Is Agile about perfection?

Do we want to be perfect or do we want to be agile? I came across this interesting discussion yesterday.

A traditional waterfall organization struggling hard to move to agile way of working. The teams are trying every possible practice to take them closer to agility - iterations, continuous integration and deployment, more interactions and fast feedback, delivering working software in small batches, bringing more visibility. In spite of doing a lot of things right, they don't feel it right because they say they are facing lots of issues. Issues in configuring the tools, issues in fixing defects, which doesn't let them finish the commitment they did in the beginning of the iteration. One developer said - "We committed 100 points in the beginning of the Iteration, however we were only able to deliver 40 because from the third day of the iteration, we started receiving a lots of defects, and the tools are not properly configured for continuous integration and deployment. This is frustrating because the management wants us to perfect with our commitments and deliveries since we are Agile". 

Really ??!!

Did agile way of working ever "committed" that there won't be any issues or any defects or uncertainties? Did it ever commit that there won't be any mistakes or failures and we'll have a Utopian world, with everything working in a "PERFECT" way?

Agile makes things visible fast so that you are fast in developing, fast in failing and fast in learning.

Then, where does this metaphor of "PERFECTION" come from?

You got it right !! 

It's our brain that had been wired for so long with the expectation of being Perfect (from the Waterfall days). Remember !! - Perfect Requirements to Perfect Design to Perfect Code and Perfect Product (OK! not in real !!). We have always been taught to accept nothing less than Perfect, else you will be blamed for the imperfection. Even worse is that we want everything Perfect, the first time, with no permission to fail and learn.

When you come across agile way of working and hear from the industry that it's solving everybody's problem, you think it will solve all your problems as well and that too with perfection. After all it should be a "SILVER BULLET", else why is there so much hype about it. When we don't see that happening, we get frustrated and blame Agile for it.

And why to blame only management? This concept of "BEING PERFECT" had been wired in brains of most of us - right from childhood, from schools, from Universities - There always used to be this someone in my class getting 100% and not making any mistakes and everyone else (including me), will die competing with him or her in a desire to be perfect like him or her.

Coming back to yesterday's discussion, I tried to reduce their frustration by changing their focus from desire to be perfect to show them what they have already achieved - They had already brought enough visibility to their process which helped them to recognize the real problems. They already knew these problems and were working towards solving them, continuously improving and becoming better. They are also making their issues visible to the management and seeking help where needed. 

That was a good start and this is what Agile helps us to do - make issues visible fast so that you know what to fix, where and how and Continuously Improve.

It's good to strive for Perfection, however, I believe more in Continuous Improvement, to be better everyday, after all that's what give us PURPOSE and MOTIVATION to wake up in the morning and go out to work.

Even mother nature is not Perfect but isn't she still beautiful with her Imperfections?