The Way is Dead. Long live the Way!

According to Simon Wardley, all methods and ways become commodified over time. John Cutler wrote a great article about ways of working that illustrates this.

Let's use John's ideas (shown in quotes) to journey through this model from least commodified to most to predict what comes next in Data, Business Agility, Product, DevOps and Agile.

The Early Days

• This does not seem right. Let’s improve it!
• Hmm. How have other people solved this problem?
• OK. That seems applicable. And that old way … not so much.
• Let’s try a bit of this, and a bit of that.
• We’re doing something … it seems to be working.
• Hah. We kind of reinvented the wheel there. Oh well. We’re learning."

The pre-agile movement was arguably in this state from the '60s to the '80s, well before any books or movements. Lockheed Martin Skunkworks was doing something similar to Agile before this. This is the natural condition for research and design engineers. I don't know what will come out of this next, but it's something that someone is already doing. The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed.

The New Thing

• We’ve tweaked this so much that … it almost seems to be “new”
• Let’s adapt it a bit. OK. It’s working even better!
• But…we’re having trouble explaining it to people. There’s resistance.
• What are we actually doing? Let’s put some rigor behind this."

In the 1990s, people in the Software Engineering communities argued for a lightweight process movement that focused on better working methods. Many people experimented with new methods and shared them on Ward Cunningham's C2 Wiki. These ideas became the XP movement and Agile.

Spreading the Gospel

• We’ve told some other people, and they seem interested. Cool!
• How can we teach those other people to do this?
• Hmmm. They’re using it in a different context and tweaking it.
• And there’s a range of starting conditions.
• That’s ok. Let’s abstract out some core principles. Let them adapt it.
• Now we’re responsible for teaching it, the “change” to it, legitimizing it, and making it work in different environments. This is tough."

This is where the Data Movement seems to be now. We've seen passionate early evangelists writing Mindset books based on guiding principles like Data Mesh. Google, Amazon, and AI teams have perhaps been early adopters with big wins. But, according to Shane Gibson, my cohost, it's stalled because few patterns and practices have emerged. So, the next step should be an explosion of patterns and practices.

The Movement

• But it is working! We’ve got a movement on our hands.
• There’s an explosion of interesting practices and tools!
• An informal cottage industry is growing to actually teach this thing.
• Even even more people are trying it."

This could be where the Business Agility movement is now. It hasn't exploded, but there are conferences, how-to Books, emerging best practices, small business agility consultancies, and articles that say your entire business should be Agile. The Business Agility Institute assesses organisations to tell you how agile they are. We can expect a series of new titles like Business Agility Director and "You are not doing Business Agility If" articles. Business Agility could peter out at this stage if there isn't enough interest, or it could become the next big thing.

Abuse and Silver Bullets

• Some see it as a “silver bullet”. It isn’t.
• And, sadly, some people are abusing it.
• Maybe we need certifications of some sort? So the people teaching it stay true to the principles and don’t abuse it?
• But dang, we’re losing the spirit of this. And more abuse.
• Crap. Now there are teachers teaching teachers. And tool vendors? Huh?"

The Product Movement has experienced an explosion of popularity and interesting practices and tools. An informal cottage industry emerged to teach it, and many people became Product Managers. Now it seems that the Product Movement has entered the abuse and silver bullets stage, and product managers have been fired in bulk.

Every discussion with a product thought leader starts with a discussion of what product management is, why it's not a Product Owner and why it's being abused. There are lots of "You're not doing product if" or unless articles. Product Manager certification programs have emerged from AIPPM, Google, and Product School.

The next step is a series of Product is Dead, Long Live Product posts and Product Management tools from vendors.

The Defense

• What do we do? Do we ride the wave, or go rogue?
• Now our way is inspiring things that seem so tweaked that they don’t even resemble the way. But they’re stealing the way name. Respect your elders!
• They’re calling it something new. Crap. Well it ISN’T. It isn’t new. It’s repackaged.
• No no! That new thing they’re proposing IS new (but only the bad parts). We can’t be responsible for those ragamuffins."

DevOps is in the defence of the way stage. The Big 5 have had DevOps service offerings for years. DevOps Enterprise is folded into SAFE, and people think you can "buy" DevOps by installing tool kits. Gene Kim is striving to balance vendor and service provider commodification while keeping the values and principles of the DevOps way alive. The next step should be a Back to Basics DevOps movement.

Long Live the Way

• We need to get back to the basics… back to the True Way.
• But we can’t. We can’t undo this progress. It is what it is.
• Way is dead. Long live the Way."

from John Cutler the Way of Ways"

Agile is clearly at the end of the Way of Ways. Late Adopters are implementing a bastardised version of Agile. Alistair Cockburn started the Heart of Agile back-to-basics movement a few years ago. And early evangelists like Jim Highsmith and John Kern have recently started a "Re-imagining Agile" group. Will Agile continue for a long time as a highly commoditised, poorly done, low-value way, or will it re-emerge as something new?

Perhaps the people doing real agile, which has real value, can collect their patterns and practices into something new. Or perhaps something new will emerge from innovators' best practices.

Conclusion

This is just a model. You may or may not agree with Wardley's maps, but I find it persuasive. And predictions for what seems to come next are on the money. But a movement doesn't necessarily go through this cycle. It can die at any stage due to a lack of interest or inability to move past its challenges to the next stage.

Can the DataProduct community move past DataMesh to something practical?

Will Business Agility become popular with execs or die out?

Will Product become commodified next?

What do you think?