There’s a conversation unfolding about the future of Lean Startup on RoundTables, andPatrick Vlaskovits pointed out:

Lean Startup needs to avoid becoming dogmatic or a religion. It is terribly ironic when some well-meaning enthusiasts take Lean Startup as the Holy Grail of startup methodologies and expect miracles based on faith & unquestioningly “following the rules” alone.

Lean Startup-ers need to keep each other honest about this.

Let’s not get into where agile ended up with SCRUM. As much as I love the whole movement, I start to feel more dogmatism and it is very important to become aware of it before it is too late.

I like the “challenge your assumptions” attitude in Lean Startup, which when taken to heart, helps prevent people from becoming dogmatic, but I’m not sure this is enough.

Bob Marshall points out the benefits of learning as an organisation and the necessity of a “playing by the rules” stage to become better.  This answers what individuals and organisations can do to avoid the traps within their own dogmatic attitudes. Jared Spool has a great outlook on this in the Design community.

I’m really interested to learn from Agilists, Designers and others who’ve been there, so we can learn from you.  As “a movement” is this really a critical problem? What is “too late” and what have the tangible consequences been?  Is there a signal/noise problem that prevents individuals seeking to learn more or dig deeper from doing so? If so, has that been because of people spreading mis-information, and how has mis-information been differentiated from progressive new ideas in the past? What questions should we be asking?

Please chime in here or on Roundtable.

Originally posted on Leancamp.