Agile isn’t dead — It’s just spread (beat poet style)

I recently found yet another article (“Agile software development is dead. Deal with it.“) that proclaims the death of Agile. It seems like every month or two a new article is published proclaiming that Agile is dead. So far, every one of these articles has made this argument using some kind of a straw man.

The article paints a pretty bleak picture of the author’s experience with Agile and then tears that straw man down explaining why Agile is now dead. Not in my experience. Agile isn’t dead, but it has spread. It’s spread out from the software development industry into other industries. It’s spread out from the IT department into all of the rest of the departments, and it has spread up from the team level to the C-suite.

Agile is not a panacea, but it helps when we’re facing problems that are a mix of unpredictable parts and predictable but complicated parts. So no, Agile isn’t dead, just like Lean isn’t dead and even Taylorism isn’t dead.

All management trends settle into the context where they’re useful, and Agile is just now starting to test the boundaries of where it’s actually useful. So Agile isn’t dead, it has spread. To extend the Gerry Weinberg law of raspberry jam a little bit, when we spread the jam too thin on some bread that’s too dry, the jam can get mixed with the breadcrumbs, and it’s hard to tell what’s Agile and what’s the original bread.

Maybe those proclaiming Agile to be dead have experienced Agile that’s spread too thin. It’s been so mixed in with the breadcrumbs of what was there before it, that it doesn’t taste very good anymore. Maybe they just need to experience some pure raspberry jam in all of its glory, and those proclamations of its death might seem a little bit ill warranted, maybe a little bit premature.

So Agile isn’t dead, it’s just spread. That’s my take on the situation.