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Organizational Objections To Agile Process By Jeff Langr and Tim Ottinger
Font is Andrew Script

It is no surprise that organizations struggle when attempting to transition to agile methods. As with any new venture that threatens the status quo, the list of objections is long and varied. In developing this card we collected over a hundred typical sentiments and grouped them into about a dozen categories--too many for a single card. In keeping with our personal vows of brevity, we present here the first card: Objections borne out of organizational and cultural circumstances. We will present reasons that stem from individual belief systems and biases separately.

In order to help transitional consultants and rank-and-file people who are struggling, we provide commentary and counter-arguments.

We fully recognize that there are teams that will not want to use Agile methods, and we suspect that there are organizations unwilling to modify their practices to accommodate a new style. We suspect that any method will not be successful in such organizations and that abandonment may be a reasonable strategy. As they say, "Change your company, or change your company."

In time, we may discover ways of fulfilling the promises of Agile with other methods. Agile is not the only possible way to improve an organization, even though we have found it to be one exceptional way to improve software-developing companies.

If, on the other hand, an organization is not interested in the kinds of benefits Agile methods promise (teamwork, growth, quality, productivity) we recommend that they become our competitors.