Its time to retire Modem Agility
Two days before my sixteenth birthday, 17 software development practitioners meeting in the Wasatch mountains of Utah published the agile manifesto for software development. It was written as a response to the major frustration of 1990’s development practices. The manifesto has defined the zeitgeist ever since. I think it’s time for something new.
To place the manifesto in history, iTunes and Wikipedia were just a month old when it was published. 2001 was the year of the first bluetooth capable phone, the first colour screen phone, and the first phone with an FM radio. Windows XP was released and the original Xbox console was launched. For most people, accessing the internet started with Bee Beep Boo Bop Beeeeep. Modem Agility for a dial up age.
Over the last couple of years I have taken great joy in running introductions to agility for interns and graduates. Smart, open, motivated young people typically aged between 19 and early 20s. None of them were even born at the time the manifesto was published. Frustrations of the 90s has little relevancy to them. It’s as long ago as the gap between Return of the Jedi and the Revenge of the Sith. May the force be with you. So now I don’t even mention the manifesto anymore. I’ve shared my alternative Heart and Soul of Agility incorporating Modern Agile and Heart of Agile principles.
Endless corridors in the library of babel will be filled with writings from countless individuals from all walks of life on how they would change or adapt the manifesto to make it relevant in today’s world. Changing the words Software to Product or Solution is a pretty common viewpoint expressed. Plenty of others, like myself, see it as time to move the story forward even farther.
While there is definitely over complication in the agile space, especially in the agile industrial complex, one also doesn’t have to dig down far in any comments section to find cries of ‘can’t we just return to the essence of the manifesto?’ This attitude is in my opinion limiting our ability to fully explore and progress new ideas. At worst, it feels like a fundamentalist view point, closed minds unwilling to accept challenges to the status quo. Let’s burn that Agilist for daring to hypothesise that there may be different values to uncover.
I am not just taking aim at the four values. We need to question how many of the original principles behind the manifesto are still relevant in today’s world.
#1
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer
through early and continuous delivery
of valuable software.
Satisfy. Is satisfaction sufficient in today’s world?
Satisfy (verb)
i. meet the expectations, needs, or desires of (someone).
ii. provide (someone) with adequate or convincing information or proof about something
I much prefer taking it up a notch with Making People Awesome. That takes more than just achieving satisfaction.
#7
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
The Lean Start Up (published 2011) gives us far more customer centric measures for progress. Yes, we can scratch that software word as well.
#3
Deliver working software frequently, from a
couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a
preference to the shorter timescale.
Weeks between delivering value? People in the know will adapt this principle (as will others) to describe releasing value frequently. But as an entrance point to understanding what agile is about, this is feeling dated and misleading for the uninitiated.
#6
The most efficient and effective method of
conveying information to and within a development
team is face-to-face conversation.
Doesn’t this feel aged in the world of globally dispersed teams, working from home, and the new normal of a post pandemic world?
Don’t get me wrong. We should value the manifesto for its part in catalysing change in how people worked together for over two decades. It was incredibly powerful to me as a late 20’s-something developer struggling to respond fast enough to feedback from my customers about the products I was building. Like many, it was my entrance point into a profession I find deeply meaningful. Yet I recognise that the next big radical shift in how organisations are structured and operate is coming, even if we’re not there yet. And along the way we are certainly going to need new sources of inspiration along that path.
