I totally disagree with the idea that ultimately we write software for money, for someone to make money — or more money. I can’t bear with sad statements like “well, eventually we get paid to produce revenue” or “at the end of the day what counts is the money”, “we do agile to make more money” or just “show me the money!”. Bullshit.
If money is the only purpose, agile methods are not going to help you!
During my years as independent developer and consultant, I’ve observed two primary reasons for agile methods to fail. One resides in the top management (not every manager!) whilst the other is in the technical side – the developers (not every developer!).
Top management’s problem
When top managers care more about money than they do about people, sooner or later employees feel that they are just numbers, resources and agile methods can’t help. There is no point in trying to talk about Scrum or XP to those top guys, because what they really have is a crisis of values. A big problem of perception. What they really need is executive coaching, not agile practices. I don’t think we should encourage them to attend agile conferences, we should rather recommend them a really good life coach, psychotherapy, meditation, yoga, sport…
Important: I am not talking about all the managers, just about some people.
Money should never be a goal in itself. We write software to solve people’s problems, because we care about others and want to improve their circumstances. Or perhaps just because we enjoy doing so. Money should be just one consequence of doing our job right. The disease that is killing our planet is cancer. When the goal of a company is just to make more money every year, to increment the “growth”, that’s a cancer. Unlimited growth is cancer. It kills the human body and at a large scale it’s killing the planet. Agile values and principles do not scale up in economic terms, like many other things – Jorge Uriarte talks about it in his brilliant talk in Spanish.
Money does not buy happiness because money can’t buy an eternal life and health. Rich people are never satisfied because money is not fulfilling so they become gollums – let me refer to another brilliant talk in Spanish this time by Joan Antoni Mele.
If you happen to be an employee in one of these companies don’t be confused, the problem is deeper at the basis of the system, it’s not your fault. There are actual reasons for you to feel the lack of purpose and hence motivation. You can try to change things within your team or area, do your best for them, learn and share in that circle but it will stop in there. It could be a good time to reflect on where and how you want to spend your energy, your life.
Developers’ problem
On the other hand the reason why agile methods fail sometimes has to do with some developers. We ruin the code, remember?We must learn to say NO, to have the courage to face the truth even when it’s not nice and talk about it. Of course we must deliver excellent quality software and accomplish our commitments. The XP practices are intended to promote the principles and values that help developers behave like professionals. I travel often to mentor developers in many cities and what I always find is a dramatic lack of knowledge, technical skills. Really smart people but missing basic knowledge. Because the majority of us haven’t been taught by professionals. Fortunately we can work around that, I think conferences and other events are great tools along these lines — apart from training and mentoring. Deliberate practice is very important and communities help a lot with this. We practice together to improve our skills. The more I read about Software Craftsmanship, the more I feel on the same page. I highly recommend the book by Sandro Mancuso on the subject, I am not gonna try to repeat his inspiring words. This is why I believe less in “agile events” and “agile communities” and more in communities of practice.
If it’s not money, then what is it?
You have to find it by yourself. I can tell you that I don’t work for money, it just comes in as a matter of doing what I like, the best I can do it. It’s not always easy, sometimes it’s actually scary but it works. I like to think I wasn’t born to be a money machine. The desire of being helpful to others is my driving force. I know I won’t be effective if I can’t get that feeling.
Daniel Pink says that our motivation comes from autonomy, mastery and purpose. These are good goals in themselves rather than means to produce money. Nice example, isn’t it?
To close this post, I leave you with this powerful keynote by Martin Fowler about the role of the programmer: