I was going to write a more traditional book review for The Lean Startup (2011) by Eric Ries, which I just finished listening to today, until I got...
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I think the biggest issue is that many companies try to apply lean or agile methodologies only in the product/development team. It requires a change in the whole organisation to truly be lean/agile.
And even when they apply it in the product team, it usually takes the form of Scrum, which is not lean nor agile in my opinion.
Ooooooh yes. I'm not sure there's ever been a time when that wasn't the case post "lean movement".
Almost nobody who uses the terms from the book actually read the book and are adopting them in context. They're mostly used as argument winners to jam home the point you otherwise wanted to make.
All that being said, I can't imagine living in a software world that didn't have this book. It put some words to some fairly universal truths about the nature of uncertainty and the need to think in contingencies instead of rigid pre-determined plans.
I've had the unfortunate experience of working with people where this book was essentially their bible, and they still managed to take pieces wayyyyy out of context and incorporate wasteful practices in the name of being "lean"... And "winning" arguments as you say. 😞Welp, I guess it's like the actual Bible as well! 🤣
It's like any methodology, philosophy, etc... majority of people won't apply as intended and over time it will become over-processed and become it's own antithesis. Lean Startup has some good nuggets, just like 6-sigma, agile, XP, and others.
I've always found it amusing how he was able to sell a book about being lean that's 80% filler. 😂
I've seen it, you've seen it, we all will see that new super hero brought in to transform, reinvent, mould, and spin dreams of the future.
But what won't happen is fixing the root cause for hiring that person.
The reason is, people are skeptical. They just want to keep their jobs. Most of them have endured the toxic environment there for years. They all have PTSD or simply distrust the new stuff.
For the techs deep in the trenches, the language they use is different. They don't speak buzzwords, theorys and new ways. They speak technical speak.
Ultimately, new leaders usually mean more pressure to satisfy the customer. More pressure in and of itself just makes people quit, unless there is a logical collaboration of what needs to be done.
Agile was supposed to be about collaboration but easily became the very tool to measure what's not being done according to the planners. And therein lies the issue.
Until the planners, managers and grunts all speak the same language, there's always going to be miscommunication. Miscommunication breeds distrust. All of this while the customer is getting smarter and wants more. Kind of a nice problem to have...
Yes.