I think the time has come to make some big shifts. Agile, as it’s currently practiced, is basically dead. We took this big, beautiful thing and let the banks get their hands on it – turning it into a series of rigid processes that have more to do with keeping people in line and being productive than with delivering breathtaking value in record time. It could also be because Agile had a natural home in software development. Because development is logical, anything to do with it will be procedural in nature.
On the horizon, I see a much more interesting use of agility. We should be using agility anywhere we have to solve a problem we’ve never solved before. Wherever uncertainty exists, let agile be your guide. We might even need to rename it or redesign it so that it fits more broadly over a wider range of uses.
There’s been a great deal of exploration in the fields of human resources, marketing, and sales, but I believe we can use these 12 principles anywhere we need to execute on an unproven or untested strategy. If we know what we want, and who we’re delivering it for, these ways of thinking and doing will always have a home.
Maybe it’s time for a new framework of sorts.
Just as there was Scrum, Kanban, and Lean for product development, we should be thinking of a different kind of prescription for different business challenges.
But I honestly believe that we don’t need the prescription at all. Software development is a bit of a different animal. In business, we don’t always need to be so procedural.
What’s called for is a rejigging of the Agile principles. Something that expands and addresses its impact on people and teams, while remembering that what we do from nine to five each day is still oriented around making people money, there has to be a sense that what we do with agility has a bottom-line impact on commerce.
Over 20 years, we’ve gotten quite dogmatic. We’ve spoken a great deal about how to do it the best way, and why the best way is the best way…those are no longer valuable conversations.
There’s no need for so much intellectualism. We should be grateful that we have this beautiful thing, and that it serves us well. Time to put the current iteration to bed and move on to the next one.
Seeking (as agile itself would advise) to make sure that each new increment is a subtle shift, improving on the last, building on what was created before, and perfecting as we go.
But if we’d been standing still largely for 20 years, only elaborating on the minutiae of “how”, we’re no longer doing ourselves any favours. Time for a new dawn. To learn more about the future of agile, you can visit www.theagilehorizon.com