Martin Fowler about Agility

Jeff Sutherland has launched a debate about definition of Agility (less then 100 chars)... And Martin Fowler has an answer:

Martin Fowler

@jeffsutherland (People-first > process-first) + (Adaptive planning > predictive planning) #Idefineagile

7:28 PM - 17 Jan 2014

(People-first > process-first) - yes, that is part of Agile Manifesto main values.

(Adaptive planning > predictive planning) - that is not explicitly in the Manifesto, but could be an inference from its principles. Long term projects need predictions...Small term projects mean adaptation. Of course, that does not match with the Waterfall mindset of some managers that want (claim) to use "agile" but, in fact, they continue their Waterfall practices.

Hyper-productivity - just a short run ?

The Scrum marketing claims Hyper-Productivity. Sometime is true, sometime it is not. That depends on who make that claim...Which is the best way to validate that? We can measure, for example, the team velocity for a period of few months. It is that a correct approach?

Maybe the most know and severe problem in software development is the accumulation of the undesired complexity - Technical Debt. The main consequence of a such debt is the deterioration - in time - of the overall productivity and quality. 

Short "hyper-productive" runs with a lot of accumulated debt it is not Agile and it is not Scrum. Remember the principle from Agile Manifesto that require "sustainable development": "The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.". Scrum suppose that you will assess your work progress using the criteria of "Done": no other work is necessary on that product part, and that include very few Technical Debt.

Anyway, this kind of  "shortness of breath" it is very common and we must be able to identify and address the root causes. One cause it is the lack of skills of the involved team of developers, but another is related to the management.

"So how can you incent a Scrum team to not make a mess?"

This is a very good question, proposed by Robert C. Martin, in the article "The Land that Scrum Forgot"  that could be found here (with a forward by Mike Cohn):

http://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2010/december/the-land-that-scrum-forgot/

Spoiler (from the article): "If the team goes fast and stays clean, then there is a reward!"

Usually only the project viewpoint it is the of interest for the management, because is focused on short term results. Anyway, the overall business should remain steady, and we should be interested on the product internal state, the amount of the accumulated undesired complexity.

The Scrum proposed by Jeff Sutherland it is Hyper-Productive (!), because in the same package we will found the requirement for technical excellence and outstanding enginnering practices such as TDD. For a such performance you need to read more than Scrum Guide and you need more others Agile skills and knowledge.

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?