I see plenty of good people in the agile community, but who don’t necessarily easily make ends meet[1]. It’s stupid. These are really good people.

Whose fault is it? Nobody’s.

I can’t blame a buyer for focusing on bulk prices without any consideration for quality, the medium term or the long term because that’s how their mission was entrusted to them, probably with a bonus to accelerate the decline of their organization.

I can’t blame service companies for mass selling, for trying to reposition their historical business model on something completely foreign to them: agile culture. Have we ever seen an animal devour itself? No, may the best survive. At least it’s normal that the old world resists so much, I might do the same when my turn comes.

I can’t blame people for buying from companies with storefronts. We can’t blame them for their choice, “look they’re well-known, the problem is elsewhere, but not with me”. Nor for launching by buying guaranteed solutions (with commitment to results, fixed-price contracts, etc.), they need to protect themselves because their organization isn’t ready itself to understand that one can fail, change, be surprised. Impossible therefore to blame someone for taking all the options that will allow them not to appear as a failure, even if it means miserably failing to achieve the real objective, because their organization isn’t ready for it, and damn it one must live, eat, and love above all else. Where to buy and how to buy is clearly secondary.

For the same reasons I can’t blame people for buying poorly, for not putting in the extra 100 euros per day, let’s say 1000 or 10000 more on the assignment and missing out on a real gain. It’s hard to perceive this benefit, when it’s so easy to do a calculation on an excel spreadsheet. Protect yourself, in the end it’s the excel spreadsheet that could win. See the buyers above, see the service companies above, see the forbidden failure above. It’s the drama of dark matter in the universe: it constitutes 63% of it but we don’t see it, don’t treat it.

But the modern world is the absence of linearity and the primacy of value over cost, it’s the return of risk and the end of conservatism.

I can’t blame people for doing anything with Agile. Heck but that’s the very essence of emergence: we have an easy, practical, quick-to-discover game, let’s play! It’s in all these failures that the path to follow for the future will probably be born. We’re not going to forbid people from playing! Or tell them how to do it! Have we seen anything more contradictory?

I can’t blame people for talking left and right about Agile, because they love it. If you do what you love, I have only one piece of advice: continue!!! And maybe you’re the one who’s right. Saying you’re wrong is already a mistake on my part.

I can blame myself for having prejudices: we find very good people everywhere. Even among buyers, even in service companies. We achieve amazing things, even sometimes with commitment to results, fixed-price. Really. The service company was a good time in my life, a great learning experience. I don’t plan to become a buyer and therefore I can’t say more about them.

Oh and this preachy agile community, here’s the proof, this stupid article.

At the same time, it’s stupid I see very good people in this agile community.

Don’t hesitate to contact me to give me feedback.

Feedback received

Someone tells me:

I’m reacting to your last message that I understand well. At the same time, I’m cutting my teeth as an agile coach for xxxxx, having only been agile since 2010 and only advising clients for 2 years, well, indeed, I suppose I produce services that aren’t great. Probably not too expensive and not great. You’re right. At the same time who to allow me to do this job? As an independent, not enough network yet, in a company that only does agile, haven’t found the rare gem. Maybe service companies are the star academies of tomorrow’s coaches… for better and for worse. We’re lucky to have a beautiful job, difficult but beautiful, so let’s be happy.

To which I replied:

No problem with your “condition”, which is neither better nor worse than that of others. And as you say you have to exploit the opportunities and advantages of each context. Your comment makes me say that I was harsh with the service company. I see plenty of limitations, but I thought I had also pointed out that I had spent good times there.

He continues:

The service company is not an end in itself. It’s a means for me to do my job and, because it’s a “big” service company to be able to easily reach clients who are increasingly in a model of provider listing/evaluation. How to survive when you’re independent? I really wonder. If I had the answer, no doubt I’d be independent but I like the idea of not having to do sales and strangely, in my big service company, vis-à-vis my client I have a certain freedom of speech since I’m not a salesperson precisely. I tell them for example that to implement agile, you have to forget fixed-price to start with, which is frankly against the grain of what the salesperson will say. In short, in a complex world, contradictions are legion, I don’t need to tell you that.

PS: Service companies, independents or others, I have the impression that when you’re an “agile coach”, we defend the same thing, love for the client, for the users of products, the vision of the complex world, etc. But I understand that meeting independents who aren’t making it even though they’re good and seeing them lose their place to service companies, that can be infuriating. For my part, and in my case, the service company hired me at the request of one of their clients (they didn’t have agile coaches before) and this client wanted to keep the service company as a reference. Not sure they would have entrusted the project to an independent. Maybe not the same markets after all but to tell the truth I don’t know. It would be interesting to know. […]. Maybe agile coaching in service companies (at least the big ones), is concentrated on large accounts no? But actually, are there many small companies that can put money into an agile coach?

Very aware that he lives better in the shadow of a service company than as an independent starving while waiting to be recognized.

But also:

[1] I’m not talking about you.