Everywhere I Look, I See Scared People

I've been trying to implement some Agile practices at work but at every turn I'm getting shot down. I try to implement rigorous unit testing and I hear, "I don't know, we may not have time to implement unit testing." What this is really saying: 'I don't know… We may not have time to create quality code’. I try to set up a CI machine and I'm told that machine is going to be flashed and donated. What that says to me: 'CI isn't important to us because we can always fix defects later.' I try to do iterative development and am told, "We need to wait until all requirements are in and signed off before we can begin developing." What that says to me, 'we expect our BA's and customers to be clairvoyant and know exactly how the system, they've never seen, will work.' I could go on and on; suffice it to say that becoming Agile is going to be like parting the Red Sea - both requiring an act of God.

I've been so frustrated that only one or two people at work truly see the benefits of Agile development. They are a huge help but even they are getting shot down. We have started to practice XP in secret. While this works it really is difficult to try and implement Agile without the support of the stake holders.

The frustrations of trying to adopt XP has made me wonder why it the world is everyone afraid of trying Agile even though the current waterfall system produces nothing but abysmal failure after abysmal failure; and the only conclusion I have is that they are just scared. Scared of change and scared of the unknown. What is worse is their fear of blame; whether real or imagined people are truly scared of being blamed for trying to improve the entrenched development process. It baffles me completely. I guess it is the developer in me who is always trying to solve a problem that can't understand keeping up appearances for a process that is obviously and irrecoverably broken.

All I can hope is that my continuous vigilance and determination will someday pay off and shed everyone’s fear of success. I guess I expected to meet some resistance implementing XP but I didn’t realize my biggest resistance would be fear.