Cowardace

Mike Cohn is perhaps the best example of the worst coach in the agile product development space.

After I commented on a blog post with my concerns, another individual prompted me regarding my thoughts on improvement.  (Assuming positive intent here.)  I had to create another account to reply because my primary one was being blocked as spam which I mentioned in my response.

Mike responded.  I began a response but was unable to post it because he deleted it while I was composing.  Why did he delete it?  Was it because he is so busy?  Positive intent was assumed but after reading his statements I did some data gathering and analysis.  That became the center of my response: http://disq.us/p/1nsxccm

Giving up on attempting to have a meaningful conversation with Mike, I returned after comments were locked.  However another user had pointed out the probability that Mike really was not too busy and that I had probably hit the nail on the head: http://disq.us/p/1tbo7xr.  Mike was following the conversation and was too cowardly or lacked the cognitive ability to respond.

This is true of many, especially consultants who businesses rarely challenge what is being sold.  Business people often want planned and canned solutions.  They are willing to blindly trust what the rest of the non-thinking populous has branded as acceptable.  They lack the ability or courage to challenge, or even question, what they have bought.  (Another example of the sunk cost fallacy in real life.)  Consultants become locked in their own echo-chamber.  They rarely look outside, or even inside, to check their knowledge.  When others do raise their concerns, they fall to the appeal to authority fallacy with themselves as the authority.

Perhaps my opening remark is incorrect; I'd love to have a dialog about it.  A willingness to learn and grow, coupled with an understanding that I am not perfect, enable and drive me to have conversations with those who disagree.  I believe that things would be better if more people could do the same.

Comments