Fans of the Prairie Home Companion radio show will recognize the closing statement from the show that the community of Lake Wobegon is “…where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” The last part, while appealing to its fictional residents, demonstrates both a biased self-interest and a statistical impossibility. In a number of ways, Agile practitioners set a similar expectation for Agile teams, which I think of as the Lake Wobegon Assumption, i.e., that all our team members are above average.
The first suggestion of this position is in the principles behind the Agile Manifesto:
- “Build projects around motivated individuals.”
- “Continuous attention to technical excellence…”
Not only must Agile team members be motivated but they must always strive for and achieve technical excellence. What happens if you aren’t particularly motivated for part of the project, does the approach fail? What if I’m only average or above average technically: am I unqualified for Agile teams?
Beyond that there are many Agilists that repeat these qualifications and elaborate on them. Search the web and you can find dozens of articles with titles like “The 3 Essential Attributes of Agile Software Development Teams,” “Five Qualities of a Remarkable Agile Team”, “6 traits of highly effective agile software and product teams,” and “The 10 Characteristics of an Agile Environment.” Typical of the expectations, one writer calls for “a high level of emotional intelligence,” “a visible culture of excellence,” and “a passion for their work.”[i] Another writer requires “high levels of agreeableness,” and “a keen ability to handle ambiguity.”[ii] From the body of literature one comes away with the impression that Agile success depends on team members of exceptional quality.
Apart from bloggers, the greatest attention I’ve seen devoted to this concept was in Becoming Agile by Smith & Sidky[iii]. In the book the authors spend all of chapter 4, titled “The Fitness Test” and Appendix A “Readiness assessment tables by practice” to describe a long list of pre-conditions for Agile processes to be successfully adopted (e.g., collaborative management style, manager buy-in, power distance, and developer buy-in). In a very real sense, the book is setting a high bar not just for individual team members, but for the entire organization, to achieve success adopting Agile methods.
The crux of the issue for me is why do Agile methods need to make the Lake Wobegon Assumption to be successful? I would assert that by making some of the same assumptions any methodology can work as well. So why make the change to Agile?
[i] 7 Qualities of High-Performing Agile Teams, by Pooja Wandile, August 8, 2018. Retrieved 2/7/2020.
[ii] 6 traits of highly effective agile software and product teams, by Joe McKendrick, January 26, 2019. Retrieved 2/7/2020.
[iii] Becoming Agile in an imperfect world, by Greg Smith and Ahmed Sidky, 2009, Manning Publications.
