Is agile really dead?

The contributors to this?

Let’s get right into it and list a couple of big ones, in no particular order:

The need for practicality

I’m not going to deny the need for practicality, not at all. But the problem lies in the fact that people rush to practicality. Tools, frameworks, meetings and rituals, before spending even 5 minutes thinking about the agile values and principles or any of the underlying framework or method foundations. Most people I know never asked themselves why Scrum exists and what’s the problem it’s meant to solve. Same for every other method under the agile umbrella.

And when you don’t have a north star to guide you, you get lost in literally no time at all. Minutes.

The frameworks and practices were and are in abundance, all fixed recipes or wrongly perceived as such.

Scrum framework

Take Scrum for example. It’s a framework founded on empyricism, inspection and adaptation. But, with large empty spaces that each team is supposed to fill with:

• collaboration patterns that are relevant for them,
• on that specific project or product
• in that point in their team development journey,
• In that particular point in their product lifecycle

The large majority of people didn’t see those large empty spaces, and had no idea they’re supposed to search and find their way of work through experimentation in an empirical fashion. And then search and find a new way of work once circumstances change. Like, people coming into and leaving the team, team maturing, product growing, customer changes etc.

The Spotify Model

Another big one is The Spotify Model. Tribes, Squads, Chapters, Guilds. It was all an approximation of what was going on at that particular time at Spotify, not a goal they’ve set out to reach and then call it a day. And I should know because I had a nice and lengthy conversation with Joakim Sunden, a coach that was there for 5 years in the 2010s.

Scaled Agile Framework I won’t even start with because all 17 manifesto signatories declared it as a way to destroy any agility that could possibly emerge.

Certification business

There’s a solid amount of certificates in the agile space that you really have to work your butt off for. Namely Professional, Trainer and Coaching level certifications from Scrum Alliance which are all experience and practice based and require literally years to get. One needs to connect with people, travel, challenge many of your own beliefs and in many instances literally rebuild yourself. Those are the good ones. But there’s a lot of entry level ones that look good and most people never think about venturing any further. But they’re still a bragging right and an upper hand over people that don’t have them in way too many contexts.

And there’s also the fact that many people chase certifications and not real knowledge. It’s human nature I guess, most people in the world today have more important needs than becoming a master at their craft.

Certification bodies ignored this fact and created the starter level certifications as if believing most people would continue to mid and high level certifications – something that just didn’t happen. But hey, the money was flowing so ultimately it wasn’t that much of a sin, was it?

Which leads us to the next one.

Amateur coaches

For a long time you didn’t have to work your butt off to impress laymen and appear as an expert. Read a book, learn a bunch of new words and concepts and voila. No need to know where and when to apply them. Do real damage to clients, send them the wrong way (which some take years to recover from), cash in the pocket.

Recognizing an amateur coach one isn’t actually hard, just ask them a few of the following questions and watch them stumble. Just for reference and completeness, I prepared the type of answers you should expect from an experienced Agile coach.

Is your coach an amateur?

Q: How do you enable self-organization in a team?
A: Communicate a clear goal, clear constraints, step back and only intervene if you see the team isn’t clear on the constraints; never direct the team what to do, but definitely provide all information that’s missing. Be careful not to implicitly direct with information you give.

Q: What does the first agile value really mean?
A: It recognizes that human interactions are not just information exchanges but rather a fusion of minds and thought processes which is when the best ideas and solutions arise.

Q: How do you empower people?
A: By educating and mentoring them towards their full potential.

Q: What’s the daily for in Scrum?
A: For replanning the sprint; basically adapting to new information and circumstances every single day, and most definitely not a status report.

Q: When do you abort a sprint in Scrum?
A: When the sprint goal is obsolete; only the Product Owner can do it.

Q: Why isn’t there a manager in Scrum?
A: Because the whole team takes management responsibilities collectively

So if you’re talking to a coach that thinks Daily Scrum is a 15 min report and that everything can be shoehorned into Scrum Framework (or any other for that matter), you’re talking to a self proclaimed coach.

These kinds of coaches, with no deep knowledge and experience were everywhere, their backgrounds being everywhere but in software development. Everyone flocked in from literally everywhere to get some of that coaching $$$.

Permanent human resistance to change

Many companies ventured into agile transformations in a mandated-from-the-top fashion. The people that were to change didn’t have much say about whether they wanted it or not, or were given any other options at all. And we do know, for a very long time now, that change is hard even if the person actually wants it, let alone if they’re forced.

The problem lies also in the uncertainty that was ahead for those people.

To have feet on the ground is a very real human need, and agile values knocked many people out of their socks. Confusion, reluctance, discomfort, even panic were daily realities for most IT professionals going through agile transformations.

And there you have it. A perfect storm for thousands of bad implementations. But what’s next?

A way forward

As with any movement that conquers the planet, there’s many people doing many things inspired by it. Some visionaries even say that real agile is the new norm and that there’s other areas worth spending your energy on. Like customer experience – which spans way beyond just software products, AI infused everything – development, management, prototyping etc. Whether you’re an AI sceptic or early adopter there’s no denying that AI has profoundly changed the game almost everywhere.

There’s still this looming sentiment at large that we’re not done with agile and that we, 23 years later – get it now. True, the job market for agile coaches has shrunken allowing only the very good ones to survive – which is good. The certification business isn’t as lively as it was 5 or 10 years ago, which is also good. Many companies truly did get it and they’ve skyrocketed, representatives ranging in both consumer and business software arenas.