Getting off the shoulders of giants

“Scrum is immutable”

A comment you’ve probably seen repeatedly at this point if you’re a reader on agile practice.

Before we go on though, let me give you a brief science lesson. Albert Einstein is possibly the most well-known, if not, the giant of scientific study. Possibly his most celebrated work is the general theory of relativity which describes the evolution of the universe.

This theory aims to describe the universe as being unstable, which disproved another famous scientific mind (Aristotle – who believed that the universe was static). During the 20th century scientific minds lived with and accepted this idea of a static universe. Their own theories were built on the established understanding all the way back to Aristotle that the universe was constant, unmoving, unchanging.

This had a major influence on Einstein’s own theory of general relativity. To build on Aristotle’s idea of a static universe, when constructing his own theory Einstein added a constant to his equations (In effect a constraint) that ‘froze’ the position of the universe.

This constraint went unchallenged until 1929 when another famous scientist and astronomer (Edwin Hubble – yes of the Hubble telescope fame) proved that the universe is expanding with his ‘Hubble’s law’ theory.

Einstein later said that this was ‘the biggest mistake he ever made’

So why are we talking about Einstein and the theory of relativity?

Because whilst standing on the shoulders of giants can be beneficial, there comes a point in time where basing every decision on established understanding or ‘fact’ can end up constraining us.

About 6-7 years ago I reached out to a number of the original signatories of the agile manifesto. I had a burning desire to write a book about the history of the manifesto, what caused its creation and what impact it had made on the industry I call home. Many of the signatories were kind enough to send replies back to me, but the one that really stood out was from Ron Jefferies, quoted here (On asking his thoughts on what they had all learned since the manifesto) : -

“I’d be interested, if it were me, in what the authors have learned since the manifesto. I’d be interested in the learnings of the next, and the next-next generation contributors, the Rainsbergers, the Shores, the Larsons, the Shalloways, the Mancini’s. I’d be interested in understanding what they learned from their predecessors, what they failed to learn, what they discovered on their own, what they found to be incomplete or mistaken, I’d be interested in finding out whether there are still threads of good metal to be discovered or whether ‘agile’ has essentially been mined out”

Have we 'mined out' agile?

For me this is the inflection point we stand at today. In a world of LinkedIn bile, opinion, ‘influencers’ trying to hawk a course, original manifesto signatories stating loudly and proudly that their way is the one true way to salvation from bad software delivery. Maybe this is a world we shouldn’t be embracing?

Maybe the world we should be encouraging to develop is the one where we get down off the shoulders of the giants that came before us? Maybe its time to move on?

Let’s not forget the contribution these 20 people made to where we are today, just like Einstein did with Aristotle’s work, but let’s not constrain ourselves to the ways of thinking we formulated over a quarter of a century ago as we face problems that could not and should not have been considered when some of these ideas first took shape.

There is absolutely something to be said for using the great work of those who came before us to build on, to ‘short-cut’ our way to better work or evolutions of theory. But there’s much to be said for revolution as well.

Today Ron’s words resonate a lot more with me than they did 6 years ago. Since then (Maybe even before then) I’ve seen our industry stagger from one opinion formed into fact to another. We’ve had the growth of concepts such as SAFe that appear to be trying to engorge themselves on everything else within agile just to ensure no stone is left unturned, the agile certification industry and lately, the first shoots of a collective of people and companies that are at a point of wanting to get off the crazy train.

Maybe its time for us to find our own way? In fact, I’d be confident in stating that this is the only way for us to bring agile into the light. Let’s get down off the shoulders of giants who came before and make our own. If we don’t? Then maybe our industry deserves to be one for the history books rather than the one making history.