Sunday, April 22, 2018

Don't blame the Manifesto for Agile Software Development

From time to time I hear people saying that Agile is not the same thing as "technical practices" and software delivery, that the Agile manifesto makes no sense for the whole company...  And I agree and disagree entirely.

A bunch of software developers created the famous manifesto. And the complete name is Manifesto for Agile Software Development. The title is not Agile Manifesto or Manifesto for Business Agility. It was created by developers, to improve how we develop software and it was an excellent improvement on software creation 20 years ago. Right now it is not good enough and should be adapted to the industry evolution (perhaps including DevOps, Continuous Delivery or ideas from Modern Agile).



If you want an adaptable business that's optimized for this VUCA world, you need business agility and in a lot of cases these days, agile software development. The good news is that all of these concepts are grounded on the same roots, and principles and need a common culture (respect for people, continuous learning, continuous improvement, etc.).

So don't blame the Manifesto for Agile Software Development or the agile software developers for not solving problems that are outside the original scope and need other skills and practices. Complement this way of doing software development with other great disciplines that have common roots and principles and are very compatible.

When you are trying to do the right thing, learn about lean product development, design sprints, lean startup, customer research, dual track agile, etc. When you need to do the thing right (assuming software based company), learn about Extreme Programming (XP)DevOpsContinuous Delivery, Scrum, etc.




So focus on Continuous Incremental Improvement and Respect for People. Do the right thing and do the thing right.

References and Related posts



  • Agile is not a recipe for success...
  • The two pillars of agile software
  • Remove the excuses for not being a professional
  • http://www.extremeprogramming.org/
  • http://modernagile.org/
  • Continuous Delivery