Embracing uncertainty is hard

From Mike Cottmeyer’s Leading Agile:

As a community… we are trying to get folks to embrace change and to embrace uncertainty. We’ve got to recognize that we might be asking folks to embrace more uncertainty that they can likely handle. The reality is simply that many folks would rather be wrong than be uncertain.

For many people transitioning to Agile, the focus on clarity in the short-term is a real deal-breaker. Some people just want to spend the time (and this is usually lots of time) to get a full picture. This work rarely provides something of value and usually just ends up being busywork that puts the project even further behind. I’m definitely not against taking the time to plan the goals of a project but there comes a point where planning needs to shift to doing and most projects are slow to make that transition.

I don’t know anything about the Real Options theory that Mike is talking about in this article but I’m always interested in tools that can help to soften the blow of Agile adoption.