Made Up Agile
By: Peter Walzer
Tags: Project Methodology, Project Management, Agile Methodology, Agile Development, Projects

Made Up Agile

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

In a hilariously ironic twist, a Senior Contributor for Forbes , Steve Denning, writes in Understanding Fake Agile about how the term “‘Agile’ is often thrown around without any agreement as to its meaning.” The oddest part of this opinion piece is that Denning then goes on to spell out his own definition of what Agile means, defining “the three laws of Agile,” which he says encompass both “operational agility” and “strategic agility.”

If Denning’s definitions and “laws” of agility are not Fake Agile , themselves, then maybe they are just Made-up Agile.

Is anyone else who has participated in actual Agile development projects in the past beginning to wonder where all of this comes from?

What is Agile, Really?

In Part I of my BlueProject Series on Project Methodology I mention that:

in the world of projects, one thing we know is everyone wants to be Agile. Some organizations are even guilty of the excessive and even just plain vacuous use of the term, as if it is a religion, as in: “you are not Agile.” In these firms, you could take this phrase and substitute the word “Agile” with “a true Christian,” and I suppose you’d have a religion.

So, what is Agile, really? Is it a religion, a true set of well established work principles that firms are pursuing, or just another management fad?

Well, Agile, in its purest not-so-made-up-Agile form is actually a project methodology for software development projects. As noted in Part II of my Series on Project Methodology (Speaking of Agile), and as anyone who as actually worked an Agile project before knows, there are twelve principles that are part of the Agile Manifesto. These principles provide the framework for how the various Agile Methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, etc.) are best utilized and also define some general standards about how Agile projects should be conducted; but most of these principles are specific to software engineering. For example, the first principle (“1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software”) and the seventh principle (“7. Working software is the primary measure of progress”), among others.

For those who can’t get enough of the word Agile, let me be direct: Agile principles can’t be credibly translated into “Strategic Agile” by one more senior McKinsey partner who wants to sell your firm another $500,000 Binder on your firm’s lack of Strategic Agility.

Made Up Agile for All the Usual Reasons

Speaking of McKinsey, the firm, of course, has written its own “report,” The five trademarks of agile organizations, which I would argue is more Made Up Agile. This report, we are informed, is written by the “McKinsey Agile Tribe, a group of over 50 global colleagues bringing expertise from the digital, operations, marketing, and organization disciplines.” I’ll admit when I read this in the italicized preamble to the article, I already started to feel a bit sickened. I get the sense that all of this Made Up Agile stuff is just another way to create new categories of consulting services that can be used to sell multi-million dollar engagements to c-level business executives who, upon reading one of these “report(s),” are even more confused about Agile; but they know they need to be Agile, and so they need to get McKinsey in here (as I have heard numerous times in the past) to perform an “agility transformation,” as McKinsey defines it.

In their article, the McKinsey Agile Tribe spells out “five trademarks of agile organizations” that are, of course, different than the “laws” that Denning articulates, and in a footnote to Exhibit 2, which provides a vague diagram of the “five trademarks,” we are informed that: