Agile Manifesto gets 20 – Happy Birthday

So it was 20 years ago that the foundation stone for the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” was laid in a ski hut in Utah: the Agile Manifesto. A lot has happened since then. Even if some agile ideas were thought of decades before, the manifesto is a milestone. It has inspired two decades of software development and has now completely left this framework. Agility is used in every context: in corporate management, leadership, marketing, hardware, logistics and in the everyday planning of families. Non-profit companies, social services and schools are also experimenting with it. Of course, because agility is in many ways a possible answer to the challenges of our time, such as uncertainty and complexity.

Not all that glitters is agile

Where there is light, there is also shadow. When I observe the world, the companies I work with and the market that has emerged around Agile, there is also a lot that I can only shake my head in wonder at. Sometimes I ask myself: Is this meant seriously? Satire? A joke? Only to come to the sobering conclusion: Oh… unfortunately not.

Agility is a hype driven by villages and employee meetings. There is money behind it. A lot of money. A huge market. Inevitably, there are all sorts of flowers. And just as many answers as definitions to the question: What actually is agile? - A mindset? A product? Methods? Or tools?

Gurus, dogmas and products

I notice an inner resistance in myself when I encounter the following in the agile space:

• Agile gurus - agile facts, this way and no other, no alternative. Is that agile? I prefer to stick with physicist, cyberneticist and philosopher Heinz von Foerster: “Truth is the invention of a liar.”
• Dogmas - do it without reflection because that’s how it’s done. Period. A daily MUST last 15 minutes and it MUST be confessed. No talking back. Stand up! Rituals and rules are good as long as they don’t become an end in themselves.
• Buying agility - people like it simple, preferably in drawers. Fortunately, there are models and products. Brain off, buy. And to be honest: that can be a good start. But it’s fatal if it stays that way. No development. No improvement. No ideas outside the model. To paraphrase Watzlawick: if you only have a hammer, all problems are nails and virologists see viruses everywhere.

The only true definition of agility

Here it comes - not. Unfortunately, I don’t know the only true definition either. And in my opinion, it doesn’t need to be, because it is in the nature of agile to be dynamic.

Over the years, I have formed my own personal view of this and it is, in short: agility is a mindset, an attitude with which a company and each individual can navigate through this complex, uncertain world and grow in the process. Based on values that are conducive to this: openness, appreciation, courage, responsibility,…

All the tools and frameworks around it are best practices that embody this. But they are also the best practices of others. And the only way to find out whether they work for you, your team or a company is to try them out, get feedback, reflect and take the next step. And this is how your own, individual, agile path emerges.

Babumm. That’s it. For me. Not for many. Don’t believe me! Make up your own mind. Your own definition. Step by step. Let yourself be inspired. And perhaps at some point all the positive agile values will be so integrated into our everyday lives that we won’t even need the label “agility” any more. Then we’ll celebrate something else.

Happy Birthday agiles Manifest!