The Storming phase of the (agile) IT world

I noticed something strange the last months (year?).

Last year there were lot’s of discussions on agile mailing list about agile vs Agile.
We also had discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of certifications.

David wanted to write a new manifesto.

We had discussion if Lean was agile.
At Agile 2009 there was a Open Space session is Scrum evil?

Ken resigned of the Scrum Alliance he founded (the foundation to support “his” scrum)

Joel writing a post against TDD vs Uncle Bob’s response 
Tobias writing a blog post to stop doing XP.  vs Steve reaction’s to keep doing XP 
(Read Tobias answer in the comments to understand the whole discussion) 
I could add a lot more if I wanted, and so could you.

It looks like we have a lot of discussions where we question ourselves as an industry.

I have the feeling it is the first time this happens at this scale.
Maybe I’m too young. Maybe I ‘m more in the middle now or have more idea’s myself on who’s right or wrong.
Maybe it’s the always connect, twitterly, blogging world that makes these discussions so more public.

This reminds me a lot of the storming phase that exists in a team live cycle,or the chaos phase in Satirs model.
So from a point of view of a coach these discussions and where this goes is interesting.

In these discussions, there is clearly no leader. Or let me put it in another way, no leader that everyone would accept.
So this is a self-organizing team.

Who’s is part of this team?
I guess everyone involved in creating software.
Some are seniors, some are juniors. Some are good in communication others are bad at expressing what they think/feel, but have good idea’s. Some have great idea’s and don’t say/write anything. Some turn of heir browsers and start writing code.

What is the goal of this team?
mmm? That is a hard one, and as long was we don’t have a shared vision, I doubt we will agree on a lot of stuff. Anyway agreeing should never be a goal.
The creation of the agile manifesto was also not done without discussions.

My personal goal would be that we as an industry end up get better at writing great software.

As a coach I’m interested to look at META position and see how we behave as a community. And how the outside world looks at us during these discussions.

Do we scare people away because we argue?
Do we attract people because we listen to each other and argue politely?
Maybe it is too early to ask these questions, and I know that switching to and from meta position can influence the discussions. 

So lot’s of questions. And too much happening that I can take a look at on my own.

So I wonder, what is your idea? How do you feel about this?