{"id":1381,"date":"2019-09-26T08:55:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T08:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digiterrebestg.wpengine.com\/?p=1381"},"modified":"2024-05-30T14:23:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T14:23:57","slug":"so-what-does-agile-agnostic-mean-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digiterre.com\/us\/2019\/09\/26\/so-what-does-agile-agnostic-mean-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"So what does Agile Agnostic mean anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

So what does Agile Agnostic mean anyway?<\/h1>\n\n

\u201cScrum is, by its very definition, not agile\u201d
\r\n\u2013 Stephen Masters, Principal Consultant (June 2019)
\r\n
\r\nWhilst \u201cAgile\u201d represents an approach of self-organizing, cross-functional teams, inspecting and adapting their way to software delivery, there are very many specific implementations and frameworks.<\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

\n
\n

Probably the most well known framework is Scrum but others also exist such as Kanban, XP (eXtreme Programming), Scrumban, FDD (Feature Driven Development), as well as one of my personal favorites, DSDM (the Dynamic Systems Development Method).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, there are frameworks for \u201cScaling\u201d or conducting projects of bigger magnitude (in team size, scope and timescale) such as LeSS (Large Scale Scrum), Nexus (which is<\/em> the official scaled up version of Scrum despite what LeSS says), SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) or the slightly passive-aggressively named DAD, or Disciplined Agile Delivery (\u201ceverything else is so undisciplined<\/em>\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you can see, although Scrum may be the most popular first foray into \u201cgoing Agile\u201d, there is a bit of a minefield (and a lot of parentheses, acronyms, camel case and italics).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around a decade ago, running large software development teams within finance clients and attempting to introduce Agile methodologies (again via Scrum), it quickly became clear that the larger enterprise organizations were not set up to run it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, there would be a very waterfall-type requirements gathering and likewise a waterfall QA process environment leaving very little room for Agility \u2013 purely in the development cycles in between. This would result in some form of water-Scrum-fall process that would ultimately result in people saying \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is not Scrum\u201d and they were correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the Scrum Guide says that its \u201croles, events, artifacts, and rules are immutable and although implementing only parts of Scrum is possible, the result is not Scrum. Scrum exists only in its entirety\u201d \u2013 that is, even if you are doing 99.9% of Scrum you\u2019re still not<\/em> doing Scrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of the reasons I started to use agnostic terminology in software engineering delivery: \u201cStandup\u201d over \u201cScrum\u201d, \u201cIteration\u201d over \u201cSprint\u201d and \u201cSteve Masters\u201d over \u201cScrum Masters\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, perhaps not that last one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it does allow me to neatly transition back to the thought provoking observation at the start of the article (I debated around the specific capitalization of the \u2018a\u2019 and settled on this transcription). Even though Scrum is an Agile framework, it is itself not agile, as it is dogmatic around how it should be conducted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point, I started experimenting with Lean frameworks for my teams and seeing Agile as a collection of tools and overarching philosophy rather than looking for recipes to follow and my mantra became, \u201cas Agile as the environment allows us to be\u201d. This was normally a response to senior management asking, \u201care we Agile yet?\u201d and which is why I like the word Agility so much; it reflects a journey and not a destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take a step back in time. Almost two decades have passed since the \u201cAgile Manifesto\u201d was put together as a codification of four values, as a reminder, these are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n