Agile is an orchid.
“I read this article that shows that orchids are like a super flower, if you plant orchids, then all your plants grow twice as fast in half the time.”
So spoke the CGO (Chief Garden Officer). Thus commenced a search for the best orchid. At least, that could be found for the price the company was willing to pay.
A gardening expert was contracted to come and plant the orchid in the garden. The CGO and their team did not participate in or attend to that process, leaving that to the front-line gardeners.
The expert recommended having the CGO and their team learn about caring for the orchid. The CGO felt that was mostly a ploy to increase fees, and did not.
Some existing gardeners were “promoted” to be Product Growers. A few Orchid Masters were hired. The CGO sat back in anticipation of seeing twice the flowers in half the time.
The orchid was planted in the same soil that had been present all along. The CGO, who liked to walk indiscriminately amid the gardens, trampled it occasionally. The orchid was watered and fed irregularly, and struggled to grow.
It wilted enough that extensive efforts by the Orchid Masters was necessary to simply keep it alive. Everyone else from the CGO down to the newest gardener began to resent the orchid and the “extra work” it required.
Failure to Thrive
Eventually, the poor orchid failed to increase productivity. The CEO blamed the orchid for failing to thrive. They laid off the Orchid Masters, and the orchid died.
After it died, thought leaders wrote multiple articles on LinkedPlant about “Orchids are dead.” Soon, LLMs (Large Lettuce Matrixes) were all that anyone could talk about. “The matrix structure would allow one experienced gardener to do the work of 5 or even 10 junior gardeners.”
Meanwhile, gardens that practiced healthy stewardship for their plants and gardeners quietly went on about their business of growing.
What It Means
This is a thinly veiled parable about Agile. It’s about how Agile typically begins and ends in organizations. It’s introduced down from the top in pursuit of “push” goals – doing more while spending less.
Little or no thought given to whether Agile will survive much less thrive in the context of that organization, its leaders, and culture.
Selling and following “solutions” and the “how” is much easier than doing the work of understanding the “why” and changing culture.
Buying a solution seems like a shortcut, an easy fix, a prudent option.
It’s a lot easier to write about, create training for, and have certification exams about the process parts (sprints, velocity, whatever godforsaken thing SaFE is).
There are no shortcuts to building a culture of trust, respect, and empowerment; no path to that culture except committing to it, living it, and owning when you fall away from it to course-correct back to it.
Agile thrives where the values of the organization and its leaders are already largely aligned with the values that Agile requires.
Much like growing exotic plants by digging a hole in your front yard and dropping them in, most organizations that “do Agile” don’t have and don’t create the environment for Agile to succeed.
They do not have a culture where team members are trusted to pull work onto their plate at a sustainable and business-supporting pace, to take ownership of the work and the time invested, and of business goals, and a relationship with customers that is also based on respect, not scorn and superiority.
What Now?
Agile gardening requires attention to values. It requires choosing to face reality, and to challenge the “silver bullet” thinking of leaders.
We’ll dive deeper into being an Agile gardener in the next post!