Why #Agile With What Stats

People (in particular bankers but not them exclusively) often ask me for more stats to support Agile is good because apparently: 

• 208 time more code deployments 
• 2,604 times faster incident recovery time
• potential 75% quicker response to strategic opportunity
• a possible 64% increase in decision cycles speed based on consumer feedback
• 57% less silos and more interdisciplinary teams
• 52% more likely in leveraging technology
• 106 time faster overall velocity

…are just not good enough. Everyone knows their favorite Agile speed anecdote these days- Google deploys thousands of times a day, Amazon every 11 seconds while the average bank 5 times a year, etc but somehow we need more. 

The reason we do, is because it’s borderline unbelievable that something out there exists that can make us this much faster and address the gap between technology, humans that employ it and the humans it is employed for, and yet we don’t all use it unquestionably and across the board out of sheer common sense. 

All of these stats are worthless in the absence of superheroes - I write about this over and again but we need them. We need to find them, ensure their caps are securely in place and push them off the ledge to go save the world if we’re unwilling to wear it ourselves at a very minimum. And if they then need the stats so be it. 

In the State of DevOps Report, the 7% Elite performers of last year turned into 20% this year. 

Elite. 

They hit on most of those numbers. They’re killing it. 20%. Were they all native Silicone Valley-ers? No. Among them, many must be incumbent organizations who turned a team around and proved the doom and gloom figures floating around from alarmist consultancies to be ridiculous and I am willing to bet the farm each and every one of them has one or two Superheroes you could trace the success back to. 

And many of those Superheroes are unsung and some may even be unaware they are that themselves but those figures can not be in the absence of herculean effort. 

PMI reports on why respondents say they would want an Agile organization and as usual with survey, to sound like it was worthwhile it uses terminology which is easily interchangeable and some times redundant - “interdisciplinary project teams” and “elimination of organization silos” are not two different things no matter how much we need have another line in the research for instance- but it still shows that most of those interviewed are equipped with a huge amount of common sense. They know full well what’s what. Enough to put “quick response to strategic opportunity” at the top of the list. An all-encompassing strategy minded explanation of why anyone would want to do this - because they want to win in business. 

It’s tempting, even for advocates, evangelists, superheroes and generally any of us who have seen the #Agile light to feel tempted to overcomplicate and search for new numbers of new data proof points but I think we must resist it. The numbers we have are immensely big and enough in themselves and we simply can’t allow exposure to the same data and fatigue to make them feel any less significant. 

We must stand by the same mantra over and again. It’s not “getting old” just because it’s fallen on deaf ears, closed minds and hearts so far, it’s worth repeating obsessively because we have to. Is it annoying and profoundly tiring to have to do so? Yes of course, but there is no other way and we can’t let the “60% of digital transformations fail” ridiculous excuse be the one they use to allow them to be lazy and un#Agile. For their own good, for everyone’s because let’s face it, ain’t nobody got time for the silliness of pretending this is not how things need to be in the future simply because our stats were too DUH to repeat. 

Next time you get asked “why” maybe go with: “Because it’s better and faster and you have to be better and faster. End of."