Kyiv Project Management Day Fred Williams “Skeptical Agile”

1. Based on the blog by
Tomas Kejzlar
www.skepticalagile.com

2. Who is Fred?
● Reader and Writer
● Speaker and Host
● Philosophy Nerd
● Stoic? Skeptic, not Cynic
● ...and some software stuff
● ...and military, politics, art
● Epistemologist?

3. Waterfall
● Military Projects
● Civil Engineering
● NASA
● Software
● Rigid, Controlled, Predictable
● Lots of Documentation

4. Agile
● The Manifesto
● Small Projects
● Small Teams
● Iterative
● Learning by doing
● Flexibility
● Lots of discussions

5. A sad story
● Top down agility
● Outside consultants over internal teams
● Process and tools focus
● Outcomes and goals are vague
● Trendy thing to do
● Agile Everything RIGHT NOW!!!
● Cookie Cutter approach

6. Some Questions
1) Does your group claim Agile is the only “Way”?
2) Are you told there is no alternative?
3) Are you told leaving Agile means certain failure?
4) Do Agile teams see themselves as different from society, special, chosen
pioneers or on a mission?
5) Do you feel strong pressure to conform to Agile practices?
6) Do dissenters from Agile face rebuke or isolation?
7) Are there answers, clichés, quotes & slogans for everything about Agile?

7. http://cultrescue.com/are-you-in-a-cult-questionnaire/

8. Jumping the Shark
● No Silver Bullet (Fred Brooks, 1986)
● Agile Manifesto versus SCRUM
● Warring factions and infighting
● Big money to be made selling Agile
● Agile Everything and Everywhere

9. A happier story
● Internal and evolutional
● People over processes and tools
● Communications flow
● Clear goals
● Customized for the people, place, and products
● Value based approaches based on people and products
● Both Waterfall and Agile

10. Good Intentions, but...
Wrong focus
○ Processes over People
○ Speed over Quality
○ KPIs over Value

11. Good People, but...
Wrong roles
○ Enthusiasm over Experience
○ HR and Consultants
○ Top Down

12. Good Mindsets, but...
Wrong direction
○ Efficiency over Effectiveness
○ Over-Confidence
○ Cult-Like behaviors
○ Rituals and Titles
○ Agile Everything

13. Be Skeptical and Agile
● Anecdote is not evidence
● One size does not fit all
● Question assumptions
● Question experts’ motivation
● Use common sense
● Don’t buy the hype
● Skeptics, not Cynics

14. Learn more by practice...
● Experiment
● Change the method to suit your needs
● Let me know your results
fred@williamstechnical.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredwilliams/