I made this post on Linked originally. It has got a lot of interest….
If I see another post from an Agile Fundamentalist ‘explaining’ what is and isn’t Agile….
Firstly: Agile is no longer one set of practices. It is primarily a culture, underpinned by a set of work practices. Each of these practices may or may not have application to the particular problem at hand and need to be applied pragmatically and with common sense. Delivering working code by iteration 2 and continuous integration and deployment may be important in a certain type of software engineering problem, but what about a core banking system replacement, or a business project or program (no code in sight!). Clarity, visualisation, shared understanding, regular structured disciplined conversation, short cycles, open honest risk identification, genuine collaboration, embedded customer and team driven continuous improvement. These are some of the underlying indicators for effective Agile, but practices can be vastly different, depending on the particular application.
Secondly, Agile is not a methodology. It is a Culture and a set of Work Practices. It was born in Software Engineering but it can be applied to any work package. A Methodology gives you sequencing. Agile does not, it gives you a way to organise and visualise work and to organise and empower teams to maximise value. Agile has methods and practices, but is not a methodology.
The great problem the Agile community has at the moment is that the principles and practices are being effectively and widely applied to all sorts of business problems. Sure it’s great for for software development, but it is equally effective for business projects and programs, and excitingly, as catalyst to transform culture. However, like all religions, the beliefs and practices that contribute to an individual’s own positive experiences, tend to become their very own definition of ‘pure Agile’ and everything else is heresy. And then people stop thinking, and then they become fundamentalists who mindlessly apply their pet practices.
The supreme irony is that Agile developed from a structured application of common sense, challenging the insane but widely accepted practices of waterfall projects, like we can get certainty at the start from our 20,000 line gantt. Agile practices recognised that change happens and there is need to be disciplined but adaptable. And yet, self proclaimed high priests and priestesses of Agile will tell you ‘that’s not Agile’ on the basis of some pet practice or behaviour or that isn’t being applied. To be effective, the practices themselves can and must be adapted with common sense, whilst carefully preserving the intent and cultural underpinnings.
Surely we can accept that the intent of the original practices can be applied in different ways to different problems. And the reality is that the underpinning cultural aspects are far more important to success than any particular practice, and by the way, that is true of Software Engineering applications of Agile too kids….
C’mon people, lighten up and open your minds…