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Rating ? Qualities ?
Analytical
Overview
For Beginners

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Why Isn’t Agile Working?

A couple drawings...
John Cutler • Hackernoon © 2017

Management / Project Management

Management / Management Concepts / Agility

Take-Aways
• Agile has become a project management buzzword that many companies grab onto in the name of
enhanced productivity.
• The agile framework alone can’t fix underlying problems with company culture or values.
• The key to making agile, or any other process, as effective as possible is first to identify the right problems
to work on at the right times.
• Once agile is adopted, organizations must guard against unplanned work or multitasking.
• The ultimate goal of agile, or any other adopted methodology, must be the realization of defined benefits.

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 Recommendation
Agile project management techniques have the potential to help companies develop software focused
on their customers’ needs in less time and with less waste than the old approaches. But as author John
Cutler points out in this short, illustrated read from Hackernoon, agile isn’t a magic pill that will fix an
organization’s productivity woes on its own. getAbstract recommends this short post as a starting point for
those who may be considering an agile implementation but aren’t sure what to expect.

Summary
Over the past couple of decades, many software companies and IT departments have realized that
development rarely proceeds in a straight line from initial requirements to finished product. As teams
struggled with changing requirements and grumbling customers, firms searched for more efficient ways
to keep up with ever-evolving specifications and expectations. Against this backdrop of confusion and
frustration, agile project management techniques emerged as a new approach to tackle the challenges that
modern technology projects present.

“To go faster, you need to address the waiting time.”

Yet as agile has grown from a grassroots movement focused on better, more targeted software into a
mainstream approach embraced by companies of all sizes and in all industries, the methodologies have lost
some of their shine. In a typical scenario, management reads about the wonders of agile and champions its
adoption, complete with training, tools and maybe even new staff. Then, after months of hand-wringing
and project meetings, company leaders panic when projects aren’t completed on time. Frustrated that agile
didn’t deliver on its promise, the company changes course again.

“Address sources of unplanned work, and quantify the economic impact of having a
shared service.”

But often times, the problem lies not with agile itself but with the underlying culture of the organization and
the expectation that a new process can fix problems that may have been festering for years. Compounding
the problems is a failure to account for characteristics inherent to most projects, such as time spent
waiting for approvals, testing or sign-off on requirements. Portfolio managers can mitigate much of that lost
time by diligently lining up multiple projects, but they need strong buy-in and support from management.

“Agile is worthless unless it serves as a catalyst for continuous improvement.”

Even the most bulletproof plans can take a hit when unexpected work arises, as it usually does, and
increasingly complex systems can sap developer productivity. In order to squeeze the most out of agile,
companies need to factor all these perturbations into their implementation and give project management the
means and authority to mitigate them. Above all, organizations must ruthlessly focus on the projects that are
most meaningful to their mission and then commit the resources necessary to finish them, agile or not.

www.getabstract.com
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 About the Author
John Cutler is a product development expert and a frequent technical contributor to Hackernoon and
Medium.

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