Need Inspiration?

"Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy."
-Dan Gable

Wrestling legend Dan Gable recently narrated an ESPN short story about Willie Burton, a champion wrestler struggling with Cerebral Palsy.

This story is humbling and inspiring and worth a few minutes of your time.  Here is the link:
Will Burton

How To Bring Agile Into an Established IT Organization

When we go to practice Agile within the context of a corporate IT environment with established practices and standards, there can be a lot of resistance, (especially at the beginning).  It can be especially difficult in large, well established IT organizations that have evolved over many years and have not yet come around to adopting Agile.

From my experience, once teams switch to Agile, most like it, and respond well.  Teams and individuals quickly see the benefits and most will never go back to any other way of thinking and working.  But to make the switch for a team or individual that is used to practicing waterfall, (or something similar), may not be easy.

It takes time, patience and commitment to change how people work in any organization.  Bringing Agile into a team that is not familiar with Agile methods is not going to happen overnight. It's just not.  This is why I advocate this Agilish concept.  Practice Agile values and principles and apply Agile methods slowly.  Train, (or hire), key players to help advocate.  Bring people up to speed one step at a time and show the value.  Most importantly, get started.  This is not a perfect world and the conditions that enable all of the Agile principles may not exist.

Slapping an Agile label on top of an established PMO or prescribing Agile across an IT organization may seem like a clear, easy path, but this may do more harm than good.  Like any methodology, if individuals and teams do not see the value and/or do not buy into the concepts, it is very easy for them to dig in and resist.  At the first bump in the road, (production problem, missed deadline, etc.), the knives will come out and fingers will point to the prescribed methodology as the problem.  "We did not have these issues when we were doing things the old way."

Be smart and Agile in your approach.  Start small, show value and build momentum.  Agile works.  This is why it has taken off and is so widely adopted.  It is as simple as that.  When you are able to demonstrate success, people will want to be part of that magic and will flock to it, building momentum by pulling Agile into their projects.  Make the switch to Agile in an Agilish way - one project at a time and within the constraints of the current environment.

The First Pancake is Always Spoiled

There is a Russian proverb that translates to:

“The first pancake is always spoiled.”

At first glance it sounds pessimistic, but I find it far more hopeful—and far more Agile-minded—than the common IT idiom:

“It is what it is.”

The proverb about the first pancake carries an important message: the first attempt at anything is rarely perfect. That is expected. It acknowledges that learning happens through doing. The first version may be messy, uneven, or even disappointing, but it serves an important purpose. It teaches us what works and what does not.

We accept that first attempt, learn from it, and move on to the next iteration.

When we cook pancakes, the first one often turns out wrong. The pan isn’t quite the right temperature yet. Maybe there’s too much butter, or not enough. The batter spreads differently than we expected. We cannot truly know these things until we put the butter in the pan and pour the batter down.

Only then do we start to understand.

The first pancake might be uneven or overcooked. Sometimes we toss it aside. Sometimes we eat it anyway. But either way, it has done its job: it has taught us how to make the next one better.

And that next one is already cooking.

Soon the pan is at the right temperature. The butter is just right. The pancakes start coming out golden and fluffy. In fact, the next ones are already in the pan. Can you smell them? Can you see them? They already look much better.

Now compare this mindset with the phrase:

“It is what it is.”

That phrase often carries a very different meaning. It suggests resignation rather than learning. It implies that the damage is too great, the technical debt is too high, and nothing can be done except endure the consequences. The project is broken, the resources are gone, and improvement feels impossible.

Where the first proverb says “we will do better next time,” the second often says “nothing can be done.”

The first pancake may be spoiled.

But the important thing is that we are still cooking.

Russian Proverbs