Agile anti-patterns: being Fowler about SaFE

<Views my own and may not represent those of my employer>

Martin Fowler wittily derided SaFE as "Shitty Agile for Enterprises ." It seems a bit mean, unreasonable and negative. Unfortunately he is correct.

Here is why: whenever we attempt to transform something we are establishing a new thought paradigm. And we are generally doing this within the context of an established paradigm hegemony. So in terms of Johnson and Scholes Cultural Web we are talking ... YEAH ... Paradigm Death Match:

"A late change in requirements is competitive advantage."—Martin Fowler.

So the challenge here is obvious.Given the pernicious outsized hegemony of a pre-Agile mindset what happen if we leave it around like we do in scaled Agile frameworks? That's right. What is dominant stays dominant.

Indeed the dominant Paradigm unless killed dead, or at least kept at bay, will take over the weaker paradigm and destroy it. This is essentially the Memory Effect from Holling's Panarchy:

So when changing paradigms one has to ask one's self: what I am prepared to give up?