Ten Years of Agile: What the Agile Community Must Do Now

We are agile, but reluctant to define exactly what agile means - for if we were to do so, it would make us less agile. It would take the flexibility out of an evolving body of theory and practice. We agree on concepts such as: agile is continuous response to changing conditions and requirements; agile is iterative and incremental development of software and systems; and we agree that software development isn’t going back to the traditional waterfall approach of the last century. Beyond these basic agreements though, there are a growing number of new ideas for moving forward.

On the tenth anniversary of the Agile Manifesto, Alistair Cockburn, a prominent agile thought leader, convened a group of fellow agilists to address questions about the future of the movement. The conference was held at Snowbird, Utah where the manifesto was first created, and much discussion and debate ensued while we were together. At the end of the conference this group put forth four “We Believe…” statements that speak to the future.

[ I do lively presentations on this and related topics - mhugos@yahoo.com ]

The First Three Statements Address Improving What We Already Know

When the agile movement started 10 years ago its focus on was the development of good software, and many of the process and engineering problems associated with this focus have been solved. So now we must organize the knowledge gained and ensure that agile practitioners apply it consistently.

We agreed on the first three statements in relatively short order. They define ways to improve agile practices as they currently exist. They are: 1) Demand technical excellence; 2) Promote individual change and lead organizational change; and 3) Organize knowledge and improve education.

But the fourth statement (perhaps the most important one for the future) was almost missed as the meeting came to a close. When a few people suggested the existence of that fourth statement, we all felt there was something there, and then proceeded to spend far more time trying to put it into words than we had spent on the first three points combined.

Right away we agreed not to use the words “agile” or “agility” and not use phrases like “move agile beyond software development” or “move agile into the rest of the business”. We felt the agile word limits the conversation and limits the audience for this conversation. So we searched for other words to express the fourth point.

The scheduled conference closing time came and went as people wrestled with words. As soon as someone objected to a word or a phrase we stopped, and then started up again in a new direction. Such are the dynamics of reaching consensus in a group where all have strongly held beliefs. (Check the Twitter stream - #10yrsagile – and see what people inside and outside the conference were/are saying.)

We sense we are standing at the threshold of a new challenge. We sense it involves the application of practices for developing good software to address issues such as: how to design and build responsive organizations; how to move agile development practices into non-IT areas of a company; and how to harness technologies such as cloud computing, social media and consumer IT to achieve business success in our real-time global economy.

The Fourth Statement Addresses a Much Larger Opportunity

The same conditions that earlier forced companies to abandon traditional waterfall practices for developing software, are now forcing companies to abandon traditional operating practices for controlling and running their business. Business operations have become so intertwined with information

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