The Load-Bearing Walls of the House of Agile

Posted by Robert Merrill on January 30, 2009 under Agile Methods | 2 Comments to Read

A few weeks ago, I ran across a very provocative post by James Shore called The Decline and Fall of Agile, followed by an equally provocative (and long) string of comments.

Mr. Shore argues that many firms think they are adopting Agile, specifically Scrum, without really understanding what’s essential and what can be safely left out. I heard my first hint of this around the pool at SD West in 2003, with someone saying, “We do XP, except we work 80-hour weeks, scope and schedule are fixed, and we’re not doing any automated testing.” “Here we go again,” I remember thinking.

One of the many commenters pointed out that Agile is merely following the Gartner Hype Cycle, and is now sliding down the backside of the Crest of Inflated Expectations towards the Trough of Disillusionment. That sounds about right to me.

One of the things I tell my clients is that Agile methods are by their nature adaptable and pragmatic, but that they also have the equivalent of load-bearing walls. Destroy the integrity of one of those, and you collapse Read more of this article »