Is it simple to practice theory?


Theory vs. practicing the theory

Part 2: challenges in practicing agile theory


So … we looked at the agile manifesto and the “people side” of things that it talks about in part 1 of “theory vs. practicing the theory”.

The second part focusses on - What makes agile theory difficult to put into practice? We’ll get a better understanding if we start by looking at who’s involved in software development using agile methodology (and I’ll stick to scrum here to keep it simple).

Here are the key players –
  1.  The three roles in scrum: product owner (PO), scrum master (SM) and the development team
  2. Various management roles (you can’t do away with management, can you?) – project manager, program manager, delivery manager, engagement manager or whatever name you like to give to that “authority”
  3. Business stakeholder(s) or those representing the market
  4. Project/program sponsor(s) putting their money into the venture


Looking at the list of key players above, it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that the third and the fourth roles above, are the ones who are more concerned about meeting the schedules than understanding/accepting the challenges of the team on the ground.

That said, you’ll often hear the “management” saying - it doesn’t matter whether the teams use agile or waterfall to manage the software delivery life-cycle; at the end of the day, what matters is that the delivery should be flawless w.r.t. quality (zero defects), with minimal (in fact zero) cost and schedule overruns; no mention of scope changes!

In this tug of war between the team, management and business stakeholders, it becomes challenging for teams to stick to the agile mindset/values and principles. While the team’s scrum master may give his best to ensure agile scrum practices are followed, the management may be least bothered about it.

At the end of the day, focus changes to “doing Agile rather than being Agile”!

Best,
Jasdev Singh (PMI-ACP, CSM)

https://in.linkedin.com/in/singhjasdev

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