“Agile methodology is a contradiction in terms.”

“Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.”

That’s what Groucho Marx said, and that’s what I say about “Agile” and “methodology” the two concepts fight against each other

What is Agile? According to atalasian:

an agile team delivers work in small, but consumable, increments. Requirements, plans, and results are evaluated continuously so teams have a natural mechanism for responding to change quickly.

well, that sounds pretty fucking well, but -as with everything that sounds pretty fucking well- it says nothing.

Agile it’s a culture.

I think Agile has more to do with being “agile” during the development of anything, as is when we are physically agile.

• Adaptability. When somebody or a group of somebodys is/are physically agile, it means they can react quickly to changes in environment.
• Always warm & quick. When somebody or a group is physically agile, they can start a new thing quickly
• Strength is balanced with agility. At least in the fighting context, agile use to counter heavy or very hard. An agile boxer maybe doesn’t throw punchs as powerful as a heavier, less agile boxer will do. There’s a balance between agility/strength to keep there.

Ok, now move these concepts to the programming a new product context

• Adaptability. An agile team starts to develop new product very quickly if it needs to (I’m not talking about having the product done with all its whistles and rings)
• Always warm & quick. An agile team, when the environment changes, adapts to it quickly. Environment can change by:
  * The customer wants some change (a feature added, a feature removed, whatever ..)
  * Some technology required as foundation of the product to be developed had undergone big changes.
  * Whatever
• Strength is balanced with agility. The product hasn’t have to be 100% bulletproof, the product doesn’t have to cover every option and every scenario. To have it on time is important, too, and if the product does a good job on 80% is a good starting point to perfect it later. I’m in a rock band, and when we rehears a song, we don’t have it 100% secure before we start playing it live, because we know that the remaining things to perfect can only be discovered when playing the song live.

Notice I haven’t talked about any “methodology” yet, and that’s on purpose. I don’t think there’s ANY methodology at ALL that helps you achieve these concepts. What the hell, the main point is : The methodology never accomplish any cultural switch, no matter how hard we want to believe that, and we want very hard to believe that, we want to believe that simply praying five times a day looking at meca is going to magically transform us in good muslims. Sorry fellas but:

• Going to church every sunday doesn’t make us good christians.
• Doing the twelve steps in a row, without the personal work that these steps mean, won’t make you sober.
• When you see some mail or notification, or ad that reads: “do these easy things, and then get that” you automatically know it’s spam or it’s not worth

It’s a culture you’ll have to learn

And you’ll have to learn it as everything that is learnt: little by little, not knowing very well what you’re learning while you’re learning it. Putting effort with the help of somebody who corrects you or encourages you.

There is nothing in this world that you can get for free, and if it’s some cultural switch inside you, less than nothing. If your parents went through a lot trying to “educate” you so you would have a standard cultural formation that allows you to function in the society, what makes you think that any change in yourself is just going to happen magically, by following some methodology?

Yes, a team being agile means every member of it is agile, which means you have to become an “agile” person (when it comes to programming), and that, my boy, as everything in life is only got via trying it every day (with somebody, something that guides you through it) for a number of days -which I dare to say, is more tan 15-, there’s no way around it.

It might help you …

If it’s only you to incorporate to an already agile culture, you won’t notice your cultural switch. If the team has already an “agile” culture, and you just got there, the eagerness that we all have to fit in will help you acquire “agile” culture, as it always happen than when somebody gets into a team with a certain culture, that somebody adopts that culture (always by trying for a number of days/months). You’ll get the “agile” culture without knowing it.

When the company is very small, it’s always agile, even if they don’t know it. The “agile” culture arises naturally when the programming/developing a product team is small, say 3 developers and two commercial guys who try to sell the product. When the company size is low enough, agile culture comes along, and nobody is thinking about that. It just happens, so that’s a good question, if you want to approach something the “agile” way, just think how would you do it if you were just five people in the company, and you’ll probably hit the spot.

Agile methodology is a contradiction in terms.

So , “methodology” and “agile” and fundamentally opposite concepts, methodology is following some patterns on how to do things, organize things, etc … Following patterns is just the opposite of being agile, because “follow” is against “change course quickly if needed to”, for instance.

Refocus the “methodology” it is useful when it’s a servant to the culture.

What then, what are scrums, poker planning, story points and everything good for?? They good if they SERVE an already agile team. They don’t make a team agile. They’re good if they’re helping an agile team. Don’t waste energy in making anybody in the team following some methodology, I tell you, It won’t work, it won’t work and it won’t work. Use the energy in making that somebody to switch to an agile culture, and that is not work for a day or a week, it’s hard but it pays off. When a team is really agile, them the agile methodology of course helps a lot, but if you’re trying very hard to bend somebody who is already agile to follow some methodology, then something’s very, very wrong.

My experience

For what it’s worth, my company was -ten years ago- very small (we were about 5), and we were very Agile . Now we’re over a hundred, we have a lot of agile methodology in place, and in my view we’re much much more bureaucratic that we should be. I’ve been forced very hard to follow some “agile” methodology, and I’ve tried also very, very hard to follow it, but honestly there’s so much I can do. I do care a lot for the company, that’s why I find it very difficult to blindly follow some guidelines that are given to me, because I see clearly that following them will hurt the company.

Of course, you can blindly follow “agile” methodology guidelines, but most likely the talent will go away. And that’s very bad for business, my friend.