Rediscovering Agility: Moving Beyond Dogma

Over the last year, I've noticed more and more the posts carrying titles such as "Agile is dead" and how LinkedIn's AI generated questions appear to be seeded with the typical misunderstandings that frustrate many Agile practitioners across various industries.

The aim of this article is to try and encourage the same "inspect and adapt" culture that we promote to the uninitiated and hold a mirror up to ourselves to see how we can get back to the roots of Agility.

The Rise and Fall of "Agile"

Over the past decade, Agile methodologies and frameworks have revolutionised how teams across various industries approach software development and project management. From its inception, Agile promised a more adaptive, customer-centric way of working, grounded in the principles of the Agile Manifesto. However, as Agile has become more widespread, there has been an unfortunate shift towards dogmatic adherence to specific practices and frameworks. This shift threatens to undermine the very flexibility and responsiveness that Agile was designed to promote.

The Agile Manifesto: A Refresher

To understand where we have strayed, we need to revisit the Agile Manifesto itself. Created in 2001 by a group of seventeen thought leaders in software development, the manifesto outlines four core values and twelve principles aimed at fostering better ways of developing software. The core values are:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

These values emphasise flexibility, collaboration, and responsiveness - qualities that should define any truly agile organisation.

The Drift Towards Dogma

Despite the clear and flexible guidelines of the Agile Manifesto, the Agile community has seen a trend towards rigid interpretations and implementations. Popular frameworks like Scrum, SAFe, and Kanban have provided structured approaches to Agility, but they have also contributed to a more prescriptive and, at times, inflexible application of Agile principles. Teams and organisations often feel compelled to follow these frameworks to the letter, losing sight of the underlying principles that made them effective to begin with.

For instance, the Scrum framework's accountabilities, events, and artifacts can often be applied in a way that stifles innovation and adaptation. How many of us have been witness to "zombie scrum"? Attending a daily scrum just to hear a 60 second status update followed with "no blockers". Similarly, large-scale implementations like SAFe can become bureaucratic, undermining the nimbleness that Agile aims to foster. This dogmatic approach can lead to a checkbox mentality where the focus shifts from delivering value to merely following processes.

Finding Our Way Back

To reclaim the true spirit of Agility, perhaps we need to focus on the foundational values and principles outlined in the Agile Manifesto. We can discuss these within our organisations without simply reciting the Agile Manifesto (which can often induce a few eye-rolls), for example:

• Embrace Flexibility and Adaptability: Recognise that frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe are tools, not rules. They should be adapted to fit the unique needs of your team and organisation. Be willing to experiment and adjust practices as you learn what works best.
• Empower Teams: Agile thrives when teams are empowered to make decisions and drive their own improvements. Trust your teams to find the most effective ways of working and support them in their continuous improvement efforts.
• Focus on Delivering Value: Shift the emphasis from process compliance to delivering real value to customers. This means prioritising working software, customer feedback, and iterative progress over rigid adherence to a predefined plan.
• Foster Collaboration: Break down silos and encourage collaboration across all levels of the organisation. Agile is fundamentally about people working together effectively. Create environments where open communication and collaboration are the norm.
• Commit to Continuous Improvement: Agile is a journey, not a destination. Commit to ongoing learning and improvement. Regularly reflect on what is working, what isn’t, and how you can improve. This mindset of continuous improvement is at the heart of being truly agile.

These talking points still embrace the language and the intent of the Agile Manifesto, but still invite inspection and criticism which is needed to discover what works for your teams' specific needs.

Conclusion

The Agile Manifesto was designed to offer a flexible, human-centred approach to software development and project management. By reconnecting with its core values and principles, we can move beyond the dogma that has crept into the Agile world and return to a more adaptive, responsive, and value-driven way of working.

This isn't to say that frameworks aren't useful - I've continuously used them in my career to manage projects and align people around delivering value - but they shouldn't be used as the measuring stick for Agility.

Let's get back to being agile rather than doing agile.