Is Agile really the ideal model that does not work?

I have been surrounded by agilists my entire career, and it seems to me that they adopt the model as it was a truism.

Back in 2007, the DevOps movement started to take shape within the IT operations and software development industry elements; it is back then that Agile started to lean. You could see that the out-of-the-box agile is deterring, and the more customized one (or ones) emerging.

To stress on this, it wasn’t until 2020, that the Project Management Institute standardized agile as part of its methodology, and included it as a significant pillar in Project Management (particularly PMBOK).

“It is clearly a new horizon for Agile, and for Project Management” PgMCerty.

We are finally seeing agile as intended in the Agile Manifesto; a tradeoff of each of the principles based on the target situation, and not just strict-to-follow axioms.

Digging deeper, we find that agile is resulting most of the times in work congestions for delivery teams. The fast adoption of quicker, faster and shorter releases, brings heat to the game, and more stress on the lower hierarchical affiliations (rare are the teams adopting a flat hierarchy, which is a definite no-go for me, but that’s for another discussion).

All of this occurs while the management is really still thinking “Waterfall”, resulting in the fact that the organization isn’t really agile!

Now on to the real Agile. Adopting Agile (and not “Going Agile”), means that the entire organization’s culture changes, and not just the delivery teams’ work.

Customize Agile to your needs while keeping the spirit of an agilist, while understanding and adopting the Manifesto, and not just using it word by word.

And for the sake of evolution, criticize Agile and offer improvements to it. Don’t just call yourself Agilists, don’t leave the Agile Manifesto outdated!

Bottom line. Be agile with using Agile.