How would you describe agile as a philosophy?
What sorts of images come to your head? What words spring to mind?
You may have thought about speed. Perhaps words like sprint and velocity popped into your head.
It is 24 years since 17 white men met at a ski resort to uncover better ways of developing software. In that time, the meaning of what they found has tended to be squashed down to two words: “move fast”.
(“…and break things” may be added silently — or not-so-silently.)
But the Agile Manifesto says nothing about moving fast.
Here are the four values outlined in the Agile Manifesto:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
Nothing about moving fast.
The Twelve Principles of Agile Software, linked to from the main Manifesto, has a few items that may be creatively interpreted as being about speed:
- “early and continuous delivery”
- “deliver working software frequently”
- “work together daily”
But these are not really about speed. They are doing about little bits of work often.
Meanwhile, I find it curious that less attention is given to these principles:
- “Agile processes harness change”
- “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.”
- “Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.”
- “Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.”
- “Simplicity — the art of maximising the amount of work not done — is essential.”
- “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organising teams.”
On actually reading the original Agile Manifesto and Principles, it is striking how little agile — as originally articulated — has to do with moving fast.
As Charles Lambdin wrote in Why agile and UX still don’t get along:
…the real reason most organisations want “Agile” in the first place is not to move away from Waterfall but to speed it up.
The real purpose of agile is having empowered teams, responding to change, and focusing on quality.
What a shame that it has been squashed down in people’s minds to “move fast”.
Sprint? A sprinter doesn’t need to be agile. They just have to perambulate very quickly on a fixed course with no obstacles. No meaningful project in history has been afforded as much certainty as a 100 metre sprint gives an athlete.
Velocity? A ship with great velocity is the very opposite of agile. If two ships approach an iceberg in their path, the one with more velocity will be less able to avoid it.
The original intent of agile has been warped by business interests looking for quick wins by pushing their teams hard and discouraging awkward questions. This is the pathway to low-quality software, poor outcomes and burnt-out teams.
This is why agile teams so often end up as feature factories working through a months-long prioritised backlog. That’s not agile. That’s just fast waterfall. And it’s not the “sustainable development” the agile manifesto actually called for.
So whenever someone invokes the need to “be agile”, it redoubles my focus on what matters most:
- Empowered teams.
- Seeking quality.
- Changing direction when new information arrives.
In many cases, the best source of new information is user research.
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