By an Agile Practitioner for Agile Practitioners
Over the years, as I’ve navigated the turbulent waters of the I.T. industry and Agile/Scrum practice, I’ve accumulated a trove of observations—both personal and from a network of hundreds of peers that span the local, national, and international spectrum. These observations form a pattern, a map of what’s working and, more poignantly, what sends us careening off the tracks. Today, I want to share these insights, not just to point out the bad smells but to uncover the shape of the beast we’re all trying to tame.
Why Ignore the Science?
It baffles me that we have decades, if not centuries, of hard science—principles that have generated billions for other industries—sitting idly on our shelves while we navigate software development with our guts as compasses. We’re maximizing local optima, embracing a global fear of our own inadequacy, and clinging to management techniques that should have been archived over a century ago.
Sketching the Broad Outlines
In this digital age where everything should be transparent, we still tremble at the thought of making our value visible. We’re stuck in a ‘Theory X’ mindset, managing knowledge workers as if they were reluctant laborers of the past—when, in reality, they are self-driven change agents of a ‘Theory Y’ world.
From Management Science to ‘Theory T’
Management science often gets overlooked in tech, where many transition from coding to leading without formal training. As a management undergrad and an MBA with a focus on Supply Chain & Operations Management, I’ve always been a process nerd, not a coder. I’ve seen the need for a new theory—let’s call it ‘Theory T’—where the layers of goals across a company must align to maximize value. If an organization is a multi-stage rocket, we can imagine the executive management layer at the top, setting the direction. The rocket boosters are the people who actually create the product that generates value. Middle management is — well, in the middle. Have some empathy for this group, they are the ones who feel a pressure from both sides, trying to negotiate between the leadership layer and the productive layer.
The Costs of Misalignment
In this theory, misalignment between the company, its departments, and its employees creates a rocket that’s off-kilter, threatening to crash instead of soar. We expend massive energy on covert contracts (“I will continue to work as long as my secret conditions are met”) and internal struggles, draining the momentum needed for real progress. I call this Theory T, because I envisioned the wrangling between individuals, departments, and layers are pulling each stage of the rocket left or right … not up or down. Presumably no one intends to reduce upward momentum, but the tensions created by bickering about what to do and how to do it, generates stress on the horizontal axis. This threatens the integrity of the rocket.
Agile and Scrum: The Misunderstood Frameworks
We have Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches earnestly trying to apply these frameworks, only to watch in dismay as layers above them tinker and tweak before giving them a fair trial “out of the box”. I advocate for people over process, but we must also understand that every part of the system, every individual, plays a crucial role.
Chess, Monopoly, and the Game of Scrum
If we played Chess or Monopoly while constantly changing the rules, we’d never master the game. Similarly, claiming to practice Scrum while disregarding its core principles is like setting up a board game and then deciding the queen can move like a knight—interesting, perhaps, but no longer Chess. This discards the hundreds of years of accumulated chess wisdom captured in books, archived games, and lectures. If you invent your own chess variant, none of this information will be useful to you.
Closing Thoughts
In these musings—my ‘Theory T’—I see a vision for a future where we align our goals vertically like a rocket ready for liftoff. It’s not just about playing the game; it’s about mastering it, knowing each move, each role, and pushing towards a common zenith of value and progress.
Engage with me on this journey. Have you felt the misalignments, the covert contracts, the frictional costs? Let’s discuss and refine ‘Theory T’ together. After all, isn’t that what Agile is all about—collaboration and continuous improvement?
The Agile Couch 