Pragmatism 1/5 - Most stressed "pragmatic"

Don’t you think about “pragmatic” as something to be good, clearly understandable, easy, fast? I did. Maybe I still do. But if you keep your eyes and ears open you will recognize that there is also a “pragmatic” on the other hand.

But the most annoying thing is: There’s a “pragmatic” everywhere.

Every job description wants you to be a pragmatic guy. Every task should be done in a pragmatic way. The pragmatic solution is always the best one, they say.

I say: “The pragmatic solution is the only solution.” Pragmatism is the core principle of Agile Development - only do what’s needed now, at this moment; Don’t do less; Don’t do more; Do it safe (tested); Concentrate on it; Don’t waste your time. That’s pragmatic! And everybody out there say’s they do Agile, so they all must work pragmatic.

But why do they have to tell everyone, that they are so pragmatic?
Simple question, simple answer? Let’s have a try.

The situation

In general everybody who states his pragmatism all the time means that he works dirty, that he does not give a shit on quality and that he doesn’t care about what happens to his work tomorrow. It’s kind of a very queer interpretation of a “let-it-crash-design”, an obviously way too literal interpretation.

The “Self-fulfilling prophecy” approach

So if you’re constantly telling yourselves being or doing “pragmatic” by meaning “sloppy” you maybe hope that one fine day you will really be a pragmatic worker. Well this won’t happen, I guess both of us know that. But do you know why? Becoming pragmatic, creating pragmatic solutions, is hard learning and hard work. It will never happen out of the dust. If you don’t put any effort in becoming pragmatic, you can tell yourselves a lot but it will always be a lie.

The “Distraction” approach

Maybe you are in the soup. Deep! And maybe you don’t even know it, but you could feel it. Or you exactly know it and continue your work, because everybody wants you to (this would be a perfect Escalation of commitment). Well you have to tell something - yourselves, your co-workers, your boss. So being pragmatic sounds great. Generating a whole bunch of pragmatic solutions - every day - sounds even better than great. So you’re telling exactly that. But in fact you’re trying to keep your Big ball of mud alive.
Caution: Such a situation creates fireworks of Anti-Patterns.

The “Junior” approach

From my experience I have to say that especially Juniors (Developers, Project Managers, Product Managers, …) tend to overstress the “pragmatic”. Let’s be kind to them and just say “they do not know better”. This goes into the direction of my former post. If there are no real Seniors to tell and show them what “pragmatic” really means, your entire company runs into big troubles: Nobody in your company will ever know what “pragmatic” is about.



So there is really no simple answer for me to that question. But if you realized that you fit into one of the three approaches you have to get up off your butt and do something.


And as pragmatism comes through knowledge I would likely guide you a way through this swamp of information about this topic. So part two ("Postmodernity") will provide you with some first hints and solutions within the next days.