Don’t Be a Muppet

I work in software development. Specifically I work in what is referred to as ‘Agile’ software development.

Here’s the thing; the ‘Agile’ bit is almost entirely snake oil.

Now I don’t mean that there aren’t useful practices that can be employed and certainly when dealing with onerous bureaucracy or immature teams then some more of the practices can be applied to great effect. However, for the most part it comes down to a few simple steps.

1. Break stuff down into manageable chunks and track them
2. Give engineers the freedom to automate things as much as possible and deploy to production frequently
3. Let others know what you are doing
4. That’s it

Anything else is covered by the over arching rule of ‘Don’t Be A Muppet’ or DBAM. There is also an extreme version referred to as DBAFM.

Now there is a whole industry of ‘agile experts’ and ‘agile coaches’ all wanting to take your money so that they can come in and perform an ‘agile transformation’ like it is some sort of exorcism. It’s all snake oil.

There are various agile qualifications provided by organisations set up like classic Ponzi schemes. You don’t need it.

Ultimate who you hire is far more important than any methodology that you try to implement. If you hire the right people and give them the freedom required then they will end up working this way. If not then they are way out of date and you failed in the ‘hire the people’ bit.

I’m a techie so I get to sit slightly outside of this and look on with amusement. In previous, less techie, manager type roles I have interviewed some of these folks who claim to be ‘agile experts’ and find that they have no idea whatsoever about how software actually works. Now clearly they are not developers and so it would be unrealistic to expect that level of knowledge but the level of ignorance can be astounding.

So before spending money on ‘agile experts’ take a moment to ask about what they really think and push for a candid answer. If they come back with a healthy dose of pragmatism then great they might be able to help, if they continue to preach the agile word to you then run away.