We Object To The Rampant Distortion Of Agile And Scrum.

We are calling B.S. on what is usually sold as Agileand Scrum. We love the four values andtwelve principles of theAgile Manifesto, the original reason our movement was called Agile.Some of us were also inspired bya realistic and useful vision of Scrum.But Agile and Scrum are usually twisted to meansomething incompatible with this prior intent, especially inorganizations that are bigger than one team.

Traditional organizations will not gain agility with the changetheater that is often sold as “Agile.” Change theater is activelycounterproductive, inoculating organizations against the structuraland policy changes they would need.

Agile organizations learn, reprioritize, and adapt to changingcustomer needs, rather than focusing on quantity of output.

Even when many teams are involved, adaptability can be fine-grained, on a timescale of a week to a month rather than limited to coarse multi-month program increments and quarterly goals.

In knowledge work, “dependencies” are not caused by immutable laws ofphysics. The perceived need to plan around them through multipleSprints is a symptom of obsolete organizational structure, policy, andskills. This should be directly addressed rather than institutionalized withthe waterfall dependency management that masquerades as Agile scaling.

Team self management implies a simplified, disintermediatedorganizational structure. Role-free teams coordinate directly withother teams and learn directly from customer interaction. Please stoprebadging traditional specifiers and coordinators with Agile-soundingnames.

Saying yes to agility means saying no to things that aremischaracterized as Agile. Here are some things we can do instead:

In 2001, when helping craft the Agile Manifesto, Alistair Cockburnmade an observation that still resonates:

I am interested in fending off the fat methodology army, thevast quantity of RUP, Anderson, SEI, etc. salespeople putting ideasinto CIOs’ minds that they should have lots of paperwork to be “safe.”Countering the “I want a turnkey methodology, one that works straightout of the box” mentality. Those are the two battles I could use help in.

We support approaches such as LeSS that are based on fundamental Agileprinciples because they can better serve customers and employees. Wereject ‘scaling’ approaches that increase organizational complexityand disempower teams.

Signatories

Frederik Vannieuwenhuyse, Brussels, Belgium, Apr 12, 2022