Original 12 Principles of Agile Manifesto
Have you read the original & simple Agile Manifesto?
It’s very succinct and is actually quite beautiful because you could really run a project just by following these 12 simple principles. You can read the original 12 Principles here.
The 12 Principles Have Been Expanded & Ruined
In almost every case where you come upon the Agile Methodology they have expanded and ruined those beautiful 12 Principles. It’s unfortunate. But recently, as I was reading yet another argument of Agile Versus No Agile I finally had a bit of a epiphany.
I’ve been working in IT for over 33 years (numerous roles & as a Dev since 2000). I’ve written & supported software at companies in numerous industries (Civil Engr., Real Estate, Mortgage Banking, Legal Data, BioTech, ecommerce) & I’ve seen project management from all angles / methodologies.
Here’s what I think about The Agile Principles:
“The Agile Manifesto was made only for a committed and experienced developer. It is wholly inadequate to the guidance of any other.”
Original Agile Authors: They’re Different
Think about it. The original authors were not just every-day corporate software developers. They were contractors and authors and leaders in the industry. The Agile Manifesto is what they would do. It is the stuff that owners / leaders / entrepreneurs do. It is not what Corporate Devs do. The Agile Principles are not followed by hourly wage earners. Hourly wage earners do whatever is easiest for them. What?! Yes, I just “wrote” that out loud.
Corporate Management Thought They Could Agile
The Corporate-types thought they could “Do Agile to get success like we’ve seen at Twitter, Snap, FB, Google, etc. Yes, we can do this too!”
Hilarious! The Agile Manifesto wasn’t meant for the below-average-workin-to-get-paid Corporate Dev. Nope.
It was meant for people who have ownership in the project. If the dev thought she was going to get rich too (profit sharing or literally being paid millions of dollars) then she may feel ownership and push herself to do Agile and follow the real principles which would make the project successful.
Assembly-Line Programming
But, somewhere along the line, some Corporate Manager thought he could get developers to go the extra mile in Agile without any of the benefits (to the dev) which are required.
This is the real reason that Agile has failed so miserably.
Think about it. If you have a small, committed team with a good amount of experience then you can follow the Agile Principles and succeed wildly.
Consider One Principle: It’ll Convince You
Do corporations truly follow this one principle:
Build projects around motivated individuals.
Give them the environment and support they need,
and trust them to get the job done.
No.
Generally they don’t have people who even want the product they’re creating (no motivation). Corporations have management to “keep an eye on those lazy, shify devs” because the devs won’t do anything without management oversight — they don’t trust them to get the job done.
And, I even worked at one place which rooted for another team to fail (no support).
Don’t ever think you can take the Agile Principles write them up into a process that can be slathered onto a project and be successful. It’s not for the minions. It’s for the builders, owners and creators of software.
That’s it.