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The problem is that most management probably doesn't actually want Agile. The goal of Agile is building the right thing for the customer, which is done by havi

The problem is that most management probably doesn't actually want Agile. The goal of Agile is building the right thing for the customer, which is done by having the people who do the work talk to the customer (frequently!) to see what their needs are and how their needs are being met by what they have already. The problem here is that this turns the organization from top-down to bottom-up. Those at the top of the company are now servant leaders who support those at the bottom, as opposed to people who give orders and tell those at the bottom what to do. The real problem with Agile is that managers are rarely willing to give up that power.

mbernstein 4y ago
Management doesn't care if it's agile or not - they want something that works and delivers economic value for customers and will help them continue to innovate and deliver EVA for them in the future. One huge problem is that a lot of times, what people think is what the customer wants isn't what they want or need. One way that happens is sales brings asks (in the form of solutions often) to product and it goes downhill from there. Obviously, the people doing the work aren't talking with customers in that case, but it's tough to talk to customers in an enterprise environment. If you're doing something for a small external client or an internal team it's fine. In addition, customers aren't a monolith. When you reach sufficient size, you have competing priorities for customer needs and even some asks that work for one customer but break some sort of process for another. They can be mutually exclusive. This is also heavily predicated on the customer even knowing what they want. Everyone knows the famous Ford quote “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Agile is great but scaling it can be rough dependent on a lot of variables, so reducing it down to management probably doesn't like Agile due to inability to give up power (to me at least) is a bit too simple.
- keredson 4y ago
  "Management [...] wants something that works and delivers economic value for customers and will help them continue to innovate and deliver EVA for them in the future." You're confusing "owner" with "manager". Most managers just want to get promoted, which usually means increasing their HC/budget, making sure credit for a project's success is their's, failures are blamed on others, getting trendy internal projects, doing endless re-orgs (knowing they'll move on before any true costs/benefits are realized), etc. "Economic value for customers" is an afterthought at best. (Speaking as a former very-large-company manager.)
  - mbernstein 4y ago
    I'm not confusing owner with manager - I'm thinking of things through the lens of the principal-agent relationship and of upper management's goals (which was what the OP was talking about) rather the middle management's.

mbernstein 4y ago

Management doesn't care if it's agile or not - they want something that works and delivers economic value for customers and will help them continue to innovate and deliver EVA for them in the future. One huge problem is that a lot of times, what people think is what the customer wants isn't what they want or need. One way that happens is sales brings asks (in the form of solutions often) to product and it goes downhill from there. Obviously, the people doing the work aren't talking with customers in that case, but it's tough to talk to customers in an enterprise environment. If you're doing something for a small external client or an internal team it's fine. In addition, customers aren't a monolith. When you reach sufficient size, you have competing priorities for customer needs and even some asks that work for one customer but break some sort of process for another. They can be mutually exclusive. This is also heavily predicated on the customer even knowing what they want. Everyone knows the famous Ford quote “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Agile is great but scaling it can be rough dependent on a lot of variables, so reducing it down to management probably doesn't like Agile due to inability to give up power (to me at least) is a bit too simple.

keredson 4y ago
"Management [...] wants something that works and delivers economic value for customers and will help them continue to innovate and deliver EVA for them in the future." You're confusing "owner" with "manager". Most managers just want to get promoted, which usually means increasing their HC/budget, making sure credit for a project's success is their's, failures are blamed on others, getting trendy internal projects, doing endless re-orgs (knowing they'll move on before any true costs/benefits are realized), etc. "Economic value for customers" is an afterthought at best. (Speaking as a former very-large-company manager.)
- mbernstein 4y ago
  I'm not confusing owner with manager - I'm thinking of things through the lens of the principal-agent relationship and of upper management's goals (which was what the OP was talking about) rather the middle management's.