Agile Coach here.

FIRE YOUR AGILE COACHES

The monstrosity that agile has become is an insult to the courageous pioneers who spoke out and swam against the current (at the time) to save software engineers from an overreaction to the growing complexity of computer systems. The result has been an overreaction to an overreaction.

1. MOST COACHES ARE MUPPETS

Most Agile coaches today have a serious lack of engineering and leadership experience. They are merely the sum of the Agile classes they've attended and the book or two they may have skimmed. Most agile coaches do not understand the theoretical underpinnings of their field and therefore can only parrot statements from other "agile leaders". Most can't write code, have never managed anything as large as the groups they coach, don't understand software development in general, thus you would be a fool to take advice from them.

Here's an example. A friend told me a story this week about a new coach who came in and pronounced that what they needed was "big room planning". He proclaimed this without having any context whatsoever. What is one to do when all one has is a hammer? This is not an anomaly, it's par for the course.

2. YOU'RE BETTER OFF IF YOU DO IT YOURSELF

Today enough has been published about the dangers of approaching complex problems with the tools for solving merely complicated problems. You don't need a Priest of the All Mighty Agile to warn of you of Eternal Damnation and prescribe the One True Way. Every "tool" any agile coach can use to help you understand the challenges to production flow (such as Value Stream Mapping) can all be found in digestible articles on Medium. If you're having trouble finding these my email is in my bio. If you, as a leader, take the time to understand your chosen field of Software Engineering Leadership, and then... you know... actually lead, your organization will subsequently obtain the necessary habits to continue to change and improve as your company grows and changes. The value of this cannot be overstated. Most companies calling me for help today have anemic leadership and that's their problem. They don't need an expert in software delivery performance to help them skip some of the boilerplate, they need Extreme Ownership and true leadership. Instead they continue suckle on the tit of Agile Coaches 5-10 years into an "Agile Transformation" when they should be up on their own two legs walking and eating with a fork. Agile Coaches have, if anything become an enabler to the worst corporate cultures and mindless bureaucracies software engineers have ever had the displeasure to work under.

3. YOU CAN'T SHIP BECAUSE SOFTWARE DOESN'T MATTER

Lastly, the reason most companies who struggle to increase quality and simultaneously increase delivery performance (aka Business Performance in 2018) is because they don't care about software. It is true, no one starts a bank to have an IT department. However some companies have awoken to the fact that in 2018 TECHNOLOGY PERFORMANCE IS BUSINESS PERFORMANCE. If you are not one of these companies you (personally) have two choices, go and work for one, or lead your company to become one. The alternative is... a steady paycheck? Even in the most laggardly industries, leaders are waking up to the fact that getting technology performance right is the only competitive angle. When these clients call me the things we accomplish are breathtaking. Sadly, they are a tiny minority. Most companies call coaches so a VP can show he's checking all the boxes, so they can continue with the status quo. Some financial institutions may talk about the danger of "Fin tech startups" but when you have enough in assets that you can coast for 50 years, or you have billions in infrastructure that a competitor with all the money in the world couldn't replace inside of a decade, the reality is SOFTWARE DOESN'T MATTER. You can suck as much as you want because the challengers are so incredibly far off it really doesn't matter. These places make Agile Coaches lots of money and they're also the ones who fill the conferences. Technology performance doesn't really matter at these companies. This is why you (who work in these companies) struggle to have a sane build pipeline, adequate test coverage with good tests, communication across teams, and you get nowhere. You're swimming against a tsunami. It's exhausting, don't waste your time. Find somewhere that actually sees the leverage technology can provide them and go work there. You'll be a hero.