10.04.09
Institutionalized Flexibility
One of the great things about my current gig is the opportunity to work with several, high-caliber consultants. The client has put together a top-notch team that has the ability to easily exceed expectations. The client is also a Fortune 500 company with a very long history of heavyweight process. Our job is to codify their particular approach to Agile, while identifying areas for improvement. The importance of a well-documented, repeatable process has been the focus of many, long meetings.
The irony of the situation has not been lost on us. Our job is to create a franchise model of Agile, so that the company can start stamping out Agile teams like a manufacturer churning out Happy Meal toys. This has been the topic of discussion among the consultants over many lunches and dinners, and even during trips to the airport.
Somewhere along the line, one of us observed that “maybe we should look at this as an opportunity to institutionalize flexibility.” This is, of course, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I also believe it is indeed our challenge. In fact, I think it is the greatest challenge facing Agile adoption today: how do we make Agile work in a large organization, where conformance, governance, systems integration and the like are valid constraints? It is not enough for a team to know where they are: the organization needs to know where they are, how what they are doing will impact other efforts, how much time and effort is involved, etc.
Several large companies are seeking to provide tools to solve this problem, including one that likes three-letter acronyms that begin with “R”. As far as I can tell, the only thing that has been accomplished so far is to add complexity to an already daunting task. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a process problem solved by throwing tools at it, but that seems to be the first and most frequent solution landed on in Corporate America. Yet the problem is real, pervasive, and needs addressing.
So how do we institutionalize Agile without violating Agile’s core values? I’m not sure, but whoever figures it out stands to make a fortune!
