I once worked as a coach at a large financial firm that had been “going Agile” for quite awhile. They were one of the worlds largest firms, so the teams and the projects were often distributed.
They had invested in a relationship with a Ukrainian firm to outsource a significant part of their software. This had been going on for a while, so there was integration between internal and outsourced agile team members.
I was pulled in to help the outsourced teams with their understanding of agile practices. You see, even though they “said” they were agile, their behaviors were really suspect and more indicated cowboy and self-centered development.
In my last post I ranted a bit about hearing the phrase:
“But Bob, in the real world…”
too many times in my agile travels. That it seems to infer that the agile methods are a bleeding-edge approach with limited contexts and marginal results. But nothing could be further from the truth. The methods have been leveraged for 20 years and are, at this point, solidly in the mainstream of approaches to building software.
In this follow-up post I want to challenge folks with this view. But instead of simply ranting, I want to explore some constructive approaches to overcome this mindset…
Coming to you from MARS…
Everyone please. Hold onto your seats and possibly grab a relaxing drink. I have some grave news for you. And please, please sit down.
Ok, I’ve noticed a significant trend in my training sessions, coaching, and conference conversations. The frequency of:
“But Bob, in the real world…”
