Monday, January 20, 2014

Agile claims versus Agile Manifesto

There is a big problem with the Agile claims. Many of them are just claims, and there are close to a logical fraud. I recently had a similar experience - with the below report - where the main result was to just deeply annoy (!) tens of agile practitioners (or at least a third of them) with the Agile Manifesto.

"Mario Moreira reports his survey results. Most people who claim to be agile don't know the agile principles in the Agile Manifesto." - Jeff Sutherland

Here you can find this report and also I have extract some quotes.

http://cmforagile.blogspot.ro/2014/01/as-i-look-across-agile-landscape-i-am.html

"ThThe results were quite revealing and support my hypothesis.  Of the 109 Agile participants: 
  • 59% knew 3 or more of the five Scrum events
  • 11% knew 3 or more of the twelve Agile principles
I actually find these results quite astounding.  Could it really be true that only 11% of Agile professionals and enthusiasts could name just 3 Agile principles?  I don't mean they they memorize them but can provide at least the key words of the principle.  This means that 89% could only name 2 or less.  What makes this even more astonishing is that 67% could not name even a single Agile principle (and I did give credit to those who could name the key words of the principle - e.g., self-organizing,  frequent delivery, etc.). " - Mario Moreira

"Now do keep in mind, knowing the principles is just the first step and it doesn't make you Agile.  Next its time to live it.  But how do we expect to “be Agile” if our focus is so much more focused on the mechanics or “doing Agile”.   I would suggest that anyone who claims to be an Agile enthusiast ought to periodically bring their work back to the Agile values and principles.  Maybe its time to revisit the values and principles and understand what it really takes to be Agile." - Mario Moreira 

The main question - it is a kind of fraud to pretend to be something that is far away from your current abilities?