Agile on Trial

The Case That’s Shaking the Tech World

Ladies and gentlemen! Yes, you heard right — Agile is on trial. Not just any trial, but a trial where every story point, every sprint retrospective, and every sticky note counts.

Critics argue that Scrum Masters often resemble glorified secretaries and Jira administrators. Detractors claim that Agile fosters a chaotic work environment that undermines productivity, seeking to dismantle what they perceive as the ‘cult’ of Scrum Masters.

“These industry patterns along with general industry sentiments expressed across social media platforms challenging the function of the Scrum Master role highlight how misunderstood the Scrum Master role really is.”
— Preeti Pugatch, Scrum Inc.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a meetup in Copenhagen to attend an Agile on Trial simulation. Agile on Trial simulation. Ann Berendtsen and Piet Syhler hosted a very well-organized and creative event addressing a heated subject in a playful way.

Become a member of the jury in this replay of this mock-trial. Before you pick sides, prepare for a rollercoaster ride through arguments and rebuttals that will make you question both sides’ claims.

Will the defense uphold its manifesto, or will the prosecution tear it down? It’s up to you! This is one trial you won’t want to miss.

Prosecution Opening Statement

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Agile promised flexibility, speed, and better outcomes. Instead, it lacks clear accountability. Projects fail with no one to answer for them, hidden behind “collaborative” decision-making. This leads to finger-pointing instead of solving problems.

Predictable delivery is now a dream under Agile. Businesses can’t plan or forecast, resulting in wasted initiatives. High project failure rates continue, and Agile hasn’t been the silver bullet it was claimed to be. Constant changes and endless pivots lead to lost productivity.

Agile uses buzzwords to hide inefficiencies. Long-term planning suffers, and organizations struggle to align their goals. Teams with too much autonomy stray from core objectives, creating a culture of disloyalty.

Meetings proliferate, draining time and resources. Promised streamlined communication turns into endless arguments. This overemphasis on meetings detracts from actual work, leaving teams exhausted and disillusioned.

Agile coaches and trainers charge premium fees for common sense repackaged in Agile jargon. This diverts resources from genuine innovation.

Agile was supposed to free us from bureaucracy, but it has chained us to new constraints. We must face these truths and hold Agile accountable for the chaos it has caused.

Thank you.

Defense Opening Statement

Respected members of this court,

Business is growing more volatile, not because of Agile. Agile is an easy scapegoat, diverting attention from ineffective traditional planning by crystal ball gazers from their ivory tower, wondering why they cannot command the world to behave as they wish.

The tech sector’s volatility will continue. Agile’s fundamentals are embedded in almost all technology. Software continues to change the world.

“Software is a compound word. The word “ware” means “product.” The word “soft” means easy to change. Therefore, software is a product that is easy to change. Software was invented because we wanted a way to quickly and easily change the behavior of our machines. Had we wanted that behavior to be hard to change, we would have called it hardware.”
― Robert C. Martin, Clean Agile: Back to Basics”

The prosecution represents laggard enterprises wondering why their approach to Agile isn’t working. These bureaucratic monstrosities are the Vogons of our industry.

With the rise of scaled Agile frameworks, I concede that Agile is becoming more and more like the beast it was meant to slay. RUP dressed in Agile frills with sticky product portfolio management barnacles.

Agile will continue to liberate teams from arcane policies and redundant processes. Old habits of predictive thinking persist in those who continue to believe that they are painting the future by doodling roadmaps. It’s predominantly those people who are wondering why Agile “isn’t working”.

Developers continue to be haunted by the poetry of these Vogons, who distract them from finding better ways to develop software. However, Agile empowers them to deliver valuable increments to customers early.

Thank you.

Indictment 1: Instilling whimsical behavior.

Agile methodologies create a lack of clear accountability, promoting whimsical behavior and haphazard approaches. This undermines project stability and leads to casual treatment of commitments. Agile fosters a culture of excuse-making.

Prosecution

We are here to address the serious allegations against Agile and its impact on our business practices. Agile diffuses responsibilities across teams, making it hard to pinpoint accountability. This leads to a culture where commitments are treated casually, and reliability suffers. Agile’s emphasis on flexibility and iteration leads to a lack of discipline and rigor.

The reliability of program delivery suffers, as exhibited through the numerous records of our post-mortems.

Teams frequently change direction, sacrificing long-term planning for short-term agility. Agile provides an easy excuse for evading commitments.

And these Scrum Masters… what are we even paying these people for? They are impractical. They even admit one of their stances is to ‘actively do nothing’.

It is time to recognize these flaws and address their detrimental impact on our organizations.

Defense

We offer simple and clear accountabilities. Most laggard organizations simply have not empowered individuals to act on it. We see Product Owners who do not own products and Scrum Masters who do not master Scrum. But who should be on trial for that?

Agile promotes self-management because it instills accountability. It’s a tested and well-researched psychological fact. Let me refer to exhibit A and exhibit B, showing the relevant dynamics of successful teamwork.

Developers are accountable for collectively instilling quality. They hold each other accountable as professionals through rigorous peer review, pairing, dailies, retros, creating automated tests, and optimizing continuous integration.

Agile fosters a culture of continuous feedback and improvement, ensuring that responsibilities are clear. We do not call upon captain hindsight relying on post-mortems but learn from early feedback through routine inspections.

Agile exposes the (in)efficacy of management. And no wonder some will try to do away with the mirror rather than work on what it shows.

Far from being a cop-out for program commitments, Agile promotes a disciplined approach where individuals are called to support each other in achieving their goals and meet strict quality standards.

The assertion that Scrum Masters are impractical and advocate for doing nothing is an intentional misunderstanding and mischaracterization by the prosecution— a cheap attempt to undermine it.

Their primary objective is not to “actively do nothing”. Scrum Masters guide organizations toward empirical, evidence-based decision-making. Their goal is to help teams self-manage and deliver valuable increments.

The problem is that most enterprises are treating the Scrum Master casually and disrespectfully — as made clear by the prosecutor’s statement: “What are we even paying these people for?”. Perhaps the prosecutor should take a good look in the mirror.

Indictment 2: Ineffective long-term planning

Agile’s focus on short-term adaptability leads to neglect of strategic foresight and organizational alignment. This undermines sustainable planning and exacerbates resource constraints.

Prosecution

Agile fosters a culture of neglect, misalignment, and procrastination. Strategic goals and roadmaps are often ignored for short-term whims. Continuous ad-hoc changes undermine coherence and long-term planning.

Endless backlogs and refinement sessions delay projects and waste resources.

Strategic goals and roadmap milestones often take a backseat because of a myopic focus on short-term whims.

Agile is characterized by disjointed efforts and conflicting objectives, impairing organizational alignment and hindering progress toward overarching strategic goals.

Defense

Agile’s empirical, evidence-based approach is effective for long-term planning. It closes expectation-reality gaps quickly. Agile embraces uncertainty and addresses problems early.

Agile’s routine of transparency, inspection, and adaptation is the most effective strategy for solving complex problems. Agile events provide opportunities to address misalignments and ensure alignment.

Traditional long-term plans are often cemented in Gantt charts masquerading as roadmaps. They are made when least is known, which is risky and wasteful.

Agile promotes having a clear Product Vision with strategic Product Goals and teams adapting tactically to manifest them.

Agile embraces uncertainty rather than trying to ignore it. Agile doesn’t sweep inconvenient problems under the rug. Having a routine based on increasing transparency and performing inspections resulting in timely adaptations continues to be the most effective strategy today for solving complex problems.

Let’s be fair. Who is most likely to obscure things that are inconvenient to the plan? Those closest to the problems as they emerge, or those in ivory towers whose reputation depends on their ‘foresight’’?

Indictment 3: Agile Meeting Galore

Agile’s emphasis on continuous collaboration has led to excessive meetings, distracting developers from their core responsibilities and slowing project timelines.

Prosecution

Agile has created a culture where valuable time is squandered in repetitive conclaves. This overabundance of meetings has led to a significant decline in productivity, as developers and key team members are constantly pulled away from their core duties.

Daily stand-ups and backlog grooming sessions detract from focused development time. This lack of discipline and structure causes project delays.

Important decisions are delayed as teams debate endlessly over minor details, causing critical project timelines to slip. This lack of discipline and structure means that teams are caught in a perpetual cycle of planning and re-planning instead of driving projects forward, with little tangible progress to show.

Developers become demoralized by the constant barrage of agile meetings. This slows the projects down and leads to burnout and frustration among team members.

Defense

Scrum events are purpose-driven, time-boxed, concise, and structured. They eliminate the need for other meetings and non-essential activities. Direct collaboration increases flow efficiency and value-adding time.

Scrum Events are meant to be eventful. If all people are doing is yawning and arguing — they clearly missed the memo. Is the prosecution sure that the squabbling is not simply an old habit?

Developers should plan, refine, align, inspect, review, and deliver. All essential activities. Those who outsource these activities to middle management are worse off. How is their ‘productivity’ measured? Is it the number of PowerPoint slides? e-mails? zoom calls?

There is an important metric called ‘on-product-index’, which represents how many individuals actually contribute to value-adding time on the actual product — versus those who don’t. Don’t be surprised that the enterprise ratio can be over 5 corporate Jims squabbling about how to make the 1 Bob in the code mines more productive.

Direct collaboration consistently leads to an increase in flow efficiency. In Lean manufacturing, this is considered significant if it reaches over 25%. With Scrum, this can go over 80%. Jeff Sutherland demonstrated this when studying Scrum Teams at the Port of Rotterdam (exhibit).

A collaborative team does not slow down project timelines. Project timelines, when inflexible, can stifle creativity and responsiveness.

By promoting an environment of open communication and collective problem-solving, Agile helps teams navigate complexities that would otherwise derail production. This mitigates risks early and ensures that the final product aligns more closely with stakeholder expectations and market needs.

Prosecution Closing Statement

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury,

We stand before you today to present a case against Agile methodologies, which have proven to be detrimental to project success. Our case underscores three critical indictments against Agile: Whimsical Behavior, Ineffective Long-Term Planning, and Agile Meeting Galore.

Agile has significant flaws. Valuable time is squandered. Formal procedures are undermined. Performance issues are obscured.

The defense tries to paint us a picture of an idealistic agile utopia that we have simply not observed anywhere in practice. The defense’s idealistic view of Agile simply doesn’t reflect reality. It’s just more religious preaching. The same old snake oil we’ve endured from consultants for years.

We urge you to recognize Agile's detrimental impact.

Thank you.

Defense Closing Statement

Respected members of the jury,

The prosecution would like you to believe Agile is an unrealistic utopia — a harmful dream. Our response is simple — as are our ways. Let those who say it cannot be done not slow down the ones doing it.

Agile’s critics intentionally misrepresent its principles. Agile enhances strategic product development through empirical planning. Its iterative approach adapts to changes and prioritizes high-value delivery.

Those who suck at the game will say the game sucks. These laggards practice Scrum half-heartedly — with a grudge underpinning their efforts and a deeply rooted reluctance to embrace the core principles of transparency, simplicity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Agile exposes complex problems and improves modern product management. It is vital for organizational success in dynamic environments.

We’ll remain focused and committed to uncovering better ways together.

Thank you, esteemed members of the jury, for your thoughtful consideration. We’ll respect your verdict.

Call to Verdict

Esteemed members of the jury,

It’s your turn to deliberate and reach a verdict. Does Agile deserve to be sentenced based on the claims brought forward?

If you’re unsatisfied with either side’s case, take this discussion to the higher courts of social media. Share your indictments and objections. Call your witnesses. Refine the arguments and strengthen each side.

Your voices matter. Let the deliberations begin. The comment section awaits your wisdom and perspectives.

Thank you for your attention and thoughtful consideration throughout this trial.

📢 Your voices matter.

A minor disclaimers: I aimed to write a compelling, yet entertaining presentation of both sides. I aimed for a fun, serious and slightly mischievous tone, while aiming not to strawman. These arguments are drenched in conjecture intentionally, which makes it relatable to the sentiments and more compelling. It should not be mistaken as my personal opinions and it should not be taken/quoted out of context, because I am roleplaying. The comic images in this article are AI generated and inspired by the Dilbert Cartoons by Scott Adams.