DZone
Agile Zone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
  • Refcardz
  • Trend Reports
  • Webinars
  • Zones
  • |
    • Agile
    • AI
    • Big Data
    • Cloud
    • Database
    • DevOps
    • Integration
    • IoT
    • Java
    • Microservices
    • Open Source
    • Performance
    • Security
    • Web Dev
DZone > Agile Zone > Should Agile Equal Being Happy?

Should Agile Equal Being Happy?

Mike Cottmeyer user avatar by
Mike Cottmeyer
·
Feb. 28, 15 · Agile Zone · Interview
Like (0)
Save
Tweet
5.50K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

Written by Derek Huether for LeadingAgile.

Ever had a conversation with someone about what they thought “being” Agile meant?  I was having that conversation today.  The other guy said he was surprised that he wasn’t happier.  I asked him to help me understand what he meant by that.

An Agile team should be happy

Someone, somewhere, convinced this fellow that the Manifesto for Agile Software Development included life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The reality is I feel he was misguided, just like all of those other people who think that if you’re on an Agile team then you don’t plan, you don’t test, or you don’t document. The ideas like Agile is all teddy bears and rainbows has somehow spread to the far reaches of the Agile community.

When asked if Agile makes me happy, my response was simple.

No

Being an Agile coach, leading Agile transformations, and helping customers reach their potential does not make me happy.  It leaves me with a feeling of satisfaction.  Much like mowing my lawn every weekend in summer, it doesn’t make me happy. But, when I am done with the task at hand, I look at what I have accomplished and I feel satisfied.  Isn’t that a more realistic goal? The pursuit of satisfaction, as it relates to work?  Happiness is an emotional state that I reserve to my personal life, when I combine satisfaction from my work and positive emotions in my off-time.

Is the goal of happiness within an Agile team misguided?

I’m interested in your thoughts.

agile

Published at DZone with permission of Mike Cottmeyer, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • What SREs Can Learn From the Atlassian Nightmare Outage of 2022
  • Use Lambda Function URL To Write a Serverless App Backed by DynamoDB
  • Why Is Software Integration Important for Business?
  • How Database B-Tree Indexing Works

Comments

Agile Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • MVB Program
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends:

DZone.com is powered by 

AnswerHub logo