A fellow co-worker and I were joking around with terms today and I threw agile socialism out on the table. We both had some fun with it at the expense of one of the teams and it got me thinking. What would agile socialism look or feel like to a team.  Then I began thinking in terms of an individual versus a group of team members taking control of the agile process within a team. I would say that this has happened more than once in different types of agile shops. Most of the time only someone outside of the team structure could notice what was happening. What would that person notice from the outside?

The agile process is predicated on the team making decisions together to get the job done. Simplistic view of the process and ultimately this is the brains of the system. A healthy agile process is an unabashed democratic process. Each member gives their opinions and arguments for the position they take and the team molds the best solutions to come up with the best plan of action. When it’s working it is a beautiful piece of work. This requires each member to be passionate about their position but willing to concede their position if the team chooses to move in another direction. What happens if a team member is more concerned about personal greatness? These are the seeds of discontent and with that will come agile degeneration.

Once the seeds of discontent have been sowed one member of the team begins to express themselves with good ideas. This individual expresses these ideas with confidence and charisma. Each time a decision is to be made the individual has an opinion and presents the argument for the idea passionately. Almost every time that individual’s idea is accepted because the individual outlasts everyone else during the discussion. Over time the team members begin to stay quiet in the decision process because the one person has become the de-facto dictator of the new communist agile team. This will destroy the team’s morale and team member hemorrhaging will begin soon. What if the individual was less aggressive?

On this team the single individual expresses their ideas with confidence and charisma. Instead of being argumentative with every decision, the individual is very passionate. The individual begins to cultivate professional friendships in the team and begins to accumulate a majority in the team. Over time the individual begins to take control of the decision process through the silent acceptance of the majority of team members that have become the power of the individual. This will cause the team members that are not part of that inner circle to give up and they will leave the team sooner rather than later. The team has fallen into the grasp of agile socialism.

In both of the later cases the strength of the agile process has been derailed. In both instances an individual has taken over as the sole idea creator at the cost of the team. The team will be less efficient due to the silo effect of ideas, the lowering of morale, less productivity due to identifying themselves as a worker and not a thinker, and loss of the talented thinkers from the team.

If you are on an agile team keep an eye out for agile degeneration. If degeneration is spotted think about reorganizing the team. Shake things up and move team members around. A team that is unhealthy is no fun to be a part of and we only have a finite amount of time so make it as fun as possible.