Agile Know-How Magazine • Fall 2017
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What is the most
common mistake made when
adopting an Agile approach
Focusing on the methods.
We need to be careful not to focus more on methods, such
as Scrum, than on the organization’s mindset change.
We must not think that we simply need to implement the
methods and that they will bring the organization where it
wants to go. In an Agile transformation, there are a lot of
things to work on. We need to consider the risk, uncertainty,
and complexity of the transformation, as well as the way
people perceive this change. It seems more important to me
than the actual Scrum techniques.
Daniel Leclair
President
Generalizing or misinterpreting the
Agile Manifesto.
When we look at the Agile Manifesto and its four funda-
mental values, there is a right and a left part. The manifesto
says that we need to emphasize what is on the left rather
than what is on the right. In fact, people often believe that
they actually need to replace the right part with the left. For
example: working software over comprehensive documen-
tation. Often, we will hear extremes like: “we no longer need
to write documentation.” This is not what the manifesto
says. Instead of “over,” we should say
“more than.”
Jean-François Thériault
Agile Developer
Pushing Agility to extremes.
As a developer, I could tend to stop thinking on the long term
and tell myself, for example, that I will no longer do docu-
mentation and architecture. We must think of maintaining
the code so that it remains legible.
Audrée Lafontaine
Agile Developer
Not knowing the reasons why we are
choosing Agility.
Lately, I have been meeting organizations that are choosing
Agility simply because they see some benefits for their line
of business. However, not knowing the true reasons that are
pushing us to choose Agility can cause different problems.
We can see tensions appear within the teams because
Agility requires changing several practices in the organiza-
tion, and there is often a lot of resistance
to these changes during such a transition.
Mathieu Boisvert
Chief Operating Officer
Wanting to apply a recipe to the
organization.
It is essential to understand where the organization comes
from and why it wants to transform, as well as what its
intention and vision are. These are the first triggers of
a transformation. Every transforming
organization needs to apply an Agility
that corresponds to it.
Nicolas Lellouche
Agile Coach
Thinking that Agility is the solution to
a problem.
Agility will rather highlight the problems that are there and
that are often ignored. One of the challenges of Agility is to
find ways to address the problems in
order to fix them.
Éric De Carufel
MVP Architect
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