion evolved into an entirely different topic. When a group of Agile enthusiasts get together, the topic of conversation always seem to evolve into the same familiar conversation.

Yeah, but what do you do when your Product Owner refuses to.....

What do you do when one developer won't.... 

Our QA team can't...

 Here's the thing:

Agile can solve your software development process problems. It cannot solve your people problems.

Pretty harsh, I know. But, you're asking how a methodology...a mindset...can solve problems that aren't caused by how you're doing the work, but rather they are caused by the unprofessional and demeaning behavior of individuals within your organization.

In order for an Agile transformation to take place within your organization, the organization has to change. It can't just be the development team or the project management team. The entire organization, from the top down, has to embrace the Agile mindset and allow it to happen.

People have to be willing to commit.

They have to be willing to define that minimum viable product and drop the Veruca Salt (Don't care how...I want it now) attitude that has been driving software development for far too long.

Management needs to be willing to let go of the reins a bit and let the people building the products make the necessary decisions to get the product built right, built quickly and shipped. You can't possibly expect a team to deliver quickly if every decision requires eight level of executive approval before anything can be implemented.

The organization has to restructure in a way that a product owner can be available to the team any time they have questions or need guidance. That product owner needs to be empowered to make decisions and prioritize the work when the need arises (see the point above).

Agile is not magic. Scrum Masters are not wizards. You can't just decide to "be Agile" and expect everything to be perfect. It takes commitment and work (LOTS of work) to shift the paradigm within an organization so that Agile can be allowed to take hold.