RallyDev.com
Thu 1 Oct 2009
Escalation is Killing Agile – Can We Please Stop It?
I have a systems archetype in mind that is troubling me. I am annoyed that some of the current (and past) one-ups-man-ship around Agile is distracting us from the useful constructive dialogue I crave.
The archetype I am thinking of “Escalation” is where “my fix is your nightmare and you have to lose in order for me to win“.
Situations can get sticky with too much escalation
Think of the American movie “A Christmas Story” about young Ralphie Parker and his own dilemma with “Escalation”. In this classic scene, Ralphie’s friends Flick and Schwartz dispute over whether a person’s tongue will stick to a frozen flagpole. Schwartz ultimately issues Flick a “triple dog dare” (the most serious of childhood dares); bypassing “triple dare” and resulting in a serious breach of boyhood protocol.
Dares, blames, accusations and hard stances all contribute to the distraction and destruction that is associated with “Escalation”. When everyone is trying to win, the system suffers. Anyone’s “win” is nobody’s win; and anyone’s “loss” is everyone’s loss.
I see no place for this in Agile and yet the fight is on. Triple Dog Dares are becoming business as usual.
Escalation is Killing Agile.
So why the heck are we involved in so much escalation around things like “My Agile approach is better than your Agile approach” or, “Well, you’re only in it for the money” or, “I’m going to make fun of you until you stop what you are doing“?
How is ANY of this furthering my growth or our organizations’ growth in Agile?
In a systems view of the world, we can see patterns made up of balancing loops and reinforcing loops. In the case of “Escalation”, we see factions sucked into a downward spiral reinforcing loop of fighting. The more someone fights, the more the fighting continues.
In our case, the fight may be about certification, or timeboxes, or engineering practices, or continuous improvement, or tools. Fights then lead to blaming and finger pointing. And in the systems view of things, once you get into blaming individuals or other parts of the system, your system is broken. Not the individuals, the system.
So in our Agile world, I ask, “How is this fighting useful? Could someone explain that to me? And how is it our system has metamorphosed into one that allows (encourages?) blame and mockery, one that remains so, or even worse, seeks to move further and further into this archetype?“
For me, a more useful approach is to find balancing loops. Here, we seek to create more knowledge in dialogue not blame. We seek insights with others interested in dialogue, not in escalating debates and accusatory blame. We look toward inquiry versus advocacy and so we seek people interested in this kind of work, not fighting.
One way I intend to take advantage of balancing loops is to seek people interested in Agile growth NOT in attacks on approaches or individuals. I’m thinking, for instance, of Linda Rising as a good example. Linda has been our steadfast beacon of reaching into kindness versus violence or fear or confrontation to use our personal perspectives usefully and creatively.
I’m done with all the distractions that don’t feed my growth. I’ve lost the ability to abide behaviors that don’t give evidence of what was written with conviction in the Agile Manifesto. The train has left the station on a number of initiatives within Agile, Let’s stop fighting them. More fighting isn’t going to make anything go away. Instead, we will just feed “Escalation”. Let us get on with where each of us can find and contribute to growth. Please.
Here is my personal commitment going forward:
My personal commitment is to seek those interested in creating more and more insights about how we can grow and learn. I will seek dialogue around various Agile approaches and what can contribute to the growth of Agile. I will not take delight in anyone’s cleverness or meanness toward an approach they don’t support. I will seek voices of engagement, deeper intention, non-blame, and creative inquiry. “Escalation”, to me, is like the old joke of trying to teach a pig to sing: it only annoys the pig and it frustrates you. I have no intention of spending time with such activity in Agile. It distracts and annoys me. You’ll have to figure out for yourself how it serves you or hinders you.
So, moving forward, let us think about true dialogue. Let’s challenge ourselves if that is what we invite in each of our interactions. To add encouragement and inspiration, think about the etymology of the word – dialogue:
From the Greek “to gather reason through speech, usually between two people“. I invite each of us to reach for gathering not escalating.
Without this intention, we will all lose.
About the Author: Jean Tabaka is a wine enthusiast, author and Agile Fellow at Rally Software Development. Subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.
This reminds me of what happened in the Ruby on Rails world. In the beginning, we Rails folks were talking smack about PHP and how Rails was better and faster. This led to people that weren’t “in the know” to be harassed in online Rails groups (IRC, forums), limiting the uptake of the framework.
This led to Chad Fowler telling attendees of Railsconf 2007 that we needed to stop being ass*****, otherwise the community, and the increased use of the framework we loved, would slow or stop. We reversed our attitude, started welcoming and helping all comers, and Rails has thrived because of it.
Rally appears to take the same position with Agile as I do – you need to fit it into the organization. A purist implementation of Agile might work well for a brand new startup, however existing companies have to deal with existing people and culture, which can present a large challenge to adding Agile. To make it work, an attitude of “how can we improve” rather than “do it the way I’m telling you to do it” is required.
Great post. Thanks Jean. I keep learning from you and look forward to more.
We are at a defining moment in this community.
We can all lose, right now, by participating in total de-stablization and self-destruction at the level of “system” (aka “community” or “group”)
Alternately, we can face reality and make changes to it, by participating in the shaping of something new and great.
Those are the two choices we face now.
Jean calls this out; Jean is a real leader.
I like Jean’s vision and I sign up now with her to advance the work. The actions I take now are listed here:
Group Relations Note dated 10/24/2009
http://www.newtechusa.com/agileboston/notes/GroupRelations.htm
This is a note regarding my strong interest in focusing the attention of the Agile/Scrum community towards Group Relations theory, practice and conferences.
I believe if enough Agile/Scrum leaders simply do some preparation and actually attend a Group Relations conference, we can advance the Agile/Scrum work. This is achievable by raising awareness of how we act and react in often completely unconscious ways as we participate in group life.
Excellent post. “A Christmas Story” has become a classic in my family. Your double-dare-you thesis is bang on. Thanks for reminding us to raise the level of civility and avoid the downward spiraling loops. This phenomenon is not unique to agile; your double-dare-you thesis is extensible to the world at large. Escalation dialogues are not particularly productive for discovering since both parties have long stopped listening.
I hope to attend one of your session in Orlando.
Well said, Jean, and I agree that the Agile community and especially our customers are better served when we’re united rather than fractured.
The question, though, is what exactly “united” means in a community that espouses constant reflection and adaptation. If a person or group is resistant to change, they’re in direct conflict with the values of the Agile Manifesto. This is what I see happening with some of the “branding” that’s occurring. I also think that it’s healthy for such activity to be called out. After all, we’re supposed to expose impediments and deal with them.
The one-upmanship is precisely the type of negative behaviour that we have tried to eliminate in groups and organizations we train and coach, and yet here it is happening in our own community… not exactly a good example to set.
Dave Rooney
Thanks, Jean.
I’ve been studying the book Crucial Conversations with friends, and just this week have been thinking again about what Dialogue means, and how foreign it is to us in some situations. Like mailing lists, and comment threads, too often. I recommend that book (long winded as it is) to those wantinf to change a superficial culture of one-upmanship to one of deep collaboratio and trust.
I associate some of what you bemoan, Jean, with our move into a phase of monetizing Agile. Where are the models we can look to for collaborative (rather than competetive) co-existance with other businesses in the same ecosystem? I will keep my eye out for them and tweet them.
Btw, Jean: are u on Twitter? I find the tone of conversation there generally more generous, not sure why, but it really is. I’m “deborahh” if you want to hook up there.
Peace, friend
Deb
Really happy to see this, and to see the many positive responses. It’s encouraging. It seems as if there’s been very rapid growth in negativity in the community in just the past few months.
Jean:
I am not sure if you are referring to me or not. I did just post something comparing Scrum and Lean. My intention was merely to show how they are different and to help people know when to use one over the other.
I think there are two issues here. The first is that those who provide certification for attending a course are implying that their course is somehow better. This, in spite of the fact that said course has no evaluations required and no requirement for evaluating instructors.
Thus, those out in the world who are not aware of what is going on hear that – “if I take a Scrum course I am certified in Agile, if I take another course, I am not.”
Given that Scrum only works in some situations and that these people are not aware of it, some of us feel that it is important to talk about when does Scrum work, when does it not. When should one take one approach and when should someone take another approach?
Many people consider Agile and Scrum to be the same. They aren’t. Agile comes in all shapes and sizes – all beliefs and scales. Many different approaches. Some work better than others in different situations. Agile and Lean are different as well.
To pretend all of the approaches are the same and equally valid is not a constructive approach to me. I would prefer an open forum to talk about what works. Labeling certain combinations have an advantage of making it easier to say which combination is more useful than another.
In the Gang of Four’s book, they created 23 patterns. No one pattern was better than another. Each pattern had a context in which it made sense for it to be used.
What is the context of Scrum – a framework which you make money on? Ken, who had, until recently, been your iconic leader, has consistently stated there is no limit to where Scrum can be used. I don’t agree with this and think it is a dangerous comment. I therefore discuss it.
Now, in the scientific community, this would be considered dialogue. In the Agile community it is considered, apparently, heresy or infighting. I don’t know why that is actually.
Why can we not discuss which methods work better in which situations? I think that would be a useful conversation.
However, I do not intend to have this conversation where it is not desired. So, if you _were_ discussing my recent blog, you’ll be happy to know that all subsequent blogs re lean will not be done as a comparison to Scrum. I have found that limits my thinking.
There is no limit to where Scrum can be used — if one understands Scrum, and too many people in this community do not.
Ah, Tobias, such a brilliant argument. If we don’t agree with you it’s just that we don’t understand. However, I have been doing Scrum for about as long as you and feel I do understand. I have done both Scrum and Lean and Kanban successfully. I have felt for some time that until someone does something successfully, they shouldn’t offer an opinion about it – because they don’t appreciate how it works.
There is no question that Scrum can work everywhere, but in my experience there is also no question that in certain situations you need some information that would be helpful. The notion of iterative work and doing inspect and adapt is very basic.
Ironically, however, your comment exactly underlines my comment. There are claims that Scrum works everywhere even though there is an acceptance that it achieves success in only 25% of the time. When it doesn’t achieve success, the group doing it is blamed for Scrumbut or for not removing impediments. What a great marketing program you all have. :)
I would say – do the 5-whys process Lean suggests. Get to the root cause of lack of success of Scrum at the enterprise level. Thinking of the work in terms of flow and eliminating delays and lower work in process will virtually always be useful.
Maybe the result is not with the team but with the approach (bottom up). Or with things upstream of the value stream you don’t feel exists (referring to an earlier blog).
Making a comment off another comment of yours on a different blog – I would suggest that Lean is much more humane than Scrum. Focusing on adding value to customers and adding profit to business enables companies to stay in business – enabling companies to keep jobs available. More humane than nicely and apologetically firing someone.
“Ah, Tobias, such a brilliant argument. If we don’t agree with you it’s just that we don’t understand.”
There you go folks!! There’s the reason why Jean wrote the blog post. Thanks, Alan!
Ugh.
What, I’m the bad guy with this? Isn’t that what Tobias said? He’s not discussing things – he just said if I disagreed with him it’s that I don’t understand Scrum. That’s not what I would call an open conversation.
I’m not dissing Tobias. I know him and I like him. I would just appreciate an engagement instead of saying I don’t understand. Perhaps _this_ is why Jean wrote the blog. ;)
It is hard to be offended by Alan. He apparently has an axe to grind, and he grinds it all over the place :-) As he says above (under Luke’s comment) for Alan it is all about business, about money.
People make money from Scrum, it is true (and why not?) but the essence of Scrum is not about money, it is more like WelfareCSM and Hard Times University, and it begins to spread outside of the software industry through channels such as Scrum for litigation (Agile Lawyers Association) and Jeff and Arlene Sutherland’s Scrum in Church projects.
@DaveRooney “There’s the reason why Jean wrote the blog post. ” @AlanShalloway “Perhaps _this_ is why Jean wrote the blog”. Seems no one actually knows why Jean wrote the blog, or what behaviors she is challenging. We are all just making assumptions.
Examples, specifics, these would really help.
To Tobias. So now I’ve been accused of having an axe to grind and being in it for the money (even tho i though I had explained that my actions cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars so I’m obviously _not_ doing it for the money). I apparently am not allowed to comment without it becoming personal. I think that tells it all. I think I will bow out and go back to a community that does not attack me personally or attribute my actions to low motivations but prefers to talk about the issues. Not sure why I bother with this. I will no longer be looking at the comments here and would appreciate no more personal comment regarding me.
Scrum and XP can be done together, so can Scrum and Lean principles/practices, I’ve done both, what is the big deal?
What I’d *really* like to see is people talking about good software development values, principles and practices, regardless of what label we attach to them. I’m looking forward to the day (which I know will come) when values, practices and principles such as those that have been popularized by XP and Lean are just good ways that teams produce good software.
Amen.
Hmm… a noble post, but I think you are misunderstanding the nature of the dialog. No revolution got anywhere by having people sitting on the fence. Extreme positions lead to conflict. Yes. And good! Conflict is healthy, it creates new insights, and it prompts us to take great care in expressing our points of view — it encourage absolute clarity.
What you detect as mockery, I detect as teasing, baiting, saying c’mon, show me what you got. And when they do, those “opponents”, then we see things we may not have seen before. For example, I currently have a “fight” going on with Karl Scotland. Karl is a man I have great respect for, and I value his knowledge, and his experience. I challenge him, and he challenges me. There is no negativity that I see. I have learnt more from Karl, and Liz Keogh, Chris McMahon, and others by indulging in this escalation, this so-called downward spiral, than I would if I just smiled and nodded.
My question to you is what do you fear in this maelstrom of passion? Agile isn’t about being nice. We don’t all have to get along — that is nonsense. I thrive on the healthy, respectful conflict that I experience in this community. It is food for growth, nourishment for real change.
Sometimes things are not what they seem on the surface, and we simply need to look from a different angle, a fresh perspective.
Tobias:
Since I posted elsewhere with probably a different tone I must say I _love_ this sentiment. :)
Thanks and cheers.
Great post!
Although I have to say I like Tobias’s take on this as well.
But, I think it comes down to respect. It’s one thing to engage in a heated, passionate debate with someone if you’re at least open to the idea that the other person might have something useful to say. When that’s the case, and we’re both passionate about the issue – a good, heated debate can sometimes be the best way to bring the best ideas to the surface. I kind of miss the tight teams I used to work on where we’d probably look like we were at each other’s throats, but we’d walk away with these great ideas that built on everyone’s input.
But then… there are the people who are arguing with you and it doesn’t matter what you say. They’ve already either a) flipped the bozo bit on you/your idea or b) simply decided that they have all the answers so there’s no sense listening to anyone else. At that point they’re simply arguing because they hope if they yell loud enough they’ll convince you they’re right (or maybe that you’ll just give up and go away). Nothing good comes of those, and I’d be happy to see good riddance to them as well.
Abby,
> …if they yell loud enough they’ll convince you they’re right
Those are uncomfortable, and useless discussions, I agree. There are some good collaborative games to help people like that (and all of us) learn different ways of communicating. Again, this is about learned behavior and learned behavior can be unlearned. I sometimes feel that Agile implementations don’t focus nearly enough on the human aspect, except in some fluffy, patronizing ways which is essentially ineffective and at best tolerated. We need a more hard-core, serious approach to human interaction. After all People over Process is one of our underlying principles.
ahh, see you are such a better person than I, Tobias! ;-) I know, it is true, I am guilty of flipping the bozo bit on people who I see doing this. But, you and Steven Smith are gradually convincing me to give them a chance…
I couldn’t agree with you more on the people aspects. How do we make those more visible? I know there’s a lot of science out there now about the people aspects that makes this stuff concrete (not just fluffy, let’s all hold hands and sing Kumbaya) – but I think it requires changes in our organizations that go beyond just the limited scope of our software teams. How do we touch that?
I think you’re sorely underestimating the power of market forces and plain old greed. Why do we have the escalations of the kind you dislike? Because money is at stake. Quite a lot of it. And people will strive to get the money.
Luke
Luke, if that is true (and I choose to believe it isn’t) then we have a duty as a community to help those individuals rethink the way they do business. Agile, for many of us, is about creating new paradigms. If we simply except the “people are greedy” perspective, what do we achieve? People are not inherently greedy, they have been educated that way. They can be educated differently. Let me quote Daniel Pink, from that recent TED Talk, on what is needed as a new operating system for business, given what science knows about motivation:
“A new operating system for business:
Autonomy — the urge to direct our own lives
Mastery — the desire to get better and better at something that matters
Purpose — the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves”
okay, that was weird, I just finished watching that video before coming here to check on the comments.
Two awesome books I’m currently reading that I think really reflect this:
1. Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind – about how vital it is that we be creative if we want to remain competitive
2. Group Genius by Keith Sawyer about how creativity is really requires a collaborative effort (people working together).
If these authors are right, then this is where businesses need to be if they’re to remain competitive.
I totally agree with Luke and am always somewhat ironically amused that those who have the top marketing name (”Scrum”) are always the one who denies any of this is about the money – and are often portraying others (me for example by Ken) as just going after the money.
The fact remains that Scrum is an exclusive club because they have created a market name and only allow certain people to play. I have no problem with this – hats off to the SA for creating it. But it is disengenuous (sp?) to say otherwise or to accuse others (as I have been) of being in it for the money (which is ironic in my case as my getting away from Scrum has cost me $100ks).
I think there is not a lot of money – that is why the friction is becoming visible. When times are flush, all the consultants have clients and there is not friction, i.e. the water level is high and it hides the rocks. Now that times are leaner, people need to differentiate themselves more to chase after less dollars\euros.
I once worked with a team who had an explicit team value of open and honest communication. One team member, somewhat of a bully, used that value as an excuse to be rude and discourteous to other team members. “I’m just being honest” he would say as he slammed another team member. There is a line between collaborative, productive, civil debate and discussion and unproductive, quarrelsome, bickering. I think Jean is talking about the latter.
> I think Jean is talking about the latter.
You ‘think’. I think too. I don’t know. The difficulty here is the lack of examples. What, exactly, is Jean talking about? Who, exactly, is she criticizing? It seems that each commenter is coming to their own conclusions. Alan Shalloway thinks it is about him, I think it is about the recent Kanban/Scrum discussions. Others assume certification issues.
So Jean, how about being more specific? You are criticizing members of the community in a vague way, which isn’t helpful. If you want people to change their behaviors, some specific examples will really help that process. Thanks.
While it might be interesting to look at specific cases mentioned by Jean, we already have a bunch of specific cases mentioned. Not only that but it looks like many of the folks involved in those cases have shown up here. :-)
For folks that won’t respond to feedback, it doesn’t matter if specifics come up or not, they won’t take the feedback. That’s life. Some that get specific feedback will just be defensive or respond negatively.
Regardless, I hope we can all look ourselves in the mirror and see where Jean’s post applies to us whether she meant us specifically or not.
Hear hear, Jim Highsmith.
Jean specifically pointed out valuing “dialogue over debate”. I often start retrospectives with a Focus On/Off exercise from Diana and Esther’s Retro book, in which we help participants think through how their own behavior and words might change if they agree to value dialogue over debate.
Meanwhile, in these comments, I read lots of people discussing the merits of “good” debate and “bad” debate. What if we don’t debate at all? (Picture high school debate society, and the focus on “winning”.) What if we have a dialogue, with a goal of improving our collective knowledge and understanding and a goal of each having more agile practices to offer our teams? How would that change the way we conducted these exchanges?
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.
The debate and actions of late are very disheartening. Next to the Internet, Agile is the best thing that has happening in the computer industry in the last 25 years. Let’s not spoil it with bickering. It is time for true dialogue, and, it is up to us all to call out the dead moose under the table when we start to smell it.
Great post Jean!
I think it boils down to civility, humility, and respect. Intellectually defensible positions can be defended with intellect. If I have a hole in my argument, then, uh, I have a hole in my argument. Good opportunity to practice humility and possibly learn something new.
In my experience, resorting to a response other than “that doesn’t make sense because of X, Y, and Z” is generally an indication of a switch in tactics from a civil debate on the merits to tactics which have nothing to do with honest debate and always end up insulting or alienating the other party.
If you end up alienating somebody on the internet, you are likely alienating more than just one person. All the more reason to favor being civil and generous. Here are the options by the way:
a) Civil, and right. Cool.
b) Civil, but wrong. Who cares?
c) Uncivil, and right.
d) Uncivil, and wrong.
Notice that in the first two cases, you really can’t go wrong. In the second two, there’s a whole slew of words developed over the ages to describe those cases. Personally, I’d rather not end up there.
One last point. Many of us have different value systems , philosophies, and cultural backgrounds when it comes to software development. We’ve all been through different experiences that shape the way that we think about Agile. The challenge is in cutting through these barriers to understanding without cutting each other.
Cheers!
Damon
P.S. – for anybody I’ve alienated, my apologies. The above applies just as much to me as to anybody else.
Thanks for this post Jean.
–MJ
It’s interesting that Jean’s post brought out so many different viewpoints.
I know Karl and Tobias, and I know that if they are engaged in a discussion/debate about any subject whatsoever that they are both seeking to learn and improve. That isn’t what strikes me as “negativity” in some of the discussions happening in the community these days, and I don’t think that’s what Jean means by “escalation.”
I don’t think the problem has to do with courtesy or respect, either. Sure, sometimes people get a bit carried away. Anyone who is passionate about what they do is subject to that, on occasion. If we’re looking at the community as a whole for a period of time longer than a day, then the occasional flare-up wouldn’t cause people to think there is an “escalation” problem across the community. So, I don’t think that’s what this is about.
IMHO Luke touches on an aspect of “escalation” that may be relevant to Jean’s point: Business. At present, there are two branded packages of agile and/or lean ideas that different groups of people are defending strongly. One is called Scrum and the other is called Kanban. I’m not talking about open-minded discussions of Scrum and Kanban; how they work, when they’re useful, how to merge the best of both, how to push the envelope, etc. I’m talking about groups of people who have a vested interest in selling something under one of these brands, and who want (or need) to undermine the competing brand; or, if the competing brand won’t be undermined, then to redefine it in terms of their own brand, as a subset of their own package, so that it will appear weaker when it stands alone.
The “defense” of each of these brands is not in the spirit of Karl and Tobias’ discussion. I see it more as an attempt to control the definition of Good. When you control the definition of Good, you also dictate what customers will buy.
Customers are not (generally) looking for opportunities to spend months or years having an open-minded philosophical discussion of 50,000 nuanced variations on agile and lean thinking. They are looking for a package they can implement and measure in their organizations /without/ having to think about it too much or too long.
If you offer a comprehensive set of concepts and buzzwords, training classes, a certification program, books, consulting services, software packages, and a series of conferences whose content you largely control, all consistently based on a “branded packaging of ideas” that corresponds with a widely-accepted definition of Good which you also control, then you win. You win big. If you can get people to start talking about your brand, to start slinging your buzzwords among themselves, you stand not only to gain share in an existing market, but to create a market where none existed before; a market totally dedicated to your product, because it is based on your definition of Good.
I don’t think the “escalation” has to do with respect, courtesy, or open-minded exploration of different perspectives. I think it has to do with business.
There will still be a community of people who are honestly interested in learning and discovering better ways to work. They’re not the ones who are engaging in this “escalation.” I don’t think they should be worried about who Jean is talking about, because it isn’t them.
Jean,
Great article. It and the comments resonate with what has been concerning me as a new (< 2 yr) coach. The market forces, etc have driven collaboration below the level that we'd teach our clients to accept. We could analyze the impact of poor communication bandwidth, etc but in the end I don't have any concern that this "escalation" is going to "kill agile". How could it? Maybe the structures supporting it will decay and new ones will grow in their place, but people want to do what is right and they won't go back to waterfall once they understand and experience the values and principles of agile or even I&I development.
No, the escalation is so much monkey poo being tossed around. I'm not so far in time from product development to forget that none of this really matters to people who are focusing on their team, customer and product issues. We would pick and choose from what makes sense, learn and improve. If you turn off your brain and pursue a single path based on "authority", you've already failed, regardless of what you chose.
No agile consultant should claim mastery. There is too much change and learning going on. We should all maintain the apprentice mind. There is enough to learn and share to occupy us full time. If you think you have "the answer", prove it to me on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. If I ever feel I have "the answer", I'm outta here; Either to find another career that allows me to learn or to cash in on the answer! ;)
Jean,
Thanks for leading the dialogue around this.
The debates / dialogue around the value of Agile and the various approaches to Agile are necessary and helpful. The general state of software development is not suitable to support the needs of business. We need to shake things up, ideas need to be challenged and sacred cows threatened.
The leaders in this community need to fuel the dialogue while maintaining the fine line between destructive and defensive debate and constructive dialogue. This post and the comments are a good step in this direction.
Dennis Stevens
First off, I think Jean is awesome.. now with that out of the way:
I’ll make an effort to help curb our terminology within our Agile circle.
It isn’t productive to label people “chickens” or “pigs” or even “seagulls” to be honest. It cheapens our value. I’m also dialing back the “single wringable neck” speak because that too is not productive.
Granted I’m still going to go on satirical rants at times, but I’ll do my best to make them informative :)
-David
Jean – thank you for bringing your substantial reputation and clear thinking to airing this important issue – the Agile community badly needs it. I used to find the petty posturing silly and humorous, but now it’s just a source of irritation and disappointment.
I have found that most honest disagreements among people are based on unidentified different assumptions. An inability to explicitly, openly and respectfully talk about those different assumptions precludes resolution and results in power games and one-up-man-ship as the only tools they have left. I’ve seen it in every type of human organization from small volunteer-driven user groups and start-up companies to large firms, countries and international institutions like the UN. It’s a universal human problem.
Damon Poole’s reference to different philosophies, I take as acknowledging this issue, but a solution needs to go deeper. And like Dave Nocolett, I don’t think the problem essentially has to do with courtesy or respect if that means ‘respecting all opinions’ vs judging the opinions in an objective fashion. Unlike Dave, I think we need to define the GOOD or we nave no standard of what we are striving for. And that requires attending to and judging the consequences of different choices.
By way of example from another realm:
A friend and I were just discussing the great hostility that developed between Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and their colleagues – something that I always found confusing. I learned in this discussion that Jefferson (and Thomas Paine) were characterized as ‘destructionists’ – primarily wanting to remove the power of governments, like today’s libertarians. Adams (and Edmund Burke), in contrast, were characterized as ‘constructionists’ – primarily wanting to construct a government based on the best lessons of history to serve human civilizations thriving. By understanding that difference, one can have a rational discussion of the consequences of each including whether this presents a false alternative – a too narrow set of choices.
I agree with Lisa Crispin’s focus on “good software development values, principles and practices, regardless of what label we attach to them.” except that labels are important. They are our handles for concepts that are our tools of thinking and communicating. Therefore, careful value-based, objective definitions of terms is crucial. One can’t get there if one thinks all is relative. That’s why I look for invariants in us and the world as a base. This is big topic that can’t be properly addressed here.
Another aspect of our problem, I think is captured in the term ‘methodology’ which I frequently ridicule in its misuse. If ‘-ology’ is the study or science of a domain, as in biology, methodology is best described as the study of methods and their proper (effective) context of use. In my experience, most often ‘methodology’ is used pretentiously for someone’s method. By being sloppy about this, it makes it difficult to acknowledge and appreciate real methodologists. We have many in this community including people responding here. I have often thought of Alan Shalloway as one, along with the Poppendiecks, Deming, David Anderson, Rob Thomsett, Luke Hohmann, plus of course, many others – each in a certain context. My test is someone dealing in principle and being clear about context and practical value. Individuals often meet this standard in some areas and not in others. Aren’t we humans interesting?
Luke, I agree about the importance of the money aspect, but I wouldn’t use ‘greed’ because it’s one of those words that’s used so sloppily – including striving to be successful and being abusive of the rights of others – just like the word ’selfish’. Any wise person, including business person, cares very much about their long-term reputation for delivering value. Petty bickering among agilists trying to one-up others with attacking straw men, I think is the essence of Jean’s objection. I agree wholeheartedly.
Jay
Thanks Jean!
“Healthy” dialogue is good and necessary … what is it that the Toyota folks call it … “problems first”?
To me, a healthy dialogue is one where we discuss our problems with the goal to improve as a community. If we do not, we cannot improve … together.
A healthy dialogue does not criticize people … its focus is on process and execution.
A healthy dialog does not force my opinion nor belittle others opinions … it focuses on our common understanding and branches from there so that we are all enlightened.
When we as a community speak to our experiences of helping teams learn and grow, we may speak to scrum, kanban, xp, agileup, dsdm … but let us do so with respect to the process and how the process needs adjusting based on the reality of the situation vs. attacking the person for their experiential viewpoint.
I enjoy following each and every one of your experiences … from them I am a better consultant … I do tire of the snippy biting remarks and I would rather read and respond to questions such as “why was that approach taken in that scenario” and hear responses that speak to the approach based on the context.
I am OK with such statements as “Scrum works in scenario ‘A’ but has trouble with the nuances of scenario ‘B’ so we modified it a bit to achieve business value flow” … this challenges the process and not the person on the ground living the scenario and providing the best service at the moment.
:-) … have a happy day everyone!
Phillip
I felt undercurrents of some conflict within our community in Chicago a few weeks ago.
As I was a newcomer to the public side of this community I was on a high from the week’s immersion.
A (then) stranger, fellow Brit and mad genius spent most of the last night of the conference teaching me to look for and navigate the hidden dangers of what on the surface appeared wonderful and simple – quite humbling.
Regardless of the motives for any commentary – whether playful conflict, flame-war or frustration, with so many onlookers and so many bright passionate people, the sudden speed and scale at which differing views becomes an escalation *is* worrying. Presenting agressive commentary without setting the stage doesn’t smell very good. This is why we value face-to-face communication – we can see the smiles, frowns or tears on people’s faces as they’re shouting and act appropriately.
A blind mob onrush towards “sides” may fan the flames of what may simply start out as an expression of taste or frustration. Many of us (myself included) don’t have context but are still wanting to chime in with our views and support towards people we respect. Are we adding value or just laying in the boot?
Any large community or close-knit team will face conflict – it’s inevitable. The challenge is in how to spot it coming and set context, manage the conflict through, look for the underlying causes and learn together.
The selection of flavors; Agile or Lean, Scrum or Kanban – They’re all ice cream, some go better together as combinations and some just taste better to individuals than others.
Given the above, where’s this heading and what do we as a whole community need to observe, learn and change?
Hi all!
First and foremost, I appreciate you for all your incredible insights and your willingness to share with with regard to my post. I hadn’t expected the number of replies. I value you taking the time to let me know how the post impacted you.
Secondly, and very importantly, I want to apologize for my lack of engagement in the discussion. I have been dealing with extensive travel (with no internet access) and then serious network issues with my machine now that I am terra firma in Melbourne, Australia.
So please do not take my silence as ignoring or hiding from all that is being shared here. Rather, I am hoping to write another post when I have better internet access in a hope to offer more information around what I mean by escalation and what I find negative and non-useful about it.
Finally, “eating my own dog food”, I hope you can hear me that I am not attempting to point any fingers at any person here. Rather, I am eager to offer a notion that concentrating on positive work, positive dialogue, and growth-oriented divergence is different and more powerful than an escalation stance. This is just systems thinking at work. I’ll try to explain more of that theory and practice moving forward. Ultimately, it is up to each one of us to decide whether we are on an up escalator or not, or if we create up escalators. (Okay, that is all my terminology, so don’t bother looking that up!)
Again, thanks for the many great reinforcing as well as challenging comments. I’m eager to stay engaged and hope to do so once my Mac decides to let me talk to the world again. (Maybe it didn’t like my post :- (
Dear Jean,
I prefer the expression, ‘drinking our own champagne.’ It kind of puts a more positive spin on it.
It’s very interesting that this discussion is happening here and not say, on scrum-development or leanagile. But since we have the Internet, everything which must be said does get said, and this discussion obviously needed to happen.
Cheers,
Peter
P.S. nice to meet you.
Thanks for this very stimulating post, Jean. It clearly hit a chord.
I wanted to talk about the research of John Gottman and the importance of positivity in a community and on a team, to which your post seems to point. It was way too long for this forum, so it became its own blog post at: http://collectiveedgecoaching.com/2009/10/conflict-diversity-appreciation/ .
Thanks to all the thoughtful comments from others as well. This is a very varied community!
When we as a community speak to our experiences of helping teams learn and grow, we may speak to scrum, kanban, xp, agileup, dsdm … but let us do so with respect to the process and how the process needs adjusting based on the reality of the situation vs. attacking the person for their experiential viewpoint.
Hello,
Once again, I apologize for my lack of visibility in this conversation. I am heartened by the number of people adding further meat to the “dialogue bone”. Recognizing the value of positive conflict through dialogue versus the downward spiral of destructive conflict is a crucial point here. Collaboration and growth invite conflict. I would not want anyone to misconstrue my comments as being anti-conflict or an attempt to encourage conflict avoidance. Rather, I seek growth through the dialogue around divergent perspectives. Divergence is critical in our work. I AM asking for a positive approach to divergence. I am asking that we actively seek MORE insights versus attacking differing insights.
Remember, escalation is: “My fix is your nightmare and you have to lose in order for me to win.” This is a broken system. I can’t support a continued embrace of a broken system.
Finally, I am writing a follow-up post to this one to provide some further thoughts on systems thinking and the escalation model in particular.
Thanks,
Jean
Jean – right on. I appreciated when I got to hear a number of your insights in person while in Denver. What I find most challenging about *any* process improvement methodologies is the religious “right” (left) of those who say their way is “the way” versus the recognition that if there was “one true path” that most of us would either have already been on it.
The reality is that when anyone (myself included) who knows more than someone else has a responsibility to accept that he/she doesn’t know it all and be willing to accept that there are times that the professor becomes the student.
Like most others, I welcome honest and open dialog when the time is appropriate and the intent is sincere. The problem is, there are often times when others attempt to take advantage of a) inopportune timing, or insincerity. In my work, I’m asking to be able to help fix real problems while being able to continuing being effective at doing my job.
My challenge has been managing my effectiveness in coaching others while getting my job done. Coaching is something that I need to do so I have more time to coach. Getting my job done isn’t always the most effective use of my time. It’s another “give the person a fish or teach them how to fish” kind of thing. The problem is, my “students” often would often rather I just grab a fish for them by fixing the problem at hand.
Left a long post before, so I’ll keep this short.
In one mediation, I used the imagery of sine and cosine waves to show not only information processing, but as a visual way of encouraging alignment without toooo much objective compromise.
That’s why I call what I do “Human Trigonometry,” but I won’t go into that here other than to leave the example!