20th anniversary of agile: a failed uprising

Editor's note ：2001 year , The Agile Manifesto was born . And then , Agile development has become a popular topic on the Internet , Everyone shouted agile , Every enterprise uses agile . However , Coincides with the Agile Manifesto 20 At the turn of the year , Agile is dead 、 Discussions are common , What is the thought-provoking place behind this ？

author | Al Tenhundfeld      

translator | Meniscus

Produce | CSDN（ID：CSDNnews）

This year, the Agile Manifesto has been released 20 Years. , And we can from here 20 In the development of , Summarize the following two indisputable facts ：

• agile , As a label , Win. . Everyone wants to put on the label of agility .

• agile , The result of practice is far from the revolutionary thought of the founder .

How did we get here ？ Everyone said they adopted agile , But few people are agile .

The origin of Agile Manifesto

2001 year 2 month ,17 Professional software practitioners gathered at the Lodge Hotel in the Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains, Utah . After several days of discussion and debate , They co wrote “ Agile software development Manifesto ”.

First of all, we need to explain , These people are all software development practitioners . They are not project managers 、CTO Or engineering director . They are developers 、 The programmer 、 Scientists and engineers . They all write code , And work with stakeholders to solve problems . This is important .

And a little bit more , The Agile Manifesto was not born out of thin air . Among these people , Many people have created their own methodologies , Such as extreme programming 、Scrum、DSDM、 Adaptive software development 、 Crystal method 、 Function driven development 、 Practical programming and so on .

Everyone in this group has rich experience in software writing , They are all looking for a way , To replace the heavyweight software development process driven by documents at that time . At the core of the Agile Manifesto are four value statements ：

We have been exploring better software development methods in practice ,

Help others while doing it . From this we have established the following values ：

• Individuals and interactions are higher than processes and tools

• Working software is higher than detailed documentation

• Customer cooperation is higher than contract negotiation

• Responding to changes is higher than following the plan

• in other words , Although the right has its value ,

• We pay more attention to the value of the left .

New hope

Today, it seems , These modern software development practices are taken for granted , But in 2001 year , These ideas are very radical .

Not all requirements have been collected , And estimate each function , You're going to start building software ？ This is crazy ！

And the most important point has been forgotten ： Openly and actively oppose management . for example ,Ken Schwaber He bluntly expressed his goal that all projects can get rid of the project manager , Not just letting these people leave his project , He wants our entire industry to eliminate this profession .

Agility and PMI

“ We found that , In complex creative work , The role of project manager will hinder the improvement of productivity . The thinking of the project manager represents the project plan , It will only constrain the creativity and wisdom of others in the project within the plan , Instead of mobilizing everyone's wisdom to better solve problems .”—— Ken Schwaber, The Agile Manifesto was signed by 、Scrum cofounder

ScrumMaster Almost no power , And no voting rights . They are the public servants of the team , Responsible for the protection team , And solve problems for the team , But I won't manage the team . Extreme programming is similar , At first, extreme programming had people responsible for tracking and coaches , These teams also have similar promotion and support forces .

AlistairCockburn Is the signatory of the Agile Manifesto , He is also the founder of crystal methodology and hexagonal architecture , Recently, he put forward a wonderful and insightful view ：

Scrum A perfect agreement was reached in a field full of opposites ：

• Management has... Every year 12 Second chance , At every sprint Adjust the direction of the team after the end .

• The team has a month to think and work quietly , Will not be interrupted , There is no need to adjust the direction .

• The team must announce what they can accomplish this month , And what cannot be accomplished , And the management will not interfere with their plans .

Whether for executives , Or for the development team , These are perfect agreements .

I am a certified Scrum Master, Working in an agile team 15 year , And I read a lot of popular books in this field . And here's right Scrum The most concise and clear description ：

Scrum Was founded to play a role in an environment full of opposites . This is a contract between tough managers and developers who need time to think and explore .

Management counterattack

In some ways , Agile is an uprising of the working people at the bottom . This movement began with practitioners at the bottom , Then push it up to the management . How did agile succeed ？

This is partly due to the growing number of developers and business value , More and more influence . But in my opinion , The biggest reason is that the traditional waterfall method simply doesn't work . As software becomes more and more complex , The pace of business has accelerated , The complexity of users is increasing , We can't plan everything in advance . Although iterative development is logical , But managers who are used to planning things well are still afraid of it .

I remember in 2005 At the meeting around the year , It can be seen that the management does not recognize agile , But they have no better idea .

“ Why don't we try this crazy idea that engineers have been talking about ？ Anyway, we can't finish the work before the deadline . Can the situation be worse ？”

However , To their surprise , Agile is really effective . Although at the beginning , The team will be a little uncomfortable , But after a while , Will stand firm , And gradually find out which models are effective for the team , Slowly everything will get better . After a few sprint after , You will feel the true power of agility ： Prioritize your work 、 Collaboration 、 Check and adjust , And other aspects .

After about 5 Years of time , Agility has been heard from one 、 But less familiar methodology , It has become a practice that everyone is implementing .2005 year , I changed my job , I remember my understanding of agile at that time was very superficial , At that time, test driven development was the mainstream . these 2010 year , Almost all modern software teams have adopted agile .

At that time, it seemed that , Agile succeeded ！ gain a complete victory ！ Congratulations! ！

However ,“ To fight against the world , It's hard to defend the world ”. Unfortunately , Agile failed to realize the founder's dream .

• The fact proved that , Giving priority to individuals and interaction is a difficult concept to implement . It's much easier to popularize processes and tools .

• The fact proved that , The difficulty of producing working software is far greater than unrealistic plans and a large number of documents .

• The fact proved that , Cooperation with customers requires trust and honesty , This does not necessarily exist in the business environment .

• The fact proved that , Executives want to control everything , We need to make a long-term plan according to their business , It is often more important to respond to changes . 

• The fact proved that , Improper implementation of agile often makes people feel confused .

This does not mean that the four values of agile are wrong . It just means to implement agile correctly , We need to make great efforts , It also takes some courage to accept the chaotic nature inherent in software . You must understand and believe , Just keep learning , To adapt to 、 Improve and release products , In the end, we will definitely achieve better results , Realization is more realistic than waterfall 、 More efficient development .

“ Agile movement is not against methodology , In fact, many of us hope to rebuild the credibility of methodology . We hope to restore balance . We accept modeling , But not to store all kinds of charts in the company's warehouse . We accept documents , But do not accept long and rarely used works that have never been maintained . We plan to , But we also know the limitations of planning in a volatile environment . Those are called extreme programming 、Scrum And other proponents of agile methodology are ‘ hackers ’ People who , For agile methodology and ‘ hackers ’ I know nothing about the original definition of .”—— Jim Highsmith,《History: The Agile Manifesto》

The above mentioned points , Agile development still requires planning and documentation , And rigorous implementation . This is a degree control problem . however , If the organization is struggling for agile transformation , Into chaos , At this time, someone provides certification 、 Processes and tools , You must see it as a straw to save your life , Hold on to . Executives know much more about processes and tools than they do about self-organizing teams .

The uprising failed

unfortunately , Agile's uprising did not succeed .

Tool supplier 、 Process consultants and experts have made many promises that will never be fulfilled . Many people adopt SAFe、 Scaled Scrum And all other methodologies of enterprise agile style . These frameworks were not born out of malice , In the right environment , They even have some value . But I won't call them agile . Trying to expand a methodology that focuses on individuals and interactions will inevitably lead to problems , And eventually erode the original value of the methodology .

Developers should give up agile

If “ agile ” Improper use of ideas , It often brings more interference to developers , As a result, they actually work less time , Under more pressure , And it also needs “ faster ” Get the job done . This is very unfriendly to developers , And ultimately, it is also detrimental to the enterprise , Because of this “ agile ” Very poor results , It often leads to more defects , It leads to slower progress of the project . This is the case , Good developers will leave , The efficiency of enterprises is not as good as not implementing agile .

Agility is dead

“ agile ” The word has been overturned , There is no practical significance , The agile community has become a stage for consultants and suppliers to sell services and products . The original , Agile Manifesto is very popular , The word agile has become a magnet , Used by people to gain support 、 Charge or sell products , Almost the same as a marketing term .

therefore , I think it's time for “ agile ” This word has withdrawn from the stage of history .

reflection

in my opinion , It's really sad to see young developers slander agile , Treat it as a bad check from the management , And a means to promote the crazy work of the development team . I understand them . In their view , Agile is a control mechanism imposed on them , Not the self armed forces they readily accept . But I hope to have some discussion around history and the original vision , Help us remember the development direction of agile .

thankfully ,20 The Agile Manifesto put forward years ago is still full of wisdom , And very pertinent .

Agile is no longer a hot topic nowadays . Everyone is implementing agile . however , I hope here 20 Anniversary , Reflect on the following questions ：

• What did you do right ？

• What is wrong ？

• How can we improve next time ？

Some of us have experienced the agile revolution , We hope to reflect on the original 12 Agile principles , Think about their value in the current software development environment .

I want to study the basic principles of agile , Learn from past failures , use Dave Thomas In other words , Even if we choose to give up “ agile ”, Can also remain agile .

Reference link ：

https://www.simplethread.com/agile-at-20-the-failed-rebellion