It’s really in vogue to mock Agile right now. As much as I want to cast aside or ignore the comments made by everyone online, it’s hard to blame them. Jobs are super fickle, and organizations aren’t as willing to invest in the practices I’ve spent the past decade promoting. The conferences I’ve enjoyed aren’t selling as many tickets, because companies don’t see the need to fund the learning opportunities (including the one I help run).

That’s what made my session at Agile 2024 in Dallas so harrowing. The track chairs of Audacious Salon (ask me about it if you wanna know) tossed an idea my way for their part of the program. Describe the psychological cost of Agile transformation in whatever way I wish.

On top of struggling with professional stability since COVID, and feeling less effective on many of those days, now I have to talk about what Agile has taken from me? I’m a crier for sure, but I couldn’t imagine that watching tears well up for an hour on stage was what Melissa and Matt wanted.

I conducted interviews, both online and in person, with some trusted peers and leaders to understand what we’ve given to the cause. There is also a return on that investment, but it would depend on the person. The struggle was I couldn’t stitch it all together into a single story because of the differing paths each of us took in our journies. So, I decided to describe my journey and the costs I paid along the way.

Hope and Pride

My first IT role was in quality and after four years of testing, I was ready for a new challenge. Someone trying to get a mobile app startup off the ground was introduced to me and I had a chance to lead a software team. The person who would become my boss slid across the table a copy of Mike Cohn’s classic text on Scrum telling me, “If you’re comfortable working this way the job is yours.”

I did what most of us did. Said yes without thinking about what it would mean and promised to read it cover to cover.

There was so much hope in my early days because while the work was a little wonky in those days, it felt good working the ways the book described. I was diligent with the timing and facilitation of events, overreacted more than a few times when things didn’t go according to plan, and delivered stuff when needed.

There was also the price my pride paid along the way. In my session, I described in excruciating detail how my ego was bruised daily by the learnings of leading my first team. I’m not quiet, so I’m sure I raised my voice more than a few times in frustration. It is a price we all learn in our journies of leadership. I was just getting started with the pride payments too!

Learning…Mostly What To Say

My goal wasn’t to be an amazing agilist in those days. Frankly, Scrum was something we just used to get work done. I was more interested in what we were building than how we were building it. My conversations weren’t about what each of the 12 principles meant and why they were written the way they were.

Trying to support my team, I was desperate for anything that helped us get the best from our time together. I read anything I found on Twitter and various blogs. Asked a ton of questions at local meetups. I even received my Scrum Master and Product Owner training from Mr. Cohn. Which was a treat.

Strangely enough, there were many sources of information even though the ideas were still maturing. I remember when an early mentor advised me to use as many of the stories I heard from others who advocated for better practices. I began repeating them, probably to try to sound capable.

I guess the question I have looking back related to this cost is what telling the stories of others had on my learning process. Could there be a cost to repeating the words of experts when I didn’t experience them myself?

Optimism (Lots Of It)

It was around this time that I learned the famous adage of consulting. Being great requires the ability to walk the line between skepticism and optimism. A very straightforward way of communicating the pull many of us have in the world of agility because an extreme amount of either isn’t great. I believe an increase in skepticism comes from learning the harsh lessons of leadership. When we experience those, our faith wavers and we struggle to think anything is possible.

That definition might differ for you, but the lesson remains the same.

Originally, I thought my large amount of optimism wouldn’t fade. Even if my “learnings” gave me doubts, I assumed my positivity would win the day. This lesson hurt the most when I realized the harsh reality of the balance between skepticism and optimism. Those two concepts aren’t their own independent supply. When your skepticism grows from experiencing and overcoming challenges, the only thing optimism can do is fade an equal amount.

As someone who thought I would succeed by sheer force of will, I wonder how I would have responded differently if I had tracked my optimism.

All Those *%$#@!^ Letters After My Name

Becoming a full-time agile transformation consultant became my top desire after deciding I wanted to move from product-based work to process-focused. That meant saying goodbye to mobile app development and joining an amazing group of transformation leaders at SolutionsIQ. For those of you in similar spaces, there is this unspoken arms race we all entered trying to increase our credibility for clients. And the best way to seem credible was to earn more certifications.

Some of us went after that brass ring with more vigor than others, but we are all pursuing the same goal. I’ll happily sign up if we communicate our ability by accumulating “letters of learning” because that’s what the market requires. While I did pay for the first few certs on my own, my company can support anything beyond that so why not gather certs and the shirts that came with them (thanks Jay Hrcsko)

The unfortunate ramifications of all those letters came when coaches started classifying themselves into a hierarchy. Nobody ever intended to create a class of agile coach but that’s what we did. Remember when we started introducing ourselves as “program” coaches, “executive-level”, or any other rankings we gave ourselves?

I’m not here to criticize the past too much with this post. It’s just important to recognize that to create a career path for ourselves when there is never really one in our industry, we want to differentiate ourselves from other job candidates.

The only question I have is, will we ever fully use this vast knowledge we’ve been taught?

I became a product

In my opinion, this is the greatest sin of the 2010s in Agile. There were so many jobs available for those with agile transformation experience, and clients were signing up in record numbers to become transformed. All of a sudden, I started seeing SOW deliverables that sounded less and less like “helping teams ship quality work consistently” and more like “being agile.”

For many of us, that’s exactly what we wanted all organizations to desire. What I didn’t realize at the time was something my friend Bob Galen told me in 2017. At a coach camp in Chicago, he wondered out loud if we were becoming the product instead of helping products succeed. I started creating deliverables for clients that didn’t feel very Agile. Like ratings systems to measure coaching efficacy, or strategy documentation on successful delivery metrics.

None of these are terrible ideas in a vacuum, but when the needs of the client are so subjective it can be challenging to determine if you’re getting your money’s worth. It’s no surprise that many engagements either ran too short or way too long to be effective.

The other struggle with becoming a product is learning to market yourself as one, and that leads us down the path of social media and what it’s done to our industry. While I did elaborate on it in the session, I don’t think I need to detail this to readers again. Just check out my post from years ago on the topic.

So, what did I get out of all this?

I spent almost my entire time in the session describing the costs, and it’s fair to wonder if I paid all that to Agile for nothing. Let me be perfectly clear: I have been given so much from work that I feel in completely backward. The success I’ve achieved feels a bit brief given I have 20 years left in my career, but I do have a giant list of skills I wouldn’t have achieved if not for my time in the community.

It is hard to become comfortable in front of a group of executives, or a room of over 500. The process of constructing a workshop for people is daunting but easily done for me now. Thanks to my time at Accenture, I can create strategy documentation in record time. My skills as a coach and mentor would be nothing without all these reps. I can also present on any topic with little preparation because, again, I’ve had to do it so much.

The benefits of an Agile journey seem minuscule compared to the technical achievements of our engineering friends. I’m not sure about the state of my work, and I’m already having to remove the words “agile” and “transformation” from my resume to get it noticed better. I have to know that the endless list of skills I’ve honed is worth it because I’ve been told it by leaders in every industry.

Remember what our journies have given you, and if you need a reminder I’m available for a chat. Don’t give up!