Last week I saw a post on LinkedIn describing Hal Elrod’s ‘Miracle Morning’ routine. The poster had set it up as follows
The routine is based on the book ‘Miracle Morning’ and has many fans around the world. I don’t want to deny that it works for many people, but I still had to laugh at the post because such a morning routine is completely out of reach for me as a parent (which I also addressed in a post). This is a common aspect of morning routines that are advertised and sold: They worked well for the author, and the author now wants to help other people with them, show their own problem solving and make their lives better - well, that and make a lot of money.
The next day at work I realised that I have a similar problem with agile frameworks: they worked for someone at some point (except for the Spotify model, which Spotify never used), and now they want to make the world a better place and help organisations adopt the agile approach that worked for them - well, that, and make a lot of money.
Neither morning routines nor agile frameworks are bad ideas. But the idea that they are suitable for everyone and need to be implemented 1:1 is abstruse. I certainly can’t follow the Miracle Morning Routine, but I could easily incorporate a little journaling or exercise into my morning routine and establish a regularity that benefits me. A well-functioning agile development team does not need the tight guardrails of the Scrum process, but it can benefit from the continuity of some appointments, while an inexperienced team can easily enter agile development through the entire Scrum process.
The big problem that both morning routines and agile frameworks have is the part about ‘making money’: When people hire a (bad) coach at a high price, or a (bad) service provider who designs an agile approach for them, it takes a lot of confidence and experience to break out of the rigid frameworks when you realise that your situation doesn’t quite fit them. People and organisations with these qualities will not usually be the ones to hire such coaches and service providers. On the contrary, dubious service providers often shirk their responsibilities: ‘My approach didn’t work BECAUSE you deviated from it. It’s not my fault that you left the prescribed path.’
In the end, standardised procedures are a good basis for discussion and a source of inspiration, but they do not exempt us from self-reflection and personal responsibility. Not even if the creators of these frameworks have benefited massively from them - well, and made a lot of money.