Commentaries #
By one of the authors #
Artisanal Retro-Futurism Team-Scale Anarcho-Syndicalism - Brian Marick, 15-16 June 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5yv-WcQ4wY (audio improves at 3:20 and again at 15:15)
http://arxta.net/explanation.html
Brian Marick about how the core of Agile has gone missing in the 2000s and what that core is/was.
Beyond Agile: New Principles? - Ron Jeffries, 27 August 2010
https://ronjeffries.com/xprog/articles/beyond-agile-new-principles/
Ron Jeffries asks the question if the Agile Manifesto needs to be updated since it’s hard to live up to its values and principles. His answer is that we should raise our game instead.
The Agile Manifesto, Elaborated - Jeff Sutherland, 20 April 2012
https://www.scruminc.com/agile-manifesto-elaborated-2/
Part of “Agile Principles and Values” by Jeff Sutherland. The discrepancy in publishing dates suggests at least one of them is incorrect.
Agile is Dead (Long Live Agility) - Dave Thomas, 2014-2015
https://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill-agile.html (4 March 2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpGGRAhes2k (Rethink Dallas, 6 December 2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BOSpxYJ9M (GOTO Amsterdam, 17-19 June 2015)
Dave Thomas argues we have lost the word “Agile” and should try to hang on to the word “agility” as a label for doing things in an agile fashion.
Agile Principles and Values - Jeff Sutherland, 28 April 2015
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd997578.aspx
Jeff Sutherland’s commentary on the four Agile values and a section on Agile being an umbrella term, not a methodology. Part of it published as “The Agile Manifesto, Elaborated” with an inconsistent publishing date.
Developers Should Abandon Agile - Ron Jeffries, 10 May 2018
https://ronjeffries.com/articles/018-01ff/abandon-1/
Ron Jeffries advises developers to abandon adherence to any “Agile” method of any kind, since they mostly end up as Faux Agile or Dark Agile. Instead, developers should turn their attention and learing to ways of doing software development that adhere to the foundational principles that support Agile Software Development.
Nothing useful to say about the current relevance of the movement called Agile - Brian Marick, 5 March 2022
https://twitter.com/marick/status/1499905649970397189
Brian Marick announcing that he has nothing useful to say about the current relevance of the movement called Agile, because he hasn’t worked with a programming team for about 10 years. He does encourage those who’d try to recover its original spirit.
Waterfall Over Agile In 2023??? - Kent Beck and David Farley, 14 May 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4ihLROXzPk
Kent Beck and David Farley discuss why waterfall still persists and is perhaps even making a comeback. The power structures haven’t changed. The fiction of “just doing it right the first time” is too attractive.
Complaints against agile match what agile complained about 25 years ago - Brian Marick, 16 August 2023
https://mstdn.social/@marick/110899650132163148
Brian Marick shares “the most amazingly disheartening thread”. Complaints against current agile match what agile itself complained about 25 years ago: making people fungible, Taylorism, micromanagement, empty ceremony.
By others #
Manifesto for Half-Arsed Agile Software Development - Kerry Buckley, August 2010
http://www.halfarsedagilemanifesto.org/
Manifesto by Kerry Buckley that parodies how enterprise companies tend to adopt Agile, i.e. not truly.
Agile Ruined My Life - Daniel Markham, 7 September 2010
https://web.archive.org/web/20100910225833/http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2010/09/agile-ruined-my.php
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669075
https://testobsessed.com/2010/09/agile-backlash/
Daniel Markham shares his views on the problems with Agile coaches and consultants.
The Agile Acid Test - Elisabeth Hendrickson, 14 December 2010
https://testobsessed.com/2010/12/the-agile-acid-test/
Elisabeth Hendrickson shares her Agile Acid Test to determine if a team really is Agile. It consists of three questions: How Frequently Do You Deliver?, Could You Continue at This Pace Indefinitely? and How Does the Team Handle Change?
A decade of agile methodologies: Towards explaining agile software development - Torgeir Dingsøyr, Sridhar Nerur, VenuGopal Balijepally, Nils Brede Moe, June 2012
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164121212000532?via%3Dihub
Article examining the state of research on Agile software development and providing suggestions for future research.
Dropping the ‘agile’ from ‘software development’: Why ‘agile’ is still the new name for methodology - Peter Hilton, 30 July 2014
https://hilton.org.uk/blog/dropping-the-agile
Peter Hilton reflects on the question to what degree there’s still value in talking about ‘agile’ instead of just talking about ‘software development.
Why Scaling Agile Doesn’t Work (and what to do about it) - Jez Humble, December 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zYxWEZ0gYg
Jez Humble argues that scaling Agile does not work, because Agile is only one piece of the puzzle. The acitivities before and after the Agile software development-part need to be addressed. He continues with proposing five things we should do in those areas.
Agile revisited - Dan North, 2015-2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcLbkmvqfiY (GOTO London, September 2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFLBG_bilrg (GOTO Copenhagen, October 2016, better audio)
Dan North recounts the history of Agile from the 1990s to the 2010s and argues that the next step for Agile is to review the premise that lead to Agile in the first place, i.e. Lean operations. He closes by sharing an updates version of the Agile Manifesto.
The Power in Agile - Sarah Mei, 14 July 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL-6RCTywbc
Critical examination of how the lack of diversity among the authors of the Agile Manifesto resulted in ignoring power dynamics and what that means for a practice like pair programming
Agile won the war but lost the peace - Allan Kelly, 8 November 2018
https://www.allankellyassociates.co.uk/archives/2762/agile-won-the-war-but-lost-the-peace/
Allan Kelly argues that everyone is agile now, but that kind of agile is not living up to the original dream of agile.
Back to the future: origins and directions of the “Agile Manifesto” - views of the originators - Philipp Hohl, Jil Klünder, Arie van Bennekum, Ryan Lockard, James Gifford, Jürgen Münch, Michael Stupperich & Kurt Schneider, 9 November 2018
https://jserd.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40411-018-0059-z
Article focusing on the origins of the manifesto, the contributors’ views from today’s perspective, and their outlook on future directions: “The original contributors emphasize that agile methods need to be carefully selected and agile should not be seen as a silver bullet. They underline the importance of considering the variety of different practices and methods that had an influence on the development of the manifesto. Furthermore, they mention that people should question their current understanding of “agile” and recommend reconsidering the of ideas of the manifesto.”
AgileKillsKittens (or Agile In Their Own Words: The Problem With Agile & Scrum) - rayfrankenstein (ed.), 14 July 2019 until present
https://github.com/rayfrankenstein/AITOW/blob/master/README.md
A curated list of negative developer comments about Agile and Scrum on social media
Why Don’t We Just Call Agile What It Is: Feminist - Hanna Thomas Uose, 3 September 2019
https://medium.com/@Hanna.Thomas/why-dont-we-just-call-agile-what-it-is-feminist-8bdd9193edba
Hanna Thomas Uose argues that we should not only look at tech and manufacturing companies when it comes to Lean-Agile. The Agile Manifesto is inherently subversive, anti-authoritarian, and feminist. The Lean-Agile principles of experimentation, of collaboration, of support and iteration have been a part of progressive social movements since before the Manifesto. In this sense, successful organisations aren’t ones that adopt an ‘Agile mindset’. Successful organisations are ones that adopt a feminist, queer, anti-establishment, progressive mindset - one that is flexible, experimental, pushes boundaries, self-organises, and acts in service of community.
Agile as a Zombie…Noun - Charles Lambdin, 27 January 2020
https://charleslambdin.com/2020/01/27/agile-as-a-zombienoun/
Article that argues that “Agile” is a “nominalization”, a “zombie noun”. It’s used in too abstract a way, divorced from anything sensory-specific. As such, it leads to illusory alignment, because most often the conversation does not proceed to speciffics, to the what, who, and how.
Agile as Trauma - Dorian Taylor, 8 February 2020
https://doriantaylor.com/agile-as-trauma
Article that argues that the Agile Manifesto is an immune response on the part of programmers to bad management, it’s an expression of trauma. As such Agile remains a tactical, technical, and ultimately reactionary movement. To move beyond, it is important to place Agile in a wider context, both historically and in the context of the invariant idiosyncrasies of software development.
The Agile values 20 years later - Romeu Moura, 12 February 2021
https://medium.com/@Romeu/the-agile-values-20-years-later-63279a067d80
Deep dive into the four core values of Agile 20 years after the Manifesto
“Software development culture as a literal cult” - @arclight, 25 February 2021
https://twitter.com/arclight/status/1364951333216923653
Twitter thread arguing there’s a really destructive coercive atmosphere around tools, practices, and methodologies today that didn’t exist 25years ago
How Much Lean is in Today’s “Agile”? - Michael Mahlberg, Johanna Rothman, March 2021
https://www.agilealliance.org/how-much-lean-is-in-todays-agile-part-i/
https://www.agilealliance.org/adaptability-enhances-how-we-work/
https://www.agilealliance.org/looking-at-systems-to-enhance-outcomes/
https://www.agilealliance.org/explain-dates-to-anyone-with-forecasts-based-on-your-historical-data/
https://www.agilealliance.org/a-little-lean-can-create-a-whole-lot-of-positive-change/
Five part series exploring the observation that although agile approaches owe their history to lean principles, the authors see very little lean thinking in many supposedly agile endeavours
Advocating against Agile methods - Geepaw Hill, 19 April 2021
https://twitter.com/GeePawHill/status/1384234186127536134
Geepaw Hill shares five reasons why he advocates against adopting any of the current “Agile” methods.
Agile at 20: The Failed Rebellion - Al Tenhundfeld, 23 July 2021
https://www.simplethread.com/agile-at-20-the-failed-rebellion/
20 years after the Manifesto Al Tenhundfeld reflects on how Agile won (nobody wants to be called non-Agile), yet Agile as practiced also falls woefully short of the revolutionary ideas of its founders.
What is Post Agile? - Dave Farley, 11 August, 2021
https://youtu.be/4OtI6s-rTOE
Dave Farley argues that the real Post Agile move is to apply scienctific-style reasoning to software in order to create an engineering discipline for software. That discipline will not replace the Agile Manifesto, but significantly increase our chances to achieve Agile’s values and principles.
There Are No More Early Adopters of Agile - Esther Derby and Matthew Carlson, 29 September 2021, 22 November 2021
https://changebyattraction.simplecast.com/episodes/no-more-early-adopters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuZ39j7UE20
In this podcast and webinar Esther Derby and Matthew Carlson discuss adoption of Agile 20 years after the Manifesto. While the early adopters were motivated by efficiency and effectiveness, the current (i.e. late) adopters are motivated by legitimacy. And this affects what will be a succesful road to adoption and what won’t.
What is Agile? - James Shore, October 2021
https://www.jamesshore.com/v2/books/aoad2/what_is_agile
First chapter of the 2nd edition of James Shore’s “The Art of Agile Development” including sections about why Agile won, why it works, and why it fails.
Agility ≠ Speed: Software development benefits from a sense of direction - Kevlin Henney, 22 November 2021
https://kevlinhenney.medium.com/agility-speed-96057078fe40
Kevlin Henney reflects on agility, speed, and velocity. He notes that most velocity metrics are actually speed metrics, which are just utlitisation or estimation metrics. Velocity, however, implies a direction next to a speed. He concludes by saying that agility is not just about that kind of velocity (a sustainable pace in an optimal direction), but also requires the ability to easily change both speed and direction.
Pondering Agile Principles - Benji Weber, 30 January 2022
https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2022/01/30/pondering-agile-principles/
Benji Weber takes a critical look at the 12 Agile principles and suggests updated versions
Rewilding Agile - Dave Snowden, 7 February 2022
https://twitter.com/TheCynefinCo/status/1490704381590781954
Dave Snowden talks about rewilding Agile, i.e. restoring balance and integrity to it. With Agile entering the commoditization phase, it has lost lots of its original energy. We can’t go back. but we can move forward. The Cynefin framework allows us to do this.
Agile and the Long Crisis of Software - Miriam Posner, 7 April 2022
https://logicmag.io/clouds/agile-and-the-long-crisis-of-software/
Atricle that outlines the history of software development from the 1960s up to the Agile Manifesto. It then proceeds to argue the current crisis in software development is the Agile crisis. Agile is not delivering the liberatory experience it’s billed as. In a corporate context, its methods and values are also invariably oriented to the imperatives of the corporation, i.e. building the product to support the bottom line.
Two common threads across companies doing agile - Yvonne Lam, 8 April 2022
https://twitter.com/yvonnezlam/status/1512209492267581445
I’m only a practitioner of agile in the sense that every place I’ve worked for has done some variety of agile. None of them look alike aside from using similar software tools and not wanting to deal with feedback loops.
Participative Design for Participative Democracy - Trond Hjorteland, 31 May 2022
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/participative-design-democracy-trond-hjorteland/
Trond Hjorteland explains that Agile was in many ways originally a democratisation movement, where the developers self-organised in teams and took charge of more of the development process. He then argues that a full participative democratisation, i.e. including the design and construction of the organization, is needed for Agile to truly shine.
Agile Maxims - Woody Zuill, 13 August 2022
https://twitter.com/WoodyZuill/status/1558480405258309632
Woody Zuill’s eight Agile Maxims
Agile is a disaster today! - Tom Gilb, 1 September 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKTwsl7oD7U
In this short video Tom Gilb says that agile has fallen into disrepute and is performing only slightly better than waterfall. Even worse, we’ve accepted this as normal. His solution is to study successful projects and then do projects more like that.
A Patchwork of Contradictions and Confusions: Inside the Software Industry - Merrelyn Emery, January 2023
https://www.socialsciencethatactuallyworks.com/_files/ugd/d59011_f069e39dfe3a4fe6b867244880c2ba29.pdf
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/agile-working-industry-patchwork-contradictions-trond-hjorteland (article by Trond Hjorteland, 31 March 2023)
https://podcast.oddly-influenced.dev/episodes/trond-hjorteland-on-a-radical-approach-to-organizational-transformation (podcast interview with Trond Hjorteland, 10 April 2023)
Study using as its framework open systems theory (OST) to research what is going on inside the software industry. Its conclusion is that the software industry is a conglomeration of strange combinations of high and low supervision, coordination and control. These uneasy combinations have, therefore, generally not produced well functioning organization either at the operator or managerial levels. After over 20 years of agile, this study shows that agile has failed to produce a coherent industry or sustainable organizations.