Media
ThePrimeagen interviewed Robert Martin (“Uncle Bob”) , one of the signatories of the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” (often simply referred to as the “Agile manifesto”, obscuring its intended applicability on software development and not the entire universe of business).
Go to 25:12 and listen closely and carefully.
If you’re part of the whole certification circus around Agile and its cottage industry of methodologies, you’ve both been had and are part of the reason why something small and sensible and practical has turned into a monstrous grift, a supposedly mystical “mindset”, a bunch of pretend-optimal rituals and bureaucratic management-voodoo BS holding people and organizations back from getting things done.
I wrote a book about it and feel vindicated to have come across this damning critique by one of those who “probably” know best what Agile was and should be about.
(I’m pretty sure that you can’t get closer to the true source of “Agile” than the signatories.)
Uncle Bob: “The Agile message has gotten so badly twisted and torqued and perverted […] Agile was a small idea for helping small teams do small things. It was not the overarching pattern of software development that was to dominate the world. It was just a way to get six or seven guys to be able to work well together.”
ThePrimeagen: “So what made it fall apart then?”
Uncle Bob: “One of us […] a Scrum advocate, Ken Schwaber , decided that he wanted to teach a course called the Certified Scrum Master course […] and the idea just took off. Everybody wanted to be a Certified Scrum Master; not one programmer wanted to be a Certified Scrum Master. All the project managers wanted it. They wanted that little checkbox on their resume; and the project managers flooded into the field. They flooded into Agile, they took over the message, they took over the conferences, they took over everything and they literally pushed the programmers out. And Agile became a project management idea […]. Where Agile breaks down is when people try to put an overarching envelope around the outside and then demand certain behaviors across the board […]”
Mic drop.
“PSM”? “CSM”? “SAFe Agile” certifications?
My opinion is that all this is no different to the “belt mills” of those other cons perpetrated upon the corporate world and upon all those who bet their entire professional identities on it.
But by all means – go ahead and “do a SAFe Agile Transformation”!
The original post on LinkedIn generated some buzz.
“The Zero Hype Bundle” explores the above, and more, helping you to see the hidden costs of business “miracle cures”, both on the organizations adopting them, and on the professional trajectory of those peddling them either directly or indirectly through the proud display of certifications and enthusiasm.
