'Gated Chaos' in the post Agile World

Like everyone in the business world, we all LOVE Agile here at HAAR (Wooo, Agile!!!).

In fact we thrive on the supporting structures, processes, taxonomies, dictatorial tool requirements, supporting people silos, religious fervor, and the expected blind obedience to the cause required to make sure that teams have the autonomy (so long as they follow all the criteria above) to deliver great results - because you know, if you don't, you have the wrong mindset.

Ask your favorite Agile Minister and they'll wax lyrical (anecdotally) about how people say it's so much better than waterfall, gets people talking more, creates transparency, allows teams to make decisions faster, and of course that it gets rid of acne. All of which are often true, so long as we don't analyse the true effort and cost to get to that position and lie to ourselves that people will blissfully comply forever if we just hound them enough.

However, like all good world orders and methodologies, there comes a time when we have to sit back and look past the hype of the consulting companies whose business models rely on Agile compliance, and the hope of the Senior Executive's who have the word 'Agile' written into their KPI's, and really look at the good AND bad parts of Agile and ask ourselves, 'is Agile funky enough to be a Globetrotter*'?

There is no doubt that aspects of Agile, have improved how we work, particularly in the software development world. However, has there been a misaligned thinking that it cures all that (allegedly) ailes you? Has the cost of imposing 'Agile everywhere' really been worth the effort to reprogram people, and improve delivery through directive, or have we now just introduced yet another model where policing for compliance is now required to ensure KPI success? Has all the aspects of Agile adopted and enforced by companies been of true benefit, or has Agile largely been a hopeful experiment where true costs are never monitored under the guise of 'we know there will be pain and we may make some mistakes, however we 'believe' this will work'?

Let's face it, like all other methodologies, Agile eventually fails because the most fallible component of a business, 'people' are involved. Like water, they eventually find the cracks in the rock and create their own paths to the ocean...

So where to from here?!?! Is it now time to assign Agile to the history books with the previous methodologies it's largely borrowed and rebranded it's doctrine from? Is it now time to take the learnings of what does and doesn't work, and really look to a future post Agile world? Is it now time to put the Agile cool-aid to one side and try some HAARbucha instead?!? We argue yes it is (and not just because we know someone else will be doing so...)! We say that Agile has been around for long enough now that we understand the good and bad parts, and it's time for a new butterfly (ok, moth...) to appear in our business lexicon!

Here at HAAR we believe that the new world order is the 'Gated Chaos Methodology©' where teams are truly free to form, storm and deliver at their own pace, engage whatever way of working make sense (the back of a napkin is fine if that's what you think), so long as it's working on the right things, delivering value and that the people that need to know get the information they want. Rather than believing specific, defined structures and models can be truly implemented (how often does a PowerPoint pack come back from the dead!), 'freedom guardrails' are agreed across the business for teams to work within with minimal compliance overhead. Less telling people how to do, more letting people do. You know it's what they want!

How can you help? Join HAAR and contribute to the new 'Gated Chaos Manifesto', because there's plenty of good examples of people making things up and suddenly someone's KPI is pinned to it!

In closing and for clarity, we think Agile is great! We just also think waterfall, six sigma, Prince2, PMP, Business Process Reengineering and every other previous methodology that was going to cure the world are also great. They all just have the same common foe, PEOPLE and 'tickbox' orientated, consultant influenced Execs! Let the people be free!

HAAR: Thought provoking critical thinking, without much thought.

* Here at HAAR we believe that references to Futurama are cooler than to the Simpsons. 'Deal with it'.