When does adaptation become compromising?

There's a lot of discussion going on about dogmatic agilistas missing the point about being agile. The point being to adapt and be agile rather than enforcing the practices. It's certainly a fair point. But I see a lot of things being done by people and organisations in the name of adaptation that, quite frankly, I consider compromising. Specifically, their adaptations compromise the value system and the principles behind the Agile Manifesto. There's a debate to be had about when an adaptation aims to achieve improvement to the agile method/s and when an adapatation goes further and compromises the foundation provided by the values and principles.

In my experience, organisations trying to adopt agile methods are too quick to quote the 'adaptation card' because they're too afraid of (or ignorant to the need for) organisational and cultural change. And this worries me. It worries me because I fundamentally believe that most organisations need to undergo some organisational and cultural change to realise the full benefits and productivity that agile methods are capable of achieving. You can't plug agile methods into an organisation (or a person) without the organisation (or person) having to change somewhat.

It's certainly possible to evolve and enrich the value system and the principles but I'm not sure adapting either is sensible. I also wouldn't recommend letting people inexperienced with agile modify the values and principles. I'm thinking, but am not yet convinced, that adaptation should be limited to the adoption and application of the practices. And that the values and principles should be preserved as they are stated in the Agile Manifesto.

What do you think?


Tags: agile, adaptation, agile values, agile principles

posted by Simon Baker @ permalink
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