No Constraints Agile

Agile coaching is something I've been doing for a little while now. A few years ago I thought I knew what Agile was, but I was wrong. I have found that when put in a position to coach others towards an Agile mindset, I have learned that I misunderstood what Agile was in the first place.

The reason I had a misunderstanding was that I was confused by the relationship between Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), and Agile. I thought that because I was applying XP practices such as pair-programming, Test-driven Development (TDD), and having small releases I was doing Agile. I mean, our team checked all the boxes.

Two-week sprint: check!
Daily stand-up meetings: also check!
Sprint planning, refinement, and retrospective meetings:
check, check, and check!
And so on…

I would hear about different things like principles and values, yada yada. They sounded great and everybody around would parrot them. However, the practices were what interested us. Those were what we understood in a practical way and could actually execute. The mindset was that if we do all these practices and we walk the Agile line as set out, then we must be agile. Why wouldn't we be? We are doing it by the book, right?!

I couldn't be more wrong about what I knew about being Agile. Here's the secret: There is NO book or RIGHT WAY to be agile!!!

In fact, the more you try to figure out the "right way" of doing Agile, the less agile you become. Why, do you ask? Because Agile has become confusing when compared to frameworks such as Scrum and when you introduce more complexity and rigidness you may ultimately become less flexible (agile).

Words matter so let's review some specific words that can easily be overused or stripped of their original meaning.

Methodology - a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline; a particular procedure or set of procedures

Framework - a basic conceptional structure (as of ideas); a skeletal, openwork, or structural frame

Principle - a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption

Value - relative worth, utility, or importance; something (such as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable

Manifesto - a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer

Now let's talk about these five words and how they relate to Agile, Scrum, and XP.

What is Agile? Agile is a list of 4 values and 12 principles that are represented in a manifesto.

Notice I did not say that Agile is a methodology or a framework. The reason is that it is neither of those things. The Agile manifesto doesn't define or suggest a specific set of methods or procedures for being agile. It also doesn't provide some type of structural way of doing agile.

In contrast, XP is a methodology based on addressing constraints in software development as described by Kent Beck in his book "Extreme Programming Explained".

Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams, and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems according to the Scrum Guide to "The 2020 Scrum Guide" written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland.

These are important distinctions as right now, the internet and lots of people out there will frequently describe Agile as the "Agile methodology" or the "Agile framework" which implies that Agile is one or both of those things.

I know that some people might think that I'm splitting hairs, but the problems that start to materialize are that teams and individuals will start to think that Scrum is Agile and Agile is Scrum. They aren't and that thinking is a very flawed understanding of what Agile is.

Instead, I want to offer a different perspective that I have realized during my time coaching teams and individuals on applying Agile principles and values.

Agile is ONLY principles and values. There are practices, frameworks, and methodologies that can help guide organizations, teams, and individuals towards an Agile mindset. However, those practices, frameworks, and methodologies are not required to achieve agility. And just because you implement specific practices, frameworks, and methodologies does not mean in any way that you are agile or have achieved agility.

Focus on the principles and values of Agile, find what works for your team/organization, and avoid blindly adopting frameworks and methodologies in the name of agility.