We Must Do Agile (Practices)
vs.
We Must Be Agile (Mindset)

• “We need a standard way to do Agile.”
• “If you’re not doing [practice], you’re not Agile!”
• “We need something specific, not philosophy.”
• “If you’re obsessing on a checklist of processes, you’re missing the point of Agile.”
• “Those stupid Agile ‘purists’ make things too hard.”

• “How can you see the practices and the mindset supporting each other?”
• “How can we learn to get the outcomes/benefits of Agile along the way together?”
• (Invite dialogue of their rationale: What is driving their emphasis of a particular practice/principle?)
• “What assumptions are we making about people that may help us choose to emphasize practices or principles? How can you test those assumptions?”

• (People begin describing how specific practices reinforce a principle.)
• “What practices help us with the problem we are trying to solve?
• “Some of these practices actually work together as part of a whole approach.”
• (Discussion of what people in the organization really expect from Agile)