Back to Basics

While I have been working exclusively for one company since my last posting, I have been watching the industry, attending Scrum Gatherings, following people I've known over the years, listened to a lot of webinars, and generally tried to keep track of what's been happening.  I am more and more convinced because of this, and the independent consulting I did for years before my current job, that too many people who have become engaged in some form of Agile transition, were either not shown the meaning of the Agile Manifesto's Values and Principles or quickly bypassed them in favor of practices ("doing Agile").

It's not that I'm claiming to be some magnificent authority on the Values and Principles, but you need not be a genius to recognize behaviors that are clearly antithetical to those ideas.  Without understanding those Values and Principles, it's just too easy to "tailor" recommended practices in such ways that either clearly miss the point  or so rigidly "interpret" them as to exclude useful implementation.  So I'm going to even more firmly structure my future coaching and training very strongly toward why before any what and how.

I know people want the latter things a lot and I am not averse to telling them about good examples of practice that I have observed.  However, I'm going to resist working with those who want to skip the why.