Things Fall Apart

Hey you, remember me?

Things fall apart and for many of us we call the landlord to come and repair it. Not everyone has a landlord to call though.

It’s been a while since I popped into your inbox. I wish I could say I’ve been on a silent retreat or writing a book. The truth is less glamorous but arguably more meaningful: I’ve been helping a housing association think differently about energy usage, repair journeys, and community. Not your usual agile gig. And that’s exactly why I said yes. My eldest is currently going through the “how the hell am I going to get on this housing ladder?” phase and so a friend and I got talking about whether agile and product-led approaches could be part of the solution to the problem. One minute you’re thinking out loud about whether agility could work in something like social housing; the next I’m visiting assisted living schemes and social housing developments and setting up agile teams to look at shared ownership challenges.

For the past several months, I’ve been helping explore what agility looks like inside a UK housing association. Not a cool little startup or cash-rich fintech company, but actual, on-the-ground teams tackling things like housing repairs, anti-social behaviour, energy usage, and - ultimately what drew me in - communities.

It’s been gritty, imperfect, and often more Kafka than Kanban. In fact it’s without question the most difficult challenge of my career to date but it’s also been full of heart - everyone there wants a better outcome for their customers and they actually see and speak to them, something not every team I’ve worked with has had the opportunity to do!

In addition, I’ve still been working with a number of you on a 1-2-1 basis which I absolutely love doing and I’m still working with some of you on your Pathways via the Agile Mastery Institute.

But alongside all this experimentation and growth, there’s been a less happy undercurrent both in the world in general and the world of work. The general shift to ‘the right’ and away from collaboration and the humane drivers that fuelled the early successes of agility has been noticeable.

Like many of you, I’ve watched with a heavy heart as Agile Alliance quietly sold out to PMI. And if rumours are true, Munich might be the last Scrum Gathering—at least in the form I and many of my good friends would recognise. There’s something sad about watching movements you cared about be slowly, even if predictably, absorbed into the same corporate machinery they once claimed to challenge.

I still remember 2004 and my first Scrum Gathering in Boulder where I was sharing some fledgling stories about my team at BT with people who were dipping their toes in the water at Capital One and other cool progressive organisations. The excitement. The hope. The beer. The sheer audacity of us believing we could do work differently. And now? Now the old guard are all but gone. Although in some cases that might actually be better than posting about how their lead developers are called Claude and providing a 20,000% increase in throughout! #RollEyes #IYKYK

It’s tempting to get cynical and I know many who have. But I still believe in the heart of it. Not the brand. Not the conferences. Not even the methods, really. But the principles and the people (well most of them). We can still do some pretty cool things if we collaborate, innovate and inspect and adapt.

Something will emerge from this…it always does…it might need some shaping though…

So I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch much, I’ve just been doing my best to live the thing instead. I’d love to hear your stories of what’s going on.

Stay curious,

Geoff

P.S. As an aside I’ll be telling part of the story of the agile journey at the housing association at Agile on the Beach and Agile Cambridge this year, if you fancy hearing how caretakers, neighbourhood coaches and engineers started talking about cross-functional teams, bottlenecks and daily planning.