I find it fascinating talking to people about their agile implementation. Some people immediately claim they’re agile by describing the practices they use. I often ask a few more questions such as, “How is that working for you?” and they start to describe a number of problems they have. Another answer people often give is, “We’ve been doing agile for ages!”
“Doing agile” has never been the point. The agile mindset is about working with customers or stakeholders to deliver solutions whilst always continually improving. The practices are simply ways of getting there. It’s never been about what you do. What matters is how you do it.
Improving how you do something is easy yet requires constant discipline. First, you need to be continually asking yourself, “How does this practice help us?” and searching for answers to another, “How can we get better at this?” Talking to people outside your organisations often help, as does following what other people do around the world (made easy through social channels like twitter and blogs).
