CSP-SM | THE PROFESSIONAL SCRUM MASTER JOURNEY

The Agile Manifesto

(an alternative analysis)

It should be common practice for all of us to have a fresh look at matters known well. After all, we must understand what we know not merely in its historical context. We must keep revisiting what history has transmitted to us, and try to understand the lot in the changed perspective of today.

δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης
One can never step in the same river twice
(said Heraclitus)

So we must check. For the river is no longer the same river, and we are not the same person.

The meaning of Agile

Agile is more often defined by what it is not, than by what it is.

Saying what Agile is not, has always been super easy. It is not: a verb, a noun, a religion, a sect, a methodology, a way of managing projects, a set of rules and tools.

Saying what Agile is, is way more difficult.

I have been an active member of different Agile communities for many years — in Europe, in the UK, in the Gulf, and in Asia. Sometimes, in fact, I feel that this is what Agile really is: a community of practice, a community of conversation, a community of idealism, a community of empiricists, a…