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how did the software industry completely
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redefine the term agile to mean anything
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but
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[Music]
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change when you hear the word agile does
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it cause you to roll your eyes or shake
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your fists in anger because it seems
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like a complete waste of time well 30
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years ago when Agile development first
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arrived on the scene it meant something
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very different than it does today well
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how did that happen I'd like to help you
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understand how back when I started my
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software development career 27 years ago
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Agile development was an amazing thing
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that really did very beneficial things
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on projects so what went wrong how is it
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that you can join a company today and
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feel like they tell you they're agile
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they send all the right agile
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signals but once you start working there
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you look at how they work and it seems
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like it's micromanagement it's just
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measuring people it's super frustrating
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if that's you I want to give you some
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history in this episode today that'll
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help you understand what went wrong how
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did the software industry completely
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redefine the term agile to mean anything
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but change so first let's talk about do
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we even need Agile development what's
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the whole point of it well 30 years ago
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when this idea arrived it was partially
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because companies couldn't respond
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quickly enough to the market changing
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today think about how AI having been
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introduced to many of our lives and to
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the software industry the animation
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industry the marketing industry it's
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disrupted many things well companies
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that budgeted a software project let's
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say a year ago two years ago and they
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planned all the stuff that they were
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going to do and just started building it
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and trying to measure how far they were
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you know along that budget they're
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spending and how close they are to
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delivering the project when AI suddenly
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dropped everything went chaotic and they
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had to replan everything they had to
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start all over and all that adjustment
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that has to be done is a big waste for
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many companies well
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this is one of the big reasons Agile
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development and all the methods around
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it originally came out was It was
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supposed to be the idea that hey how can
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we work together as a team building
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software so that we we minimize the cost
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or the impact of the market changing you
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know companies that followed true agile
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practices not fake agile which I've
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talked about in other episodes they're
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in the best position today with AI and
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all these other different changes that
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are happening in our industry to adapt
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to it without it costing them a lot of
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money and being as disruptive so that's
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the first reason Agile development this
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is really important to understand how it
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went wrong was created was to allow a
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company to adapt to change quicker and
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I've done many other episodes where I've
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talked about how the backlog is misused
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often on projects it's really supposed
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to be just a holding place for your
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ideas but in many companies it's
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basically just a locked in fixed scope
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list of what you're going to do it's
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waterfall and in that episode and the
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ones I've done about estimation you'll
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also see you know why we're in this
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unfortunate situation today where many
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people look at agile and they're like
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backlogs suck user stories suck you know
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scrum sucks all this stuff just seems
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like a complete waste of time well it's
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because of what I'm about to share with
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you in a couple bullets here the second
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reason we as an industry decided that
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Agile development was even something
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worth looking at 30 years ago was a long
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history of over budget and late software
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projects in the late 90s and mid 90s
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there was a lot of media attention at
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that time about how many video games and
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operating systems and you know big
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software Applications had been built up
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to that point where companies released
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them you know two to four times later
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than they originally planned and how
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many projects were getting cancelled and
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you know similar to now we're
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experiencing all these layoffs there was
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a really tumultuous time in the 90s now
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remember there was a boom that happened
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around that time too but it was pretty
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well understood in the industry that if
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you worked in software it was one of the
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most unpredictable Industries to work in
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so we as an industry decided hey let's
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look at this Agile development thing as
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a way to deal with that how can we
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prevent our projects from being so late
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how can we spend less money and waste
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less money and really that's what Agile
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development is supposed to do is you're
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it's supposed to help you find out where
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you're wrong I did a whole episode
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earlier in earlier in the show called um
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The Secret of scrum and in that little
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short episode I talked about why scrum
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and agile methods really what they're
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supposed to do is help a team find out
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where they're wrong quickly and in a
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company where nobody wants to admit
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they're wrong scrum and agile are the
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worst possible things to
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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use so let's get into four key events
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that happened in the software industry
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that redefined agile and co-opted the
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definition
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so that now it doesn't mean what it used
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to mean and is probably part of the
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reason why you're feeling gaslit right
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now am I crazy I thought agile meant
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this this is what my company does though
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am I going nuts no you're not nuts the
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first thing that happened is the
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introduction of burndown charts and
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velocity tracking you may be surprised
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to know but when scrum was first
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introduced in the mid '90s it did not
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have story points that you calculated
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and estimated it did not have burndown
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charts or you know velocity tracking
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basically seeing hey is the team getting
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as much work as they planned during
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let's say a two-e period done as they
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predicted that was added much later
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several years after the introduction of
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scrum and if you think about it if
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you're a company that is about to adopt
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St this new fangled thing called agile
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again 30 years ago and you're nervous
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you know that other companies in Silicon
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Valley and other players are doing it
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and you don't quite understand what it
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means one of the scariest things is if
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someone tells you oh yeah if we're agile
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we're not going to have much
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predictability anymore we need to we're
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going to work in a way where we can
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adapt to change and get feedback but
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we're not going to be able to do
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quarterly planning anymore for our
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features if you're an executive or a
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manager and you don't understand why why
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agility is so important and why those
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two first points I made in the beginning
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of the video we need to be agile in the
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first place then selling someone on oh
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we've got this thing in agile now called
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a burndown chart See it'll it'll let us
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plan and then figure out how efficient
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people are that panders to management it
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is not helpful to a development team
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think about it a development team
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benefits in no way from knowing whether
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they're getting worked done as fast as
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they predicted in fact it's the opposite
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usually it puts pressure on people to
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lie cut scope and manipulate numbers to
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look like the velocity you know of their
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team is consistent from month to month
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and if the whole purpose of scrum is to
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learn that you're wrong then the
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velocity and the burndown chart should
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be wrong more often than it's right
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because you're learning where your
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assumptions are incorrect and you're
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doing new tasks every Sprint you you
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know that's the thing we're not working
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on an assembly line where we're putting
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the same for you know tires on a car and
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we can tweak how we do that and from
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then on every single time we put tires
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on the car it's more efficient and we
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save money no every task we get assigned
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when we work on a software development
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project is unique so you know if you've
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been on software projects you've been
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like I hate agile I hate scrum I hate
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burndown charts I hate velocity tracking
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I hate estimation well none of that was
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was supposed to be in agile originally
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or even in scrum it was added afterwards
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even though you've seen it pro maybe on
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every project you have ever been on to
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Pander to the desires of management to
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feel like they have predictability and
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to feel like they have control so they
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can go out there and signal on the
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market we're agile and do nothing
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differently the second thing that really
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really redefined the definition of agile
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was Jeff Sutherland's book Jeff
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southernland is one of the original
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signatories of the agile Manifesto
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you've probably heard of this this was
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the document that was created back in
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the 90s that had you know a whole bunch
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of developers top developers at the time
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got together they went skiing and they
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came up with this list the agile
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Manifesto like we demand that you know
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from from now on we're going to we're
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going to deal with all the issues of the
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software industry by coming up with
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these principles that we follow and they
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were really great principles they really
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supported working together in a way that
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would solve those two problems that I
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mentioned at the beginning of the
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episode but few years later Jeff
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southernland one of the people who
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signed the agile Manifesto came with out
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with a book and it was called The Art of
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scrum getting twice the work done in
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half the time now brilliant marketing
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title but again it pandered to
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management management don't understand
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that the reason that we came up with
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Agile development is to find out we're
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wrong and to get feedback quicker and to
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actually do less work so that we do the
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right Work Management just thinks oh
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Agile development is going to help us
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get the stuff done quicker so that title
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to that book that Jeff southernland came
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out with you know I'm not trying to say
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he's not a brilliant man and you know
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he's not done a lot for the industry but
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I think that really damaged the original
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intent of agile in the industry by
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allowing managers to walk around with
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hey I know you're trying to tell me
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agile means this but here's this book by
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this expert he wrote the agile Manifesto
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and he's saying agile is about getting
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stuff done quicker so if you're going to
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argue with Jeff Sutherland you know you
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better talk to him because you know he's
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he's Mr agile is is I think the way a
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lot of managers looked at it so if
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you've been on a project and you've had
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to fight other people who basically try
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to tell you that agile means getting
00:11:22
stuff done quicker it doesn't have to do
00:11:24
with adapting to change one of the
00:11:26
reasons might be they read Jeff
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Sutherland book or even just the title
00:11:31
of his book and hey if you're really
00:11:33
frustrated with the state of the
00:11:35
industry I don't make these episodes
00:11:36
just to rile you up I actually make
00:11:38
these so that you understand how things
00:11:41
should work why they went wrong and you
00:11:43
can adapt and fix what you can and you
00:11:45
know cope with what you can't I've got a
00:11:49
patreon and a YouTube membership you can
00:11:51
check out the link in the description
00:11:53
and I've got over 70 people who've
00:11:55
joined it so far these are all people
00:11:57
who either are clients of mine I've
00:11:59
actually done career coaching with them
00:12:02
or they're people who've come in from
00:12:03
YouTube but we're all helping each other
00:12:05
have healthier software development
00:12:07
careers there's people in all kinds of
00:12:09
roles management product management you
00:12:11
know programmers people in QA and we're
00:12:14
trying to help each other with the
00:12:16
broken practices in the industry around
00:12:18
agile coping with it better
00:12:20
understanding better ways to do it
00:12:21
seeing through the BS so if that's you
00:12:24
if you'd like to have some Community
00:12:25
Beyond just watching my episodes today
00:12:28
check it out and join
00:12:30
[Music]
00:12:47
the third thing that happened that
00:12:48
really just redefined agile to mean
00:12:51
something different than it's original
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intent was the creation of the agile
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certifications industry at some point
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somebody figured out hey we could make a
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lot of money if we came up with a
00:13:05
certification that people take and once
00:13:08
they pass that certification they can go
00:13:10
back to their company or they can get
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hired in a new company and say hey I
00:13:14
know how to be agile I actually got
00:13:17
certified to be agile or you know
00:13:19
typically it's in scrum you know scrum
00:13:21
as you know is only one framework for
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agile software development there's
00:13:25
conbine there's you know unnamed
00:13:27
Frameworks I mean agile again again just
00:13:29
meaning let's work together in a way
00:13:31
that we can adapt to change easier but
00:13:33
scrum tends to be the most popular
00:13:36
version of agile software development
00:13:39
well you may or may not know this you
00:13:41
know scrum.org is kind of the main
00:13:43
website where the rules are sort of
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official definition of what scrum means
00:13:49
and is and is and what's in it started
00:13:52
and they have a guide there it's a PDF
00:13:54
called the scrum guide and the scrum
00:13:56
guide has evolved many many times over
00:13:59
the years meaning just like the US
00:14:02
Constitution or any other legal document
00:14:04
it's been amended it's been edited it's
00:14:06
had things removed from it it's had
00:14:08
things edited added to it it's had
00:14:10
things changed and over time the scrum
00:14:14
guide has had more things added to it to
00:14:16
make it easier to sell certifications I
00:14:19
mean if a company's like yeah I'm going
00:14:21
to go send someone to get scrum
00:14:22
certified and the person gets scrum
00:14:24
certified and comes back and tells them
00:14:26
hey we need to do less prediction we
00:14:28
need to do less estimating so that we
00:14:30
can be more agile and management doesn't
00:14:32
like that well they're not going to pay
00:14:34
for people to get certified anymore and
00:14:36
so the scrum guide itself has evolved
00:14:40
over time now there's been some
00:14:41
beneficial changes to it don't I I don't
00:14:43
want you to think I'm just completely
00:14:45
harping that scrum.org is a waste of
00:14:47
time but it's very difficult to find
00:14:51
original copies of the scrum guide or
00:14:53
like a version history of every change
00:14:55
that's been made to the scrum guide I've
00:14:57
used archive.org I've done a a lot of
00:14:59
things to try to go back and find the
00:15:01
original ones remember I've been in this
00:15:03
industry for 27 years so you know I read
00:15:05
the original scrum guide when it was in
00:15:07
sort of like a draft state in all the
00:15:10
versions between I sure wish I would
00:15:12
have kept them I had no idea this was
00:15:15
going to happen but you know if you're
00:15:17
seeing scrum Masters join your company
00:15:20
and they seem like they're pushing
00:15:22
practices on people that don't help
00:15:24
people be more agile they just help
00:15:26
people be more micromanaged and really
00:15:28
help the management you know predict
00:15:31
things and control things more than the
00:15:33
team gets stuff done and adapt to change
00:15:36
that's probably because of the
00:15:39
certifications being introduced to the
00:15:41
industry and how the scrum guide has
00:15:44
been changed over time to Pander to
00:15:47
Management's desire for control I hate
00:15:49
to be the one to tell you and the final
00:15:51
thing that I think happened that really
00:15:54
caused agile to mean something
00:15:56
completely different and kind of put the
00:15:59
final nail in the coffin of most
00:16:01
companies understanding what Agile
00:16:03
development was really supposed to be
00:16:06
about is the introduction of safe or
00:16:09
safe e depending on how you pronounce it
00:16:12
well if you're a team of management and
00:16:16
you're about to adopt this new agile
00:16:18
software development philosophy and
00:16:21
you've hired an agile coach or you just
00:16:24
are talking to your developers or some
00:16:26
other CTO who's on your board of
00:16:28
directors and they've done agile
00:16:29
somewhere else and they start telling
00:16:31
you things like yeah you're not going to
00:16:33
have as much predictability but you're
00:16:35
going to be able to adapt quicker you're
00:16:37
not going to waste as much money but you
00:16:38
won't know how much you'll spend that's
00:16:41
very scary to a person who's used to
00:16:44
traditional World War II you know kind
00:16:46
of tailor management and so a brilliant
00:16:50
way to make someone feel less scared
00:16:52
about a riskier though better way of
00:16:55
development Agile development is to come
00:16:57
up with a great name to help them feel
00:17:01
safe and what better name to help them
00:17:03
feel safe than safe the word itself now
00:17:08
safe or safy stands for scaled agile
00:17:12
framework but you know if you look into
00:17:15
this there's these huge diagrams that
00:17:17
show release trains and how they all
00:17:19
sync up and everybody I mean it it it
00:17:22
really panders to that desire for
00:17:24
management to feel like I understand
00:17:26
everything there's a process everything
00:17:29
clearly defined you know I can scale
00:17:31
this out now I can build this giant
00:17:32
project with you know 100 developers and
00:17:35
we can call ourselves agile because
00:17:37
we're using the scaled agile framework
00:17:39
but again safe has you know um there's
00:17:43
certifications there's people who do
00:17:45
Consulting in it uh I don't want to say
00:17:48
it that it's not you know I want to say
00:17:51
it it may be worse than waterfall in my
00:17:54
opinion but it's not the worst framework
00:17:56
out there but there's a video that's
00:17:59
been on a playlist I have on the channel
00:18:01
you may or may not know this I have a
00:18:02
playlist called Jim's favorite software
00:18:04
development videos where I put you know
00:18:06
random videos about software development
00:18:08
over the last seven years that I want to
00:18:10
share with you that you can get to on
00:18:11
the channel and I it may even be the
00:18:13
first video on there there's one from
00:18:15
jez Humble and he was the author of
00:18:18
continuous delivery along with Dave
00:18:20
Farley who has a channel here called
00:18:22
continuous delivery on YouTube great
00:18:24
Channel if you haven't subscribed yet go
00:18:26
check it out and sub to it but humble
00:18:29
has a video I believe it's called why
00:18:31
scaling agile doesn't work and if you
00:18:34
watch that video he does a fantastic job
00:18:38
explaining why if agile is supposed to
00:18:40
let us adapt to change well the more
00:18:42
people we add on a project the bigger
00:18:44
the scope and the more interdependencies
00:18:47
the less agility we have and so this
00:18:49
idea of this this dream we have that let
00:18:52
hey we can scale agile it's marketing
00:18:55
it's not reality and so safe for this
00:18:59
you know safe e framework it really is a
00:19:02
framework that again panders to
00:19:04
management and it helps them feel like I
00:19:06
can take a giant project and plan it the
00:19:09
same way have upfront requirements you
00:19:12
know split people into teams front end
00:19:15
backend manage dependencies between
00:19:17
people just like we did back in
00:19:18
waterfall in the 90s before scrum and
00:19:21
still call ourselves agile and the net
00:19:24
result of all these things I'm talking
00:19:26
to you about today is again
00:19:29
many people have never even been on a
00:19:31
truly agile project their entire
00:19:33
experience in their whole career from
00:19:36
the time they went to college and maybe
00:19:38
their 15 years maybe even 20 years into
00:19:40
their career every project they've been
00:19:42
on that's called itself agile has
00:19:45
experienced unfortunately uh its origins
00:19:48
in one of these lists of these four
00:19:50
these four events that I talked to you
00:19:51
about today so I say this today to just
00:19:54
get you to think you know is is adapting
00:19:57
to change on a project really valuable
00:20:00
do we need to respond to Market forces I
00:20:02
think you know the answer is yes
00:20:04
especially in the wake of AI but there's
00:20:06
other changes that are going to happen
00:20:07
in our industry right that we can't even
00:20:09
foresee yet so having the ability to be
00:20:12
agile is not going to go away tomorrow
00:20:14
we need to be agile what we don't need
00:20:18
though is to let companies and
00:20:20
profiteers redefine agile to mean
00:20:24
something it never intended to mean to
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find ways to make money off of it to
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profit off of it to give management more
00:20:31
control in areas where honestly it's not
00:20:34
good for them to have control I'm not
00:20:36
anti-management but I'm anti-g giving
00:20:39
management feelings of safety and
00:20:41
control where they don't actually have
00:20:43
safety and control which you know if you
00:20:45
watched any of my other episodes on
00:20:47
estimation you know that's a big issue
00:20:50
that I think uh is very similar to
00:20:52
ageline that it gives management a false
00:20:54
set illusion of control so do you feel
00:20:57
gas lit by the software industry's
00:21:00
redefinition uh of agile in these ways
00:21:03
what are you doing to try to fight back
00:21:05
against it what are you struggling with
00:21:08
leave me some comments until next time
00:21:11
thanks
00:21:13
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