5 Crazy Reasons Why Agile does not Work In Germany
Hi guys, this week I want to tell you something I have thought of for past years. I want to explain Why Agile does not Work In Germany as it is, for example, in Scandinavia; at least not during the current generation.
I am aware that many people will accuse me of generalising. Let me tell you about my experience…I´ve lived now in Germany for 7 years and this is my personal opinion about Agile Implementation in the country where I´ve experienced this at work.
I also want to add that currently I work in a Swiss/German company and it´s a pretty good place to work at. So if you are interested in exploring job opportunities please let me know, we are recruiting.
Following are the reasons why I think the Agile Software Development won´t be fully implemented in Germany.
1) Hierarchy Is Too Strong For Agile To Be Fully Utilised
As most of you know I am Portuguese but I left Portugal many years ago (more than 10 years) and moved to Finland. After living in Finland for several years the hierarchy is one of the things that frustrates me the most in Germany.
Everyone wants to be a “manager” and everyone wants to receive direct reports to make them feel important. No wonder I see many companies in Germany who have “managers” inside of Scrum Teams, which ends up destroying the teams.
Many different layers of managers in the organisation…more people you have more important you are. Of course this leads to extremely political and slow organisations.
Because the hierarchy is very strong, very few people have the courage to say “no” to their bosses, even if you´re right. He´s the boss so we cannot go against him.
Nobody can take decisions on their own, because the boss always needs to approve everything. These characteristic in the culture are so strong. I saw this happening with the most cool managers I´ve met. I know they would almost always say yes to their teams, but the culture does not allow you to do that without asking the boss.
For me this one of the biggest problems for Agile to flourish in Germany or German companies.
2) The Whole Society Is Structured In Silos
I believe Taylorism is present in the German society. It´s a huge economy based on manufacturing (not only that but it´s a huge part of it). As most of you know manufacturing is a very traditional industry. People work in functional departments with many silos between them. Communication is not their biggest strength.
Some of my colleagues told me the problem is even bigger. The problem starts already in the educational system where kids are “formatted” to think in functional silos. When they grow up it´s really hard for them to think in a different way.
Most of the companies that I know in Germany work with matrix organisations. Some time ago I already explained why I believe that matrix organisations are an agile anti pattern. You can read about it HERE. Having matrix organisations can create huge political problems.
Some years ago I worked with a team where each team member reported to a different manager, totally crazy!!!
It´s very rare to see a team in Germany (maybe i was unlucky) with full stack developers. There is always this distinction between Front End and Backend developer. There are always testers that do the job that is unwanted by software developers. This silos mindset is spread all over the place.
3) Infinite Years Of Planning
I´ve heard way too many times of 3-4 years roadmaps with detailed features deliveries. It happens often in companies here… Even if they work in Agile (at least they think they do) it´s very common to see companies working with these kind of artefacts (long detailed roadmaps).
Few years ago a Board of directors told me : “Luis, we need to spend a lot of time planning to make sure that everything will be perfect”.
This is part of the German culture, they believe if they plan everything in a very detailed way everything will happen as they planned. This leads us to the next point.
4) Everything Must Be Perfect
Germany is a perfectionist culture, which is not a bad thing, that´s one of the aspects that help them to be so powerful. But if you think about Agile Software Development this is a big problem. Companies spend months looking for the perfect solution.
The whole point of agile is doing something small and simple. Ship it to your client, get feedback and improve it… This is the whole point of Agile. Small increments with quick feedback. This does not work in Germany… Everything must be perfect before going out to the market.
People here are afraid of releasing something out into the market and fail. It´s a culture that is afraid of Failure. Failure is almost seen as a disgrace. The popular phrase: “FAIL = First Attempt In Learning” is not very popular in this side of the world. Everyone knows innovation comes from failure and from the learnings obtained by those failures.
Here everything must be perfect before hitting the customer, which is a huge problem for the Agile Mindset.
5) Very Traditional Society
I really appreciate the quality of life that Germany provides. That´s the reason why I am not thinking to leave this country any time soon. But there is one big thing that drives me crazy: traditional society. After living in Finland before it seems that Germany is 50 years behind.
When I left Finland in 2009, I cancelled all paperwork that tied me in Finland just in 3 hours. In Germany everything is so slow and difficult that you need to start 3 months ahead to cancel everything.
When I ask people why it is so slow and difficult everyone tells me: “What do you mean, this is great! This is how it works here, we do not need to change, we do not see the need for the change”. This reflects the whole society.
In companies we have exactly the same problem. Answers like “We always did it like that and it worked for years. No need for change” are heard on a weekly basis. How can you take the Agile Mindset serious where continuous improvement is important if you live in the society that is trapped in their past and do not improve because they believe it is already great?!
So What?
After reading this article you might think that I do not like Germany, but that´s not true! I really appreciate living in Germany and I am very thankful for having the opportunity to live and work here. It´s a great country that gives fantastic conditions for people.
I am an Agile Coach and I am involved with Agile on daily basis. It´s my job to help companies to work with Agile Implementation. I have expressed my honest feelings and opinion in this article.
I´ve realised that Germany will always be a great country to live in with great quality of living, but will never be a leader in Agile Implementations, or maybe it will, we never know.
On other hand, I know many brilliant German Agile coaches who do wonderful job. My colleagues and I were also able to transform organisations in a much more Agile way (in Germany).
Maybe at the end of the day what we need to do is to help companies understand how all these factors can impact the Agile Implementation. It´s our job to guide Executive Managers to understand the consequences going into agile path and let them understand the impact on their daily job and their company.
What do you think about this article? Please leave your comments below.
Luis
Dear Luis
I have been following you for some years now because you approach your topics in an appealing manner and somehow because I do feel a common affinity of ideas (Seelenverwandschaft). It might come from the fact that I am, as you are, an expatriate within the EU, believe in agility and always tried to force new ideas wherever I was working.
I think you are right to tell what you think, what you experienced and feel with your non German background. People should try to understand and reflect… the only way to improve in life :-)
In your blog post you address two topics that are very special in my eyes:
• The working mentality in Germany (hierarchy, rigidity towards processes…)
• The importance of culture vs the implementation of scrum
I have worked in Germany myself, and now live in Austria. I have been working with Germans for decades now and, like you do, I am still enjoying working with Germans! I am working in an international company and have, besides German, French, and of course Austrian, many different international colleagues (English, North American, South American, Finnish, Belgian..:).
Based on my experience I would like to illustrate these 2 issues
Working mentality in Germany
I come originally from France and I can tell you that German management was a great relief for me after working a few years in France. Rigidity towards processes is stronger in Germany than in France, knowledge is both very good in both countries but hierarchy is much more draconic in France than in Germany. This comes from the higher education which trains future managers to act that way. The German universities allow their students a certain freedom of mind, which is in management schools in France not the case. I was always able to talk directly without filters to my former German managers … I have always been listened to and treated with respect. When I tried to do the same with my new French manager few years ago, I got simply fired!. I just want to tell you that fairness is the most important character trait… There are black sheep everywhere but Germany is definitely a positive terrain and a reason why Germany is so successful (what most of the Germans are not aware of is that their success does not come from their strong hierarchy or perfect processes but from their willing to give the best in their jobs). If given, you have to adapt to the context in which you are evolving and keep on applying your influence, at your own scale (with your company you might be able to enlarge this scale ;-)
Culture differences and scrum
I have experienced in my company a great and painful failure in implementing scrum for international and multidisciplinary teams because the different cultures were simply ignored. For most of the people in a development environment, culture difference is just a matter of language. We all speak English, so what? This led to a full misunderstanding between team members, between teams. Instead of bringing people together this made people of different geographic locations compete against each other. The French against the Austrian, the Austrian against the German, the German against the Belgians, the Belgians against the French, the North American against the rest of the world…
Culture difference is a gift for who can make the best out of it. Ignoring differences is leading nowhere…
In your new enterprise you will have to take the culture differences into account. You will not change the German mentality but you might find the ways to use them in an agile environment… there is surely compatibility somewhere, but of course you know this already, otherwise you would never start this great adventure.
Good luck!
Pingback: Why I am absolutely sure that quitting my job is the best decision - Luis Gonçalves - Agile Coach
Hi Luis – when I first read the article I just thought something like “wow, what a stupid crap” … but I gave it more time and read it again and again and tried to understand… now I understand it a bit better and even if I think that you made some good points I think in a way Mark Levison wrote:
“I think there is a fair chance you’re over generalizing based on your experience”
I think it’s a more general problem not something special in Germany, even if it could be very big in Germany cause of Germanies success in the past by following this ideas and values.
There are many places that are making successful change and I am sure that you have been part of doing this changes for seven years too.
German culture adds a layer of complexity for sure, but so do corporate cultures. And as you said: it’s about starting small and simple - it’s the same with change and it will end in a changing culture of teams, companies and maybe countries.
The culture is not the Problem, it’s just the shadow of behavior and as long as this behaviour of people in companies ends in personal success it’s understandable and complexity grown by the doing of people not by some kind of culture … it’s a lot of work out there in almost every country and in many companies I guess…
Agile means excessive control of people. That’s why deutchers do not accept it, or accept it partially.
Excessive control of people? I guess you got something wrong ;)
Hi Luis,
Thank you for your article. Your view is focussed on software development in Germany.
There is a flaw in your thesis: German products *must be* perfect before shipping. “Perfect products” include planes (Airbus, EuroFighter), Cars, high-speed trains, Ships, Submarines, Robots, Machine Tools, Chips for Computers and some very successful software (SAP -a company’s ledger and production planning must be perfect).
That being said, many of these “perfect”/cannot fail/German products are increasingly dependent on software to remain successful in their markets. Software, especially with agile teams, is produced in cycles that hardware changes cannot physically keep up with.
Our challenge is to optimize traditional organizations appropriately, without destroying the house cards.
Thanks… Tesla is showing that things can be and will be done differently… So I cannot buy your theory ;)
All the best,
Luis
Hi Louis,
thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! I did never really think about it that way but being a German and a perfectionist I have to admit that you are probably right in many aspects. ;) However, I think a social media manager or digital marketing job prevents you from becoming too inflexible, so this is ok with me. ;) I am currently reading a lot on Agile Marketing an took the opportunity to write on your assumptions in a markting context. So thanks again for your thought-provoking impulse!
Pingback: Warum Agile Marketing in Deutschland so schwer umzusetzen ist (und wieso Sie trotzdem alles daran setzen sollten) | Modern Marketer
Luis, if there is something I have learned in 45 years living and working as a foreigner in 6 countries, is that you never should try to implement a feature which some culture was/ is successful with in an other, very different culture. So, maybe, agile (which) I also live in my daily work is an interesting point of view. But also, the peculiarities of local culture must be taken into consideration for joint success. Germans do have their weaknesses, but, they still are a very successful country! Going against local mentality is last option for me. There is a saying: If you can not beat them, try to join them! Being “one of them” you can start your contribution; this is meant like a Troja Horse-strategy.
Hi Luis. Completely agree. Also, from first hand experience - as my children go to a German School. Very or extremely difficult even to make them understand that the world has different ways to do maths - a little different but with same results - and then I got shouted at by the angry teachers !!!! My point here is that the children are “brain washed” - and work like robots - later. To the Germans - Economic Security and stability is a huge mental block and hence once you have a job, they will be in there for ages. Risk is not a word in that Mentality. Mentality is a huge problem and so are the discussions. I work within PMO/Project Management and know how difficult it is to raise a issue/risk and get it changed. We will have discussions after discussions without an end product. (My girlfriend is German - Agile is all about mobility (design, draft delivery, feedback, continuous improvement) and to change a country, just to The Netherlands took me 6 months to convince her !!!!)
In my opinion you can reduce points 1, 2 and 3 to a direct consequence of point 4: Everything must be perfect.
The more detailed a plan is, the more premises you assume to be true, the better you can justify (for yourself as well as before your boss) that it didn’t work out: one of the premises suddently and unexpectedly turned out to be wrong with no way to know in advance. However, this planning anti-pattern is called “analysis paralysis” and is quite common, not only in Germany.
About the hierarchy thing: Let’s forget cases where bosses or managers suffer from a narcissistic personality disorder. If you got your boss’s permission or approval for something and then it turns out to be the wrong approach, you don’t need to feel that you failed: If your boss didn’t see it coming either, it couldn’t possibly have been that obvious…
The distinction between front end and backend developers etc. arises from the illusion of some managers that you need experts for everything they don’t understand. Managers who cannot even imagine what developers actually do think in categories like “front end development expert” and “back end developer expert” because expert sounds good. They think these so called “experts” will deliver perfect results in the area they call them “expert” in. Again something perfect.
Hi Luis, I think it’s a great article and for many things you nailed it. However, there are more things why it’s difficult to establish Agile in Germany and German companies in particular. Some of those are here (And I’m German so I think I can say that):
- Germans (not only but in particular) believe in methods, certifications and all kinds of “measured proofs” that express ones capability. They believe that, when you have it, you understood it, so you can do it! So, the energy is spend more around the discussion about the method/framework/approach you name it instead of really getting the work done.
- A lot of Germans (in particular the ones in the corporate world) believe in plans and that a plan is made to be valid for the next 200 years because it has been discussed long enough with people they trust. This is 100% perfect then and will stay perfect because of that.
- A lot of Germans believe in machines, engines, technology but not in Human Beings! The power of the ‘collective brain’ but also of the ‘individual’ is far too often ignored or not even taken into consideration as the main factor.
- For Germans (again: exceptions will proof the rule!) it’s not usual to Stand Up and Speak Out when something is wrong, or is about to fail…. There is a mix of ‘following authority’ or ‘lack of interest’ that i found out in many conversations that I had with Germans about this.
There is one question that I haven’t been able to get an answer for but this might be a fundamental problem: Is Germany as a country and as an economy still doing too well? Don’t we have enough pain to really see the necessity to change?
That would be also interesting to investigate on in order to get better insights to answer your question of this blog post. In any case you managed to to kick-off an interesting discussion.
Big thanks Markus, what you mentioned is a complement of what I wrote.
Big thanks :)
Luis
Fuck! Now everything makes perfect sense!
I worked many years for big American corporations (lot of processes for everything, legal present in all moves) which I got used to, then a Korean company (to agile for my taste, lot’s of silos and no testing at all, clients were the quality phase… Not working for Asian corporations EVER AGAIN) and now a German corporation (which this article describes 90% of my struggles) with a combination of Agile in Sw dev and traditional waterfall. I’ll try to adapt according this ideas… I also have a Portuguese temper not being afraid of saying no to boss… ;)
Great Article, always grateful to read other coaches experiments and challenges. I would use their culture as you mentioned here “Germany is a perfectionist culture” as a way to convey the message that change is always welcomed. I would point out to them what a great culture would be without allowing to experiment new things and evolve to even a better one and building on top of that. I am sure you have many more tools in your toolset.
I start to hate you agile coach guys. Why don’t you just start hands-on working with the teams, then you will see that agile is really working, walls will break down and you get better insight in how the teams work.
I am sure you can teach me a lot of things how to implement Agile in the team level…
After all I have been hearing so many great things about Avira, I am sure you had huge influence on it ;)
And of course as you know Gitte, came from our network so we know how to support you the best ;)
Luis
Another unnecessary discussion
Another unnecessary comment ;)
Hi! I am not an agile coach, but software tester. Also foreigner and living in Germany for a long time. For last few years I see the same - no agile in Germany. Yes, manager culture is very strong. It is shame to call somebody as a simple tester, it has to be at least QA. In fact I never worked in real agile team. Projects where I worked and was called “agile” had just some elements e.g. only daily, or sprints which meant that there will be kind of shipping in 2 week cycles. Agile is new sexy, the silver bullet which will save us from terrible waterfall method. Change of mindset? Training for the team? No necessary! Our team is unique and can do agile just like that. they are professionals!
Hi Luis! I think is fundamental to take into account the context and culture where you try to implement a solution.
Your post motivated me to think of the particularities I have found implementing Agile in my country (Argentina) and decided to write a post about it. I would love to see your comments on it.
http://www.caminoagil.com/2016/05/por-que-es-dificil-implementar-agile-en-argentina.html
Sorry but my Spanish is not good enough for this
See Clausewitz and what is known (in English) as Mission Command
I’m also reminded of Japanese tendency for hierarchy and yet TPS/Lean
I strong recommend you reading the book “Reinventing Organizations”. this will help you understanding that it’s actually not a typically german phenomenon.
An interesting post indeed. I am from Latvia and as any other place, also we do have different companies. Always consider the context. I like the classical value-principles-practices iceberg view. I think we should always understand and help people we work with understand their core values and look at reasons those are such. Only when this is clear, we can start laying out strategy of change in the particular context.
I believe that core Agile values (4 of them) can be practiced in so much different ways, than at first you might think it ain’t Agile at all. For example, individuals can interact in their own special way, acceptable only to that specific group yet satisfying the needs. Customer collaboration as well, can happen in a special way that fits the specific context only.
In this regard, I would like to mention one interesting article about feedback loops. Short is not always the best. Appropriate and acceptable by all involved parties is the best length of the feedback loop at any specific context.
I guess we are in front of a “new wave” - listening to what people say about how they work and understand why it is so before implementing anything new.
Thanks Ivo :)
I think one of the biggest points you missed in this analysis of Germany is the work council prohibition against any data used to track personal achievements. So the transparency we seek in Agile, that is, the ability to speak in daily scrums at the task level and track hours in a burndown chart, along with tracking work items such as user stories and features to a release, are under scrutinization by the work council, becasue they fear this data will be used against the employees as a reason to penalize workers. For example, “Johan, why did it take you 4 hours to complete this task when it took your colleague only 2 hours.” That is their fear with transparency. I have experience with this. Some workers flat out refuse to participate. But like any culture, globalizaton will change everything. Move on or get run over. Cheers!
Thanks for your comment. Interesting point :)
Have same experience unfortunately.
Good luck!
We are here to change the world :)
Luis - I think there is a fair chance you’re over generalizing based on your experience with one company and the comments of your friends. Depending on how I survey Canada I could find results that match yours item by item; or I could find results that contradict. Since there are a number of German Coaches, Trainers etc I know that there are many places that are making successful change.
Perhaps the German culture adds a layer of complexity, but so do corporate cultures.
The glass is either half full or half empty. You decide.
Cheers
Mark Levison - who is drinking from a full glass
Oddly it sounds like some of the large organizations I have been working with. Good luck and just continually championing agile principles!
THanks :)
hi Luis, this is an important topic indeed, and usally it’s underestimated. Actually I discussed this matter with a collegue last week. As an agile coach it’s pretty important to keep this in mind. Maybe one day we will be able to address it directly and maybe some approaches / techniques can be found to start “solving” it.
We should start with a beer :P Will you be in Munich any time soon?
Luis
I’m sorry to say that I think is a terrible mis-attribution of corporate behavior to a specific country and it’s culture.
1) Being German myself, I would be the first to say that I believe that there are lots of people around here which feel very comfortable when they get told what to do. But there are probably as many people which will happily use any decision power you give them. That’s the reason why you had to climb the hierarchy ladder in a traditional organization: to gain decision power. But today there are also quite a lot of companies with flat hierarchies which try to enable people by other means and also some of the older, more traditional companies are trying to cut down the trees. Sure enough, when a company I worked for was taken over by an (originally American) entirely global company, things only started to get way worse due to the hierarchical culture there.
2) Matrix organization is still a thing in the PMBOK (https://4squareviews.com/2013/01/22/5th-edition-pmbok-guide-chapter-2-organizational-structures/). I think, PMBOK is still seen as one of the definite resources on project management world-wide, nothing specifically German here.
3+4) If there is one point where I would potentially agree, it’s 4) which to me is a natural explanation for 3). That being said, people are changing the ways in which they strive for perfection, by small scale experiments etc. However, quite a lot of German companies work in areas with quite strict regulations which might involve lots of paper work etc. Again, for any other company outside Germany in the same business (e.g. banks, pharmaceuticals) similar regulations need to be obeyed. There are ways to deal with regulations in agile approaches (Boris Gloger, I think, has written about Scrum in Medicine, e.g. https://blog.borisgloger.com/2014/10/27/user-storys-in-der-entwicklung-medizintechnischer-produkte/ , apparently by somebody working with him), but still the need for perfection might require adaptation of your standard Scrum approach.
5) Germany had a tendency for bureaucracy which is still quite alive, yes. But Germany’s society has changed quite dramatically throughout the last > 40 years. What you describe reads to me like the very fundamental resistance to change that you’re going to encounter everywhere. Also, I think that “change” is not a value in itself. If you go to a company that has been around for quite some time and you meet resistance to change, I think the people have the right to question if the new thing will actually bring an improvement. Experiencing continuous improvement is a way better argument than preaching it. If up to now it was “good enough”, what’s the reason to “go agile” in the first place? Just because everybody does it? IMHO you need to address real needs and pain points, otherwise the change process, coming with a huge cost of it’s own, is probably not worth it. Again, that’s just good business practice to adapt only to what you need. Of course, figuring out when you need to change and how can be very difficult, but nothing specifically German here — see e.g. https://www.aei.org/publication/fortune-500-firms-in-1955-vs-2014-89-are-gone-and-were-all-better-off-because-of-that-dynamic-creative-destruction/ on how many prior fortune 500 companies went down the drain.
Thanks for your comment… Its my opinion and you do not need to agree with it… All the best ;)
Hi Luis, you start your post saying “many people will accuse me of generalising” and actually I don’t like generalisations!!!
From my personal experience, I would say that I’ve seen Agile (even scaling it with big organisations and products) implemented and working very well also in Germany. Actually in Berlin, where probably teams and management are multi-national, but I’ve also seen it working with German-German Teams and Managers. And probably I haven’t seen anywhere else Teams and Organisation so deeply Agile as in some companies in Berlin.
There are people saying me that in Spain Agile can’t work very well, mainly for the same reasons you’re considering, related to the hierarchical culture. And I had negative experiences as well. And the same for other countries. But I’m sure that even in Spain you can find a lot of Agile-Agile companies.
What is true is that everything anyway depends on people and on how far developers and also manager deeply understand the Agile Values.
Of course you find couple of companies in Berlin and every where… But the country has THOUSANDS of companies not few companies…
What you are talking is the exception and not the rule sorry.
Cheers,
Luis
I’m German. And I’m working in the IT department of a medium sized, but very traditional, German company. And … yes! You are right. I don’t think either that we will ever be able to fully adopt the Agile mindset. At least not with this generation of people. But possibly never, because actually the youngsters don’t show any signs of a more innovative mindset. It actually might be, that - because of our traditional image - we are only attracting people that seek this kind of workplace.
Thanks Dirk :)
I am a bit more positive :) I believe the market will change and companies will be forced to change :)
It might take some years but I believe it will change,
Luis
I live in south africa and we also experience similar issues with Agile adoption. We started off with sending everyone on an agile bootcamp just to give everyone the same foundation. We let them apply the techniques in teams. It has been an amazing journey and 5 yrs later… We are still continually improving our process. I did experience hesitance to adopt agile principles from colleagues who did not understand the principles. It takes time to show the value of Agile but once understood…you reap huge benefits. Regarding job satisfaction, coming to work suddenly got more interesting and rewarding. You feel part of something …. As important as any other role and this is very empowering. I guess in a nut shell… Give it time. The value exposes itself to each individual at sometimes different times. Its our jobs to make sure people understand flow and value.
Thanks for your comment ;)
Luis
Hi Luis,
If agile does not work in Germany, what is the point of being an agile coach in Germany? If my coach does not believe he can achieve the goal of helping my company becoming agile, why should I hire him?
I do agree that some of your “stereotypes” might be true, but I do not agree that agile does not work in Germany. Other cultures will have other problems to solve to move to “agile” successfully. I expect that a good coach can adapt to the cultural challenges. With a good approach you can have great agile implementations in German companies with a tremendous mindset shift possible.
Kai
You are confusing the things :)
One thing is the country another thing is the company…
If you read my blog you can see that for example HolidayCheck is implementing Agile like very few companies in Germany…
I believe we can make a difference and thats why I started my own company, but if you cannot recognise the pattern in the country I cannot do much about it.
I worked with some companies in Germany I truly believe we can make fantastic stuff but the country is what it is…
And on top of it, I work with management that understands what is Agile, so that I do not waste my time ;)
Luis
Love this Luis, worked with Germans once and not sure if I’ll do it ever again :)
I still like them quite a lot ;)
Keep bringing the good stuff Luis.
As a German agile Coach I only partially agree with you.
You are completely right if we talk about the it-departments of the big companies from the traditional sectors (automotive, insurance, banking, energy and so on). In many of them you will find everything that you described above. But of course those companies carry the burden of a history of more than 100 years. This age comes with a price - the tendency to be bureaucratic, hierarchical and traditionalist.
On the other hand there are countless numbers of younger and smaller companies that handle things differently: the start ups of Berlin, the fintechs of Frankfurt, the gaming studios in Hamburg and many others. In them you will often find flat hierarchies, swift responses to change, open-mindedness, lean structures, permanently-beta approaches and all the other parts of an agile mindset.
Maybe the things you experienced derive not (only) from the German culture and mentality but also from the size and age of the companies you saw? How is this in Finland? Are the bigger companies as agile as the smaller ones, or are they hierarchical and traditionalist as well?
I never worked in the companies that you mentioned sorry, and I do not agree that is related to size… I worked with startups that have exactly the same problem.
I’ve had conversations with an Italian SW developer friend - he had pretty much the same thing to say about Agile in Italy. Numerous cultural road blocks to true adoption. It is interesting to see the effect that culture has on the workplace. Great article!
Big thanks :)
Really interesting post. It’s always good to learn about other cultures and the impact that can have on their ability to adopt things like agile. Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure ;)
This is not just a Germany issue! I’m in the US working at a company where I would swear you are working at, based on your descriptions. I see a lot of the same issues both from a delivery team member writing software to now the Scrum Master at a different company fighting the same battles all over again. Even in the US everyone wants to be the manager, or nothing can go out the door without a pretty little bow on it.
Well I cannot talk about USA ;) I am in Germany. THanks for the comment ;)
Good blog. I think this blog is more about the limits of Agile than it is about the culture of Germany. Back in 2004 I started getting in trouble with the Scrum/Agile community for saying that the challenges you mention above can be much more effectively transformed with Lean than with Agile- the result being that I got thrown off the Scrum Development group. Agile is a team based mindset - most organizations do not have team oriented challenges as their main issue. We should not be trying to be or do Agile as much as we should be trying to have effective places to work that create value for their customers and themselves.
I guess pretty soon I’ll start hearing “we do Scrum, but we do it in Germany.” ;0)
Nice one, thx Luis :)
Curious thing: once I have introduced certain new way of self-check at a team daily meeting.
That was adopted successfully. After a while I suggested something else…
And guess what I have got as an answer?
Exactly what you say: “We always did it like that and it worked for years. No need for change”
:)
No Surprise ;) ;)
Love this post! Makes me feel my daily challenges here in Finland are piece of cake :)
hahahah :)
Love this blog post! Now I must write why agile isn’t picking up faster in Poland :)
Go For it ;)
Great Article..!! That’s why I strongly believe Agile is more of a philosophy and mindset and if there is a problem at the root level it’s difficult to implement. It’s more about culture and cultural mindset change is a major shift.. sometimes a herculean task..!! Thanks for sharing your honest views.
Frank.
Thanks for your comment ;)
I live in Italy and I have never lived and worked in Germany; but reading what you wrote, I find many similarities with some Italian situation, really a lot. I always thought that many of these aspects were due to cultural difference (northern and southern Europe…), but perhaps it is not so… What do you say?
Every culture has different problems :) I am Portuguese and I see many other problems :)
I start to realise that we should take into consideration the culture of the country more than anything else :)
Luis
How do younger Germans compare? Are they more open to change or is it so ingrained that they see things the same way?
I find them much much more open :) And I believe this will be much better in the future ;)
When you asked people what will make it better? what need to be changed in order to make it perfect, better than great - what did they say?
Dont get your questions :)
How do the younger Germas compare to the older? Are the new generations more open to change or is it so ingrained that they see things the same way?
A bit of steriotyping, I come from India and I see even more challenge if i map the culture and Agile needs.
But, this in turn provides us a great opportunity to trigger the change and be part of the transformation
Does that make it impossible, or does it make a cultural challenge?
A culture challenge :) I saw many german companies succeeding ;)
Luis