When you come across a product or service and think Who wants or Needs this? What would I do with this if it were free? Why would I pay 100's if not 1,000's of dollars for this?
From Solution Looking for a Problem to Solve (Part I), the first question to ask and get answers for is what problem does this product or service fix? And then ask What is the Root Cause of the problem this solution claims to fix? Without the answer to both those questions, what's being Sold is simply a solution looking for a problem to solve.
The Agile domain is now full of tools, processes, frameworks, training, certifications but rarely if ever is there a description of the root causes of problems to be solved by these solutions.
This has become the Vacuum Cleaner Salesman's Pitch
You encounter a salesman on the aisle at Costco and calls out to you, We have new vacuum cleaners, with attachments that can do x, y, and z. You respond with, What is wrong with my existing vacuum cleaner that your new vacuum cleaner can fix? The salesman hasn't identified a problem I have. He's just proposing a solution.
Your first response is likely to be suspicious of the salesman because of his financial incentive to sell vacuum cleaners even to those who don't need them.
Leaving Costco and going back to work, let's move from vacuum cleaners to the Enterprise Agile Solutions domain. I live in the town where SAFe started and some of the tools used to deliver solutions using SAFe - Rally is one. There are other Enterprise Agile solutions of course and all these approaches are focused on delivering Enterprise IT solutions. I've used SAFe on Government Software Intensive System of Systems programs, in Fed-Civ, Space Flight, and Defense systems domains so have some experience applying the solution to the problem.
Let's Start with the Problem
Before we can assess if any Solution is appropriate to the Problem we need to define What is the Problem This Solution is Supposed to Solve and How Will We Recognize that Solution was it to Appear?
The next step before assessing any solution is to assess the Root Cause(s) of the Problem and the Conditions and Actions that create the Effect of the dysfunction observed as the Problem. Until we find the causes of the Effect, we have no way to identify the Corrective and Preventive actions to handle the Conditions and Actions creating the root cause.
With this information, we can now assess if the Solution can address the Problem and its Root Causes.
Find The Problem and Its Root Causes First, Before Buying The Solution
So like the hardware store shopping advice - don't buy tools unless you know what you're going to do with them unless you're just collecting tools for some future need - don't buy any software or project management tool, framework, process, or whatever the salesman wants you to call it - without determining what your problem is and confirmation that the solution can address the problem. And that solution can be assessed in units of measure meaningful to you the decision-maker - starting with Measures of Effectiveness and Measures of Performance.
