I’ve been seeing these surveys and statistics reference around The Chaos Report for nearly two decades. Often, as in this article here, they are used as citations supporting agile ways of working. And since I’m an aglist, you’d think I would be in full support of them. But I have three core problems with the reports themselves and the incessant quoting of them to support some position.
Trust?
First, I’m not sure I trust the data. Where does it originally come from AND are the collections accurate?
For example, I used to fill in project timesheets at the end of each week. I filled them in with the best recollection I had and with my perception of time spent. I realized over time that I was probably only reporting at 50% accuracy. And that was as an individual contributor. Aggregate that data over 100 developers over 1-+ projects every week. Would you trust what that data was telling you?
So, rolled-up statistics collected from a wide variety of companies doesn’t always make me that trustful and confident in the data.
3-Categories?
What the heck does challenged mean? And for that matter what determines success or failure?
Sure, I have a definition of the latter pair in my own experience and context. But does that match everyone else's in the sample databases?
And challenged. I don’t know if that category even matters. I can’t fathom going to the board and reporting out on the 3 “challenged” projects we are currently operating. Or why tracking and managing them in that state even matters.
I guess my point is, these seem to be very high-level categories that allow for broad interpretation. I wonder if they’re truly helpful to me?
The Real Point
The real challenge I have with all of this is that…it really doesn’t matter. External project statistics don’t matter to your efforts.
What matters to your efforts are—
your projects,
your goals,
your successes or failures,
and your outcomes.
And most importantly—what you’re doing about them?
Are you failing fast and learning fast? Are you improving and evolving?
Are you focusing on the most important things? Are you keeping your WIP within reasonable limits?
Are you continuing to be excellent at delivering what your customers/clients want?
Are you taking care of your people? Are they engaged and happy? Are they growing?
Wrapping Up
At the end of the day, I wish folks worried less about what’s happening with others. Particularly since we can’t fully understand the context and the basis for the statistics anyway.
Instead, I wish we focused more on ourselves. On developing resilient, joyful, and learning organizations that are continuously working on better understanding and improving themselves.
But hey, The Standish Group says that this won’t happen until 2034, so why am I even pushing on it now?
Stay agile my friends,
Bob.