I was about 8-10 years late to the Agile party, and I have to confess I had a lot of skepticism early on. But, the results from using Scrum and XP on our mobile development project over 6 years spoke for themselves. I witnessed my team, including me, transform from a small group of prototype hackers to a set of disciplined, professional software engineering teams. This led to tremendous career growth…eventually to a path as an Agile Technical Coach.

Simplicity

Our journey had its ups and downs. We started slow, awkward and full of questions. Our breakthrough occurred when we brought on a cantankerous, but kind, coach, Chris Waggoner. Chris helped us simplify and better understand our Scrum…focusing on the basics, and forgoing wasted process. As we matured in our ability to manage the work, he convinced us of the need to improve upon our technical agility. Ron Quartel joined the team as a technical coach, introducing us to eXtreme Programming. Our adoption of XP over the next several months led to profound improvements in our ability to deliver high quality software with predictability. We build a fine group of agilists: Brandon, Steve, Chandu, Alex to name a few.

Guided by the Manifesto

Along the way, Chris and Ron emphasized the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto. I felt personally grounded by the Manifesto. I used it as a lens to examine the things we did as a team. I was struck by the balance between process and technical delivery. The level of ownership, trust and continuous growth we experienced led to tremendous job satisfaction. So much so, that eventually I wanted to share that with other people.

My Coaching Journey

I joined a prominent Agile consultancy, soon swallowed up by a huge consulting company, with the full intention of becoming a great technical coach. To do so, I had to become a good process coach. My company invested heavily in growing those skills, and I committed to the journey. Certifications were gathered, but more importantly, true learning, mentoring and practice led to some proficiency. I had some great role models: Barry, Cody, James, Smitty, Tiffany, Mercedes, Ravinder, Griffin, Troy, Mitch, Chris and Brandon (yeah, same guys)…to name a few.

However, what I found while working on enterprise transformations was that organizations rarely had the patience to explore agility beyond process, allowing true technical agilty to take root. Quite often, the clock would run out my time with a set of teams, and I would move along to another set of teams. This became a dissatisfier. I was not able to achieve my intended mission of sharing my experience with others.

Fast Forward

In the years since I began my coaching journey, including a couple of leadership stints, the problems I saw with enterprise transformations appear to have grown worse. Day in, day out, I witness coaches and coachees getting wrapped around the axle of Agile management tooling. Coaching of agility with the people on teams seems an afterthought. The Agile Manifesto isn’t even mentioned in conversation…relegated to a few slides in some long-ago self-paced learning module. Technical agility is given short shrift in coaching. Maybe we can give you part of the IP sprint to do a TDD workshop.

Proto Agile seems Dead or Dying

Agile (as I learned it) seems a far off and quaint concept…relegated to only small teams, and only if leadership says it’s OK. SAFe and other heavyweight methods (I see what you’ve become, Scrum) are all the rage. XP is all but forgotten; though some of its components live on. For me, it has gotten so bad that I have deemphasized or dropped the word Agile from my titles and job descriptions. Software engineers see Agile as a dirty, dogmatic word that brings little improvement and a boatload of lofty, unreasonable expectations.

Where to Next?

I find comfort in the Continuous Delivery and DevOps movements. They stand up well to the Agile Manifesto, and they are a willing home to software engineers that long for the good old days. There are plenty of new things to learn in applying tried and tested behaviors. And yet, there is tremendous familiarity to what I hold dear in my experience. These are my folk.