Agile Pitfalls

From a slide in a deck a friend of mine used in a presentation on agile/lean development: “Notable Pitfalls To Watch For As A Leader”:

  • Agile teams may be prone to rapid accumulation of technical debt
  • Agile methodologies may lead to team burnout due to an irrational culture of urgency
  • Agile requires more team and individual discipline, commitment and openness than a dysfunctional organization may be ready for
  • The high visibility on agile teams causes poor performers to stand out like a sore thumb
  • Agile teams have a tendency to focus on tactical accomplishments at the expense of strategic goals
  • People are led to believe agile development will solve all their problems with minimal effort and experience disillusionment when it doesn’t meet their expectations

These all rang so true to me that I had to share. Especially that last one (which is true about many, many more things than agile development).

All this “agile” and “lean” business sounds really good when you read about it, and, believe me, I do think it’s a great approach to building software for a lot of situations, but it can be a challenge to integrate these ideas into a business.

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.” – Mark Twain

It takes patience and discipline to move an organization down this path. Years of Waterfall and top-down project management experience don’t go away overnight. And that’s true for everyone involved: developers, project managers, product managers, testers, analysts, and on down the list. The larger and more complex the organization, the bigger the challenge, because the number of habits (“person-habits”?) you’re trying to change/create grows exponentially.