When I think of memorable people, admirable people, especially those who brought about great change, I think of those who chose a path that didn’t exist before them. They took a deliberate stand; knowing that no advance occurs without breaking the status quo, or challenging established ideas. And so it is with Agile. It only evolves because of those who are committed to the community, to emerging ideas and practices, to bending and breaking the rules.
So as a Scrum Master or Coach, I don’t want you to teach and embed practices as written. I want you to bring your best experiences and wisdom to bear to create your own edition of agility. Don’t worry about conforming to industry canon – have a stand. What do YOU think will work? What could you add, change, or subtract to make your teams more effective? What would smash traditional barriers?
To learn agile delivery – whether Scrum, Kanban, or any other variant – and then serve it back up verbatim is easy. It is time for us to evolve – ourselves and the practice. After all, isn’t adaptation and evolution part of our core philosophy, our manifesto?
What is difficult is having the courage to bring your own ideas about how we make good on the Agile promise to your teams, leaders and community. There will be rejection, ridicule, and violent opposition, but on the other side of that is acceptance, and true change. I believe this is the destiny of the transformational leader. Not to speak loudly the ideas of others, but to emerge with a philosophy all their own, based on experiences, experiments and beliefs.
We need more of those. Could it be you?
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