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Why Agile Adoption Fails and 8 Ways to Help Your Team Succeed
- mindcrime 7y ago"Agile adoption" fails largely due to the fact that "Agile" isn't a "thing" which can be adopted in the first place. So anybody saying "We're adopting Agile" has lost the game before they even start. If you want to "go Agile" you have to understand what Agile is... and more importantly, what it isn't. Agile is not a methodology. Agile is not very prescriptive. Agile is not Scrum Masters, standups, Jira, velocity, story points, etc. Although some or all of those things may, optionally, be used as part of implementing an Agile methodology. Note the distinction between "Agile" and "an Agile methodology". This is crucial. There is no such thing as "Agile" in and of itself, but there are many methodologies that fall under the general banner of "Agile". Scrum, XP, Crystal, AgileUP, SaFE, etc., come to mind. So if you're going to "go Agile", one of the first things you need to do is to figure out which Agile. And that means spending some time doing research, understanding the pros and cons of the various methodologies, and then investing the time to actually get good at the one you choose. Or you can invent your own methodology which reflects the spirit of the Agile Manifesto, but I've generally found that companies that "roll their own", or who don't bother with this whole exercise at all, just wind up implementing a shitty, half-assed version of Scrum, with all of lingo and ceremony, plus maybe a little bit of extra crap tacked on from FSM-knows-where, but with none of the understanding of the actual principles, and how this is supposed to help anybody... other than some vague cargo-cult'ish idea that "Agile makes everything better. Now give me my coconut shell helmet."