We discussed the latest round of agile role layoffs at Capital One the other day in the Moose Herd. The news was that Capital One had laid off 1100 people, all with agile in the titles/job families. The public reason shared was that they’d sufficiently evolved their agile capabilities to a point where it made no sense to have independent roles. That (everyone) was now agile.
Of course, there was quite a passionate discussion about—
What are the fundamental driving forces behind the move?
Was this a perceived success / evolutionary step or a failure?
Since Capital One was such a bellwether, was this the beginning of a trend in the agile community?
What might happen to all of those people?
I was pretty struck by the turbulence that this one event created in our community, as the Herd reflected.
One of the things we got heated about was the intentions of the organizational leaders, particularly exploring whether they valued agile or not. And whether they valued people or not.