Excellent Post: “Am I Agile Or Not?”

Test Early: “Am I Agile or Not?”

This is one of the more annoying questions I get. Nothing against the people that ask this question. It’s a perfectly reasonable question for someone to ask. However, for me, the implication of this question can be off putting. It’s as if some people think there’s an Agile committee waiting to sign off on whether a project is “Agile” or not.

I’m having the same problem. I use the word terms “Agile” and “Pragmatic” not to market someone else’s book, but to try to represent the way that I approach problems. What I am discovering is that business are treating “Agile” not like a problem-solving paradigm, but like a check-box panacea for the failure of technical projects: “Are you Agile?” / “Yes.” / “Welcome to bliss.” That’s not how it works, but it’s how people approach the problems. Extreme Programming certainly didn’t help the case, since it laid out a check-list of practices with fairly clear description as to how those practices should be implemented. Agile is not about a formula or a best practice checklist, because no amount of mandated practices will solve all problems: Agile is about accepting the reality that software development and software development management are evolutionary processes (not revolutionary ones), and that human beings and computers should both stick to doing what they are good at (human beings are good at innovating, computers are good at running scripts).

Agile is not a boolean state or something to be beaten into a Total Quality Management Process Improvement Standard Guideline: it’s an entirely new way of approaching the entire problem space of development by actually dealing with the underlying realities.

(Edit: Found another nice rant on this. Agile Project Planning: How Agile Is Your Development Process?)