God Mentality
My recipe for developing a God Mentality.
Ingredients:
- a team of non-agile developers
- a single zealous (or inexperienced) agile coach
Method:
- Prepare a clean team working area
- Gently introduce the agile coach to the team
- Gently stir until a process emerges
- Trust the coach
- Allow process to fester
- Praise the coach
- Serve with a slight pinch of sarcasm
Adopting agile is extremely difficult and coaching is a great way to being in the necessary skills and expertise to a team. However, coaches are not infallible and will inevitably leave their own stamp on your project. Leave a single coach on a team for long enough and they will become an almost god like figure and the team will depend more and more on their advice and wisdom (KB/C3). A good coach will be able to adapt the processes and methodologies to suit your environment, but a zealot will probably insist on adapting your environment to match the methodology. To produce a really good God Mentality it is imperative that they are unquestioned in their approach and instead followed blindly. This works particularly well with a team of inexperienced (or long serving corporate) developers.
Unfortunately, if you fail to produce the perfect God Mentality, you're probably doomed to a life of perfect agile. The moment some diversity is allowed to challenge the preaching from God #1 you are on your way to never exalting a single guru (or their processes) again...
Unfortunately, the quality of agile coaches varies remarkably and this recipe may not always produce the perfect God Mentality.