That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
— Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 43-44
What lesson about Agile can we learn from these famous lines of Shakespeare’s Juliet?
Suggested Solution
The lesson we can learn is that we have to understand the main intent behind doing anything. The idea is not to do anything blindly but understand the intent and then see how you can achieve the required results.
For example:
Scrum recommends a set of ceremonies to ensure that Agile teams are in sync. These ceremonies help self-organising teams to quickly get on top of situations and help them adapt to fast-evolving environments.
Most teams have some sort of ceremonies to see what is going well, what is going wrong and what the action items for the next period are. They also have planning ceremonies to decide what their next piece of work will be. Many teams have daily stand-ups, retrospectives, reviews and planning meetings. You should not insist that any specific kind of ceremony be done. As long as the intended outcome is achieved, teams can fashion any kind of ceremony they want, with any frequency they like.
There is nothing in a name. It is the intent that matters.
One Response
A very relevant article, that tries to address some of the core barriers to adoption of Agile in an organization.
Also, apart from the organization culture, one might need to look at the core beliefs of the individuals involved, as at the end of the day, there are many subconscious influences acting upon each of us whether we realize it or not.
For example, are each of the individuals in the team following any mental and physical hygiene practices that makes them more flexible and adaptable to adoption of change. Similarly, in the Indian context, even if the organizational culture is collaborative or innovative we still tend to be hierarchical by virtue of our tradition, so a mixed approach may be always called for.