In an earlier post, I compared agile to 12-step programs, and I listed 12-step slogans that could also apply to agile.
Since I posted that, one slogan that I missed keeps coming to mind: Fake it till you make it.
In AA, ‘Fake is till you make it‘ is “a suggestion often made to newcomers who feel they can’t get the program and will go back to old behavior. The suggestion implies that if the newcomer acts according to the steps and teachings of the program, then the program will begin to work and the anxiety will fall away.”
In his book Agile Software Development, agile guru Alistair Cockburn applies the Japanese martial arts concept of ‘Shu Ha Ri‘ to agile adoption. Mr. Cockburn writes of the first phase: “In Shu, the student should be working to copy the techniques as taught without yet attempting to make any effort understand the rationale of the techniques of the school/teacher” (p. 18). In the second phase, Ha, “the student must reflect on the meaning and purpose of everything that he has learned and thus come to a deeper understanding of the art than pure repetitive practice can allow” (p. 18).
To me, that sounds an awful lot like ‘Fake it till you make it.’