So it’s been 20 years since a group met in a ski lodge in Utah and laid the foundation for the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development”, better known as the Agile Manifesto. A lot has happened since. Some agile ideas had been around for decades before that, but the manifesto is still a milestone. It inspired two decades of software development and has long since outgrown it. Today agility turns up everywhere: in running companies, in leadership, marketing, hardware and logistics, and in how families plan their week. Non-profits, social services and schools are experimenting with it too. No surprise, really, because in many ways agility is one possible answer to the challenges of our time, uncertainty and complexity above all.
What the Agile Manifesto Actually Says
The manifesto itself is short. It rests on four values: individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change over following a plan. The items on the right still matter, the ones on the left matter more. On top of that come twelve principles.
Not Everything That Glitters Is Agile
Where there is light, there is shadow. When I look at the world, at the companies I work with and at the market that has grown up around Agile, there’s plenty that just makes me shake my head. Sometimes I wonder: are they serious? Is this satire? A prank? And then I realize, somewhat deflated: oh… sadly, no.
Agility is a hype that gets paraded through every town and every all-hands meeting. There’s money behind it. A lot of money. A huge market. That inevitably produces some strange growths of every shade. And just as many answers as there are definitions to the question: what is Agile, really? A mindset? A product? A set of methods? Or tools?
Gurus, Dogmas and Products
I notice something in me pushing back whenever I run into the following in the agile world:
- Agile gurus: agile facts, this way and no other, no alternative. Is that agile? I’d rather go with physicist, cyberneticist and philosopher Heinz von Foerster: “Truth is the invention of a liar.”
- Dogmas: doing things without thinking, because that’s how they’re done. Period. A daily MUST last 15 minutes and everyone MUST stand. No arguments. On your feet! Rituals and rules are fine as long as they don’t become an end in themselves.
- Buying agility: people like things simple, ideally in neat little boxes. Luckily there are models and products for that. Brain off, buy. And honestly, that can be a good start. It becomes fatal when it stays that way. No development. No improvement. No idea outside the model. To borrow loosely from Watzlawick: if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and virologists see viruses everywhere.
The One True Definition of Agility
Here it comes. Or not. I don’t know the one true definition either, I’m afraid. And in my view we don’t need one, because being dynamic is part of what agile is.
Over the years I’ve developed my own view, and it comes down to this: agility is a mindset, an attitude that helps a company, and every individual in it, find their way through this complex, uncertain world and grow along the way. It rests on values that support this: openness, appreciation, courage, responsibility, and so on.
All the tools and frameworks around it are best practices that put this into practice. But they are other people’s best practices. Whether they work for you, your team or your company, there’s only one way to find out: try it, get feedback, reflect, take the next step. That is how you end up with your own, individual agile path.
Boom. That’s it. For me, anyway. Not for many others. Don’t take my word for it! Think it through yourself. Come up with your own definition. Step by step. Look for inspiration. And maybe one day all these positive agile values will be so much part of everyday life that we won’t need the label “agility” anymore. Then we’ll celebrate something else.
Happy birthday, Agile Manifesto!
