Rob Myers Presents The Roots of Agility at ADC/BSC East
Rob Myers, founder of Agile Institute, gave his keynote presentation “The Roots of Agility” at Agile Development Conference & Better Software Conference East 2014.
Myers opened his presentation by polling the audience to see how many people were attending the conference in an attempt to “go agile” or because their team is experiencing difficulty with agile processes. When most of the delegates in the packed ballroom raised their hands, Myers said both of those problems can be solved with a better understanding of what agile truly is.
Myers noted that agile is so many things and one thing all at once. To help illustrate this idea, he used the metaphor of a banyan tree, which connects its branches with other banyan trees in a network of trunks that are all working together. Agile is very similar in the sense that it is about effectively working together to deliver value to the customer. Many people try to distinguish which was the first tree or which is the strongest trunk, but the truth is that it doesn’t matter—they are all important to the life of the banyan tree organism.
Continuing on the tree theme, he also compared agile to an aspen grove. Like the banyan tree, it is linked together. But the aspen grove’s trees are connected by the roots, all of which are working together as a single organism. Myers used this metaphor to make a point: The strength of a team and the foundation of agile aren’t always visible.
However, this hidden agility leads to technical problems. Obscured dependencies, deferred work, and a fragile safety net are all likely to be issues when the fundamentals of agile are out of sight and out of mind. The product also will show symptoms, such as trying to plan to perfection, absentee product leadership, and placing budget over bandwidth.
The process symptoms of bad or failing agile are the adoption of waterfall, blind mimicry, and overreliance on agile adoption success metrics. The most egregious of the symptoms is the last one, as it puts more emphasis on metrics than on the customer and quality.
Myers expressed that the root cause of failing agile is focusing on agile more than focusing on creating value. In reality, agile is at the cross section of being human-centric, taking the long-view approach, and optimized systems and processes.
To leave the audience with some food for thought, Myers ended his keynote with a quote from Sharon Buckmaster: “If I had to pick just one quality that speaks to agility, it would be the commitment to lifelong learning.”
