Written by Buy mega hoodia without prescription, Last week I taught an introductory course on Agile Work. Normally this is pretty easy stuff. However, buy mega hoodia overnight delivery, I was teaching this course in Bucharest, Online pharmacy mega hoodia, Romania (cool), and I have come across a substantial, strong and vigorous objection to agile (also cool, buy mega hoodia without prescription, but challenging too). Buy mega hoodia online cheap, Several people in my class are asserting that agile is just like communism and since communism failed, agile is not likely to succeed either. I'm looking for help on this, mega hoodia australia.
I have Googled "agile communism" and come up with some interesting reading:
Does Scrum/XP Violate the Agile Manifesto?
The Agile Method and Other Fairy Tales: QED
I have also done some quick research on communism to check that I understand the comparison and objection, buy mega hoodia without prescription. Here is a wiktionary definition of communism:
1. Approved mega hoodia pharmacy, A term used to refer to a number of political philosophies or ideologies which share the belief in the virtue of holding the production resources collectively.Buy mega hoodia without prescription, So let's start with that definition.
2. A society organized in line with the communist theories, buy mega hoodia from us, the ultimate aim of which is the abolition of the state and the creation of a classless, Mega hoodia no rx required, stateless society whose members produce according to their abilities and take what they need.
Holding Production Resources Collectively
Also called: common ownership of the means of production
I suppose there are a few ways to look at this. In an agile environment which encourages (for example) collective code ownership, find cheap mega hoodia, it might seem like holding the production resources collectively. Compare mega hoodia prices, However, the code is actually the result of production, rather than the Means of Production, mega hoodia without rx. This distinction is not trivial. The means of production for a team in an agile environment still include both the tools and the raw materials upon which those tools exercise, buy mega hoodia without prescription. Cheap mega hoodia no rx, In software development (and in most creative work nowadays), the tools are computers and software and other electronic gadgets such as video cameras, telecomm systems, mega hoodia free delivery, etc. Mega hoodia no rx, The raw materials are typically intellectual constructs such as images, sounds, ideas, order mega hoodia in us, processes (and of course their legal counterparts such as trademarks, Buy cheap mega hoodia, copyrights, and patents). Agile methods do not require the team of workers to own these means, canada mega hoodia, nor do agile methods forbid workers from owning these means. Buy cheap mega hoodia internet, In fact, There is one important way in which agile methods are decidedly not communist: every individual owns their own creativity, experience, buying mega hoodia, and knowledge and is only asked to share willingly (and usually in exchange for pay such as salary, Purchase mega hoodia no rx, stock options or outright corporate ownership). I believe this passage clarifies things nicely:
Buy mega hoodia without prescription, Marxists define economic systems in terms of how the means of production are used, and which social class controls them. Thus, in capitalism, pharmacy mega hoodia, the means of production are controlled by the bourgeoisie, Buy no rx mega hoodia, (the "capitalists" - the owners of capital), while in socialism they are controlled by the people's elected representatives and in communism they are controlled collectively by the people themselves. [Means of Production]
Agile methods, if anything, mega hoodia no prescription, tend towards capitalism in this regard. No rx mega hoodia, (Although a whole other question could be asked about just how much control the owners of a corporation really have given delegated authority through the board of directors to the chief executive staff _and_ the abrogated authority through mutual funds, pension funds, holding companies, cheap mega hoodia from uk, and trusts _and_ the limitations on that control through the blunt instrument of voting shares _and_ the influences on that control through the control of information by financial analysts and the media...)
Ultimate Aim of The Creation of a Classless, Find mega hoodia no prescription required, Stateless Society
Well, this certainly isn't the aim of agile methods that I am aware of. The aims of agile methods as I understand them includes:
- Building stuff that stakeholders like
- Creating an environment for team members to exercise their creativity
- Doing all this in a way that responds well to pervasive frequent change
Again, buy cheapest mega hoodia on line, I can understand why there might be some confusion here. No prescription mega hoodia, Agile methods promote these three aims by doing something that looks just a little like a classless organizational structure. Typically, agile (and lean) environments start to have a higher manager to staff ratio (fewer managers), encourage self-organizing, cross-functional teams, and emphasize team goal setting, commitment and accountability, buy mega hoodia without prescription. This might seem classless (and stateless/managementless) until one examines what is not said: Agile does not claim that every team member is exactly equal, it does not require that every team member do exactly the same thing, buy generic mega hoodia, it does not require that every team member give up _all_ their individual preferences (although certainly it would be hard for someone who didn't like talking to other people to be part of an agile team... Mega hoodia india, so I guess some individual preferences won't work in an agile team), it does not encourage every team member to do exactly the same amount of work regardless of if you are measuring effort or output.
Now admittedly, cost of mega hoodia, when I am presenting examples of self-organizing teams, Mega hoodia prices, I do sometimes use examples that come close to classless stateless teams... but that's just to show that this is a possibility and allowable in an agile environment, not that it is the only way, find discount mega hoodia. Buy mega hoodia without prescription, Those practices in agile methods that do seem like classlessness and statelessness are not aims... they are means. Mega hoodia online sale, A self-organizing, self-managing team, is means to an end, cheapest generic mega hoodia online. It is not an aim in itself. Mega hoodia pill, Why does this matter. For the simple reason that it is always bad to confuse means and ends, buy mega hoodia without prescription. The end cannot justify the means (classlessness and statelessness imposed by revolution)... and nor can the means justify the ends (classlessness and statelessness that results in apathy, mega hoodia buy, boredom and low productivity). Mega hoodia pharmacy online, So the fact that self-organization is a means is a way for us to decide if it is worthwhile. The evidence for self-organizing teams in a business context is strong (lots of links and articles and books on this blog as well as others). Buy mega hoodia without prescription, Most team members enjoy being self-directed in a way that is collaborative with other professionals. So both the ends are good - productivity - and the means are good - happy people, order generic mega hoodia.
Members Produce According to Their Abilities and Take What They Need
To me, Buy mega hoodia pills, "produce according to their abilities" sounds a lot like a tautology. Certainly, team members can produce no more than their abilities. From an agile perspective, this isn't even what we are interested in... we are interested in the multiplicative effect of teams of people working together effectively so that the result of the work is greater than the sum of the individual abilities, buy mega hoodia without prescription. There is now substantial evidence that this is not just possible, but a likely outcome of group work (see Research on Group Effectiveness vs Individuals among many others). My favorite phrase for this is "Unity in Diversity" which describes a group of people who have united around a common goal, but with each individual having talents, experiences, knowledge, patterns of behavior, and insights that are all different from each other.
The second part of the phrase "take what they need" is another piece of this pie that has absolutely no relationship to agile methods. Again, there is evidence that this is specifically not supported. Lean methods encourage compensation that is based on a number of things including: contribution to results in one's sphere of influence Buy mega hoodia without prescription, (rather than the more limited sphere of responsibility) and the number of skills you have mastered and use to contribute to the work.
Disconnecting reward from results is an obvious problem. While people do have altruistic feelings, we also are clearly motivated by praise
Some SimilaritiesOne of the attendees of the course, a woman by the name of Christina, provided me with some notes based on her understanding of Agile and Communism and she listed these similarities:
- They both rely on participation, rather than executing orders.
- One aim is less frustration.
- They use some similar phrases such as multidisciplinary / cross-functional.
- They both ask people to evaluate each other.
And What about Reality?
Well, I haven't lived in a communist environment so I admit that my ability to talk intelligently about this is not what I would like it to be. I am interested in people out there who might be able to help me with this.
Here are some questions for people who have actually experienced communism:
- What are the actual, in-practice similarities between agile and communism?
- What are the in-practice differences between agile and communism?
- Why did communism fail and how might this affect the success of agile methods?
- How can we safeguard agile from falling into the same problems?
Can anyone out there help please.
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Even if you would consider that Communism and Agile share similar values, failure of one doesn’t necessarily imply failure of the other…
I would actually start with debating that communism as a philosophy hasn’t failed, but large scale implementations have. The failures I immediately think of – not through experience though – suffered from continuously decreasing quality as a result of competitive capitalist behaviour (not sharing fundamental communist values). Similarly, agile adoption will not likely be successful for teams not sharing fundamental agile values, such as delivering high quality products and services.
So does that imply that large scale agile adoption cannot be successful? I don’t think so. Citizenship leaves you with few choices on which political system to live in. Companies however might provide you with a few options, maybe even mixing both agile and other approaches. So instead of forcing a single process onto all employees, individual ‘preferences’ can be taken into account in the team, department, even in the company. After all… we value people and interactions over processes and tools…
I come from Poland and thus have had first hand experience of communism, I also work in an Agile environment now. I may sound a little bit cynical here, but I don’t think there is any way in which you can even attempt to compare agile and communism – that is – the true and real communism as people experienced it behind the Iron Curtain not the idealistic concept. Communism undignified people, undermined trust and had no respect for individual. Agile is based on trust, value the individual, teamwork and commitment.
I can however see how people can think of agile to be communism like – but they mistake collective ownership (i.e. no-one owns it) to collaborative ownership (i.e. we all have responsibility).
I do agree with Floryan from Poland. I think it is very important to distinguish between ideal marxism and communism practiced in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. I am a son of a previous leader of the communist party in my country, been part marxist youth movements, hold a mastersdegree from a leading elite business school and now consult large corporations in lean transformations.
I believe the key here is the definition of communism and marxism which is difficult to do because this is filled with lots of stereotypes and political gaming. (remember Marx himself said he was no communist, and rejected the whole idea of revolutions in Russia)
The key question here in my view here is ownership of capital (means of production). Usually in a communist state that is the state (and without democracy) To many that the state owns all means of production is a perversion, and they call it state capitalism. Some do agree in the state as the owner but see the lack of democracy as the perversion. In Marx terms it was the workers that should be the owners and the state is not in the equation. (the central planning is not in there at all)
In your link to the “means of production”, it discusses this briefly at the end. Here is a the quote:
“Thus, in capitalism, the means of production are controlled by the bourgeoisie, (the “capitalists” – the owners of capital). In the pure ideal of socialism, such as that “communism” was/is supposed to be, the MoP are controlled by the workers production collectives directly. In fact this situation has only been historically realized temporarily such as in the Israeli kibbutz or the early Soviets before the entrenchment of the communist party as a “New Class”, or in isolated or preliminary form such as in the final phase of the Second Spanish Republic, or various experimental utopian communities.”
In the end of the quote the author quckly brushes of the whole idea about worker ownership as something that belongs in utopian communities. Well, then I work in one of those utopian communities. In our consultancy company we all own a part of the company, like many thousands of others in this field of work. That goes for many in the software industry as well. There are also others very successful companies like mondragon of Spain and Semco in Brazil. Many of them are high performing companies. In fact, when I facilitated a leadership workshop for a large international metals comapny, the CEO said that he wanted his workers to behave and think like they owned the comapny. His assumptions was that as owners they would make better decision and perform better. (I think that when the other brushes it off like he or she does, reflects either bias or lack of reflection/ knowledge.)
I do know if a workers ownership principles would work on a national or mulitnational scale. I know however, that it works in many companies. If that is communism, really depends on how you define it. That is why I think you need to carefully define communism/ marxism (without bias) before you can answer your questions.
Your question about why communism failed, is matter of controversy, and to most people, it could not ever succeed. Here is what I believe:
communism failed because it removed all sense of responsibility. When the state owns it, nobody does and you get something called “the tragedy of the commons” It became a dehumanising ideology. In addition to becoming a state owned system, they also got stuck with central planning. Central planning was the fad of the early 20th century all over Europe and that became a central tenet of the Soviet system. Many believed central planning to be more efficient and we see the reminiscient of that in many large mulitnational companies of today(Many of them even operate with 5 year plans.) and are probably equally bureaucratic. Central planning, state (no) ownership, complete corruption and dictatorship sounds like a complete disaster to me. If these are the root causes, I am not sure. Some people just argue that a) marxism is an evil ideology or b) marxism is utopian because people are inherently selfish. (I leave this for a later discussion while currently reading a book about the evolution of the moral mind)
How we can make sure that this does not happen to the agile community?
First of all, the means of production in software development lays in the the creative ability of the people. It will be difficult to centralise the ownership of the minds. However, it could happen by some strange patent or copyright laws. (example: we have taught you how to program in this environment and you are not allowed to practice those skills outside the company – or something similar)
Second, we need to make sure that a system do not evolve into a dictatorship and that there are true feedback mechanisms in place to correct that. (If a product manager stops listening to the programmers or the customers)
Thirdly, I am not sure if agile constitute a system of central planning. It is certainly much more flexible. However, the product manager decides what to do, which in a sense could constitute central planning. However, in our society, the product has to stand the test of the market, and if they do not make the right decisions they will be out of a job. And if they do not trust the programmers, they will deliver poorly and inefficient. Hopefully, the company will see this and take action. However, in both cases you rely on well functioning feedback mechanisms.
In all, agile needs to make sure that it does not evolve into the perverted form of marxism (which I do not think it will) If agile is the ideal form of marxism depends on the definition of both terms. However, at any rate that would be a hard sell, and would probably alienate a lot of people to agile.
Please note that, by this logic, a party is impossible.
At a party, we bring food or drink according to our ability, and eat and drink according to our needs… JUST LIKE COMMUNISM.
The activities of the party are determined collectively by the partygoers… JUST LIKE COMMUNISM.
To prevent parties from failing… JUST LIKE COMMUNISM, we must reorganize them along more capitalistic lines. I recommend that, from now on, all parties should forgo free food and drink in favor of vending machines and several competing cash bars. Only the highest bidders will have the right to offer people fun things to do. Partygoers who fail to meet the two-drink minimum will be deemed loiterers, troublemakers, and impediments to commerce, and will be thrown out immediately by a private security service.
I could be communism because, you can have a junior programmer working back to back with a senior one, and they’re the same for SCRUM, for example. But, the payroll is so much different.
That’s the “feeling” about communism. Another example, could be when someone has been working for years in a project, and a new developer is entering, and he has the same rights. This could be unconfortable for people who has been working for a lot of time, if the new one, starts talking, giving opinions or critics and doing things that are reserved for the old-ones, who had already demostrated their abilities.
Maybe, it could be avoided with a rank. That rank, could led to have a distinction, like they were stocks of a company.