The problem with agile development has always been Agile Development.
Cargo-cult management practices freely adopted the brand facade without embracing or even understanding the underlying principles that must be present before the branded process elements can be good practice.
I don't care how good your process consultants are. They are not going to convince any manager to reduce his own importance within the organization. Just like it is much more difficult to make software secure by waiting until version 2.0 to add it, it is harder to make an organization agile by patching that in after the startup phase. It is far easier to be born agile than to reorganize into it.
The failure comes when trying to convince a clumsy organization, with plenty of vested interest in remaining that way, to become agile. What you end up with is a racing stripe painted onto their t-shirts and shiny plastic spoilers taped onto their asses, and no real improvement.
So in this context, GROWS will also fail. The only way to stop it from happening is by the developers pushing back hard against any more brand-name processes that are uncritically peddled to any organization flush enough to pay a process consultant. Screw your new snake oil, buddy. My org listens to me barely enough right now, and I don't need anyone messing that up with some new kind of pointless meeting.
Cargo-cult management practices freely adopted the brand facade without embracing or even understanding the underlying principles that must be present before the branded process elements can be good practice.
I don't care how good your process consultants are. They are not going to convince any manager to reduce his own importance within the organization. Just like it is much more difficult to make software secure by waiting until version 2.0 to add it, it is harder to make an organization agile by patching that in after the startup phase. It is far easier to be born agile than to reorganize into it.
The failure comes when trying to convince a clumsy organization, with plenty of vested interest in remaining that way, to become agile. What you end up with is a racing stripe painted onto their t-shirts and shiny plastic spoilers taped onto their asses, and no real improvement.
So in this context, GROWS will also fail. The only way to stop it from happening is by the developers pushing back hard against any more brand-name processes that are uncritically peddled to any organization flush enough to pay a process consultant. Screw your new snake oil, buddy. My org listens to me barely enough right now, and I don't need anyone messing that up with some new kind of pointless meeting.