Blog / Agile Principles

What is "mindset" anyway?

"X is a mindset." So what?

“X is a mindset.”

Agile. DevOps. Quality. Customer Service. Whatever.

I hate this phrase.

Not because it’s false. But becuase it’s effectively meaningless.

If you and I are discussing something (X), and I end up saying “X is a mindset”, it usually means one of two things:

  1. I’m having difficulty getting you to see things my way, and framing it as a “mindset” lets me off the hook for you “not getting it.”
  2. We both already agree about the thing, and we’re just basking platitudes.

Neither case is very productive.

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