How Pokemon Taught Me Agile
Do we have to catch ‘em all?
“I want to be the very best, that no one ever was.” says the TV as I leaned against the sofa in my pyjamas with the TV remote and chips in my hands. Yes, today is the day I decided to relive my childhood. Singing along to the legendary theme song, I started taking some time also to understand the lyrics that I used to butcher when I was younger and — a struck of realisation hit me:
Have we been subconsciously practising an Agile mindset ever since we were younger through Pokemon and its legendary theme song?
Does this mean what we know now on Agile also utilises the already embedded mindset we learnt from Pokemon back in the days? Let’s break down the lyrics to their theme song to see further what it may potentially mean in the context of Agile and if we need to catch ‘em all.
You threw a Pokeball, one shake… two shakes… three shakes and “poof”, you have successfully caught a wild Psyduck.
Catching a Pokemon has always been a challenge for any Pokemon trainer. However, a Pokemon trainer can truly achieve their goal of defeating the Elite Four and becoming the ultimate Pokemon Champion through rigorous training with their Pokemons. The Pokemon theme song summarised this in their first verse — “To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause!”.
This experience is similar to the challenges faced when building a product; we would spend a long time planning the development and documenting. We ended up sacrificing the quality of the product and creating technical debt in the long run. Learning from this lesson, we are encouraged to practice focusing on creating a working product over excessive documentation as shared in the Agile manifesto. This belief is in line with the teachings from the Pokemon theme song, whereby training a Pokemon (in our case, a product) is where the real value derives.
Did you know? The line “You teach me, and I’ll teach you” was emphasised at least three times throughout the theme song. It shows just how important it is to learn from others regardless of their experiences and background. Ash Ketchum realised how important it is to implement this in practice. Being only ten years old when he first started his journey, he acknowledges his lack of experience as a trainer. Thus, he decided to travel throughout the Kanto region with skilled trainers such as Misty and Brock to learn from them. His Pikachu would not have known that petrifying Thunderbolt move without the help from other trainers sharing their knowledge with him on how to train Pokemon.
Behind every great Pokemon is a great trainer.
Similarly, behind every great product is a great team. Every team member plays a crucial role to ensure they collaboratively work together and build a product that achieves its goals. The interaction and commitment from each member will help solve the problems faced by the team; it’s more than just the tools they used. Living by the principle of “Individual & interaction over processes and tools” has proven to be one of the key enablers in creating a high-performing team like Ash and his friends.
From the line “Arm in Arm, we’ll win the fight. It’s always been our dream!” Pokemon has taught us that working together helps us go through tough challenges and reach our goals. This teaching is relatable where high involvement and collaboration with users helps in achieving the product goals and its success. Ignoring a user’s feedback would be the start of losing the purpose of the product itself regardless of how many features it has as users ignore products that ignore users. Thus, customer collaboration over contract negotiation has always been one of the manifestoes when practising agile for product development.
Ash Ketchum faced a tough time when he was stuck with Pikachu as his starter Pokemon. He made a rookie mistake when he overslept and arrived late to Professor Oak’s Laboratory, causing him to miss the opportunity of choosing his starter Pokemon. However, it did not stop him from pursuing his dreams, as he has the courage and determination of a roaring tiger to go through whatever it takes regardless of what the world threw at him. His undying courage, in the end, has helped him to obtain every badge from the Kanto Gym Leaders and became eligible for the Pokemon League, an annual tournament held across regions in the Pokemon World.
When building a product, there’s bound to be challenges faced along the way due to unforeseen circumstances, just like how Ash overslept and was late for his appointment with Professor Oak. We may require some detours from the original plan based on the current environment and situation. Having the courage to respond to these changes over following a plan to reach the product goals would help with the product’s success and market value. We should try and adapt to the current evolving environment rather than following a rigid plan that may become obsolete in the future.
That’s all, folks.
Without realising it, the Pokemon theme song has embedded a similar mindset as the agile manifesto ever since we were kids, such as focusing on:
- Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools
- Working Product over Comprehensive Documentation
- Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation
- Responding to Change over Following a Plan
Thus, let us appreciate the Pokemon theme song in a new light and sing our new agile anthem together.
