Everyone is talking about Agile. It survived the hype and many many more companies are moving towards such an approach to stay in the business.
One question bothers me – ” Why we are still in the situation that there are still so many open topics in the forums about a wrongly applied Agile?”
We have Agile methodologies, Agile coaches and so on, but mostly non-technological companies are still struggling.
One of the reasons is that the companies are still operating in the Do what i say approach, rather than give a course and empower people to do their best.
What may be the reason for that?
In the video below the author shared his experience being the captain of a submarine.
He needed to rely on his team’s skills since he had a tight deadline and he couldn’t learn everything needed to give orders all the time. As well as this is unpractical.
Imagine you are the boss of a team and every second someone is asking you what to do.
Sounds good, right? You will have the power, all the decisions will be made by you and you will be in control.
And now imagine how the level of stress you have increase constantly since the competition is advancing and everyone expect only you to come up with brilliant ideas. Since the technological stack is innovating rapidly, your knowledge won’t be sufficient and your time won’t be sufficient to focus on innovation.
The team will be unmotivated to propose innovations, since they are paid to listen and do and not to think and your company will become obsolete.
Instead, the author of the video proposed a different strategy.
Surround yourself with smart people and competent people, communicate clearly your intention and trust them.
Of course there should be checks on why they choose those decisions, but if you can’t trust your team for the decisions they make, invest in their education, communicate clearly your intentions or create a better team.
Aleks Vladimirov
Solution Engineering Manager at Thales | Senior IT Professional | Startup Mentor and Product Manager
