The Misguided Pursuit of Agile: Why Process Alone Is Not Enough
Agile development has become an integral part of the tech industry, with over 71% of US companies incorporating it into their workflow. As a result, the demand for scrum masters and agile coaches has skyrocketed. However, I believe that the focus on processes is misguided. It’s not about maintaining scrum processes, but about understanding the context and principles behind agile.
The Agile Myth
In the past, agile was seen as a nirvana state that every tech company wanted to achieve. Scrum was the poster child of agility, and collecting certificates with cool abbreviations seemed to be the simplest way to climb the agile career ladder. But those days are over. Influential product people are now speaking out against agile, and it’s time to re-examine what agile really means.
What Is Agile, Really?
Agile is the process of breaking down a project into short developmental cycles called sprints. After each iteration, the product team delivers a working product to customers to get feedback and make changes accordingly. This approach is closely aligned with the principles of lean, aiming to ship small increments of value quickly to gather feedback and adjust course if necessary.
What Went Wrong?
Over time, agile became associated with a singular focus on product/dev team collaboration to ship as many features as quickly as possible, without ensuring these are the right things to ship. Today, “outcome over output” is a popular credo, prioritizing things that actually move the needle for customers and feature minimalism over mindlessly churning out features.
The Unhappy Scrum Team
I’ve encountered many unhappy scrum teams, and their complaints can be categorized into several buckets:
- Cognitive load is too high due to maintaining complex systems and services.
- There are no company-level goals, team goals, or even sprint goals, leading to random tickets in each sprint.
- There is a sprint goal, but it’s unachievable due to shifting priorities and firefighting.
- Requirements for stories are unclear.
- There’s no clear line in the product strategy, and it’s not visible in daily work.
- Lack of autonomy.
- No connection between software development and customer outcomes.
Searching for Goals and Strategy
These symptoms can’t be solved by strictly following a process. The root cause is often a lack of clear goals and strategy on the company and product level. Without a clear understanding of who the product is for, what core value it brings, and how it’s differentiated in the market, it’s difficult to create a coherent strategy.
Three Principles to Thrive
To succeed, companies need to focus on three key principles:
- You can’t thrive without goals: Company and team goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
- You need metrics: Relevant metrics are essential to measure progress toward goals, and they should be readily accessible to anyone who needs them.
- Everyone needs to focus on the target customers: Outcome-driven innovation and Jobs-to-be-Done frameworks focus on the customer’s “job” rather than the solution, ensuring that everyone understands the target customer’s needs and problems.
Addressing Symptoms with Strategy
By focusing on goals and strategy, companies can address the unhappy scrum team symptoms and create a more cohesive and effective approach to agile development.
Final Words
I suspect that companies try to address unhappy scrum team symptoms with a bandaid, focusing harder on “agile processes,” rather than digging into the root cause. But it’s essential to address the underlying issues, even if it’s harder work. Without a clear strategy and goal-setting, companies will continue to struggle with agile development.