Exploring Why Agile Isn't Dead - It's Misunderstood
While listening to Jimmy Carr on The Diary of a CEO, his quote, “People crave the success, not the journey,” really struck a chord with me. This perspective sheds light on a common issue I've observed: why Agile fails in organisations.
Many organisations jump into Agile without fully understanding why they’re making the shift. They often focus on quick results and overlook the crucial journey of transformation that change demands. This misunderstanding is widespread, affecting not just a few individuals but the entire organization. The eagerness for success can overshadow the essential work of realigning values and mindset. It’s a lesson that highlights why embracing the full journey of change is so critical for lasting success.
The notion that “Agile is dead” was popularized by Dave Thomas in his 2015 GOTO talk, where he critiqued how Agile has been commercialized and misunderstood. Thomas wasn’t suggesting that we abandon Agile but rather pointing out that the focus had shifted away from Agile’s core values of adaptability and delivering value.
Many people jump on this notion too that "Agile is dead" without fully engaging with Thomas's video or blog (Agile is Dead Long Live Agility), often missing his deeper message. Similarly, we believe the issue isn’t Agile itself - it’s how organisations approach it. They frequently concentrate too much on practices and not enough on the underlying values and cultural shifts required for true business agility. Understanding and embracing these values is essential for meaningful transformation.
Business Agility: Beyond Agile Practices
For me instead of the term Agile, we try to focus on the term business agility: Would you like your organisation to achieve true business agility, with the ability to quickly respond to market changes? Are you interested in an approach that helps you maximize value and reduce risk, allowing you to build great products or services for your customers?
Agile isn’t just a set of practices to follow; it’s a mindset shift with a change in values and principles. This transformation towards these values and principles will ultimately change culture and leadership and lead your team and organisation to more of a value-driven decision-making approach.
A great real-life example is ING, a global bank that successfully transformed through business agility. ING moved beyond merely adopting Agile practices and instead focused on fostering a culture of continuous learning and adaptation. By empowering small, cross-functional teams and encouraging experimentation, ING built an organisation that is more responsive to market changes in a highly regulated industry. Their success lies not in copying a set framework, but in continuously adapting and improving their approach to deliver long-term value.
True business agility is about embracing this journey of transformation, just as ING did. It requires organisations to move beyond rigid frameworks and empower teams to continuously improve and adapt, driving sustainable success.
Common Pitfalls Observed
Many organisations struggle with Agile not because the mindset is flawed, but because they approach it as a prescriptive set of practices rather than embracing the core values and principles that drive genuine transformation. Key pitfalls include:
- Focusing on Practices, Not Values: Adopt Agile values, not just practices.
- Prioritising Speed Over Learning: Focus on learning and delivering value early.
- One-Size-Fits-All Frameworks: Flexibly adapt Agile to your needs.
- Ignoring Culture: Leaders must model Agile values to enable lasting change.
We explore this more in our blog, Agile and Scrum: Unravelling the Misconceptions,
The Project Paradox: Kickstarting a Shift in Thinking
In our training courses, one of the most powerful learning moments comes when we discuss the project paradox.
Why do we make the biggest and most critical decisions at the start of a project when we know the least about what we’re building? And why do we make the fewest decisions when we know the most? Hmmm...
We often follow up with the question: "Have you ever worked on a project that was delivered on time, within budget, and exactly as planned?"
The answer is almost always no. Yet as organisations, we continue to rely on a project-based approach that doesn’t account for the uncertainties and complexities involved in building something new - such as innovative products. This rigid mindset often leads to missed opportunities for creating real value.
To navigate this paradox, Product Owners must grapple with the 3 V's (Vision, Value, and Validation) recognising that genuine value goes beyond mere output. Our blog on Escaping the Product Owner’s Trap discusses how Product Owners can shift from managing components to owning a product that delivers real value.
This shift helps organisations align with customer needs. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a key tool here, enabling teams to identify bottlenecks and improve workflows. By using VSM, organisations can focus on outcomes that truly matter. For further insights explore our post on Value Stream Mapping and how it can enhance your Agile journey.
The Result-Oriented Trap
This ties back to Jimmy Carr’s observation: "People crave the success, not the journey.".
Many organisations focus on the results others have achieved using Agile - faster delivery, better market responsiveness - without appreciating the journey it took to get there. They think they can copy the visible outcomes without recognising the iterative processes, failures, learning, and adjustments that shaped those results. They also overlook that true agility isn’t just about speed. It’s about creating a culture where continuous improvement, adaptability, and delivering value become second nature.
Every organisation and every team within an organisation is unique. You need to figure out what works best for you and your teams, as no cookie-cutter solution will suffice. Tools like Scrum encourage an empirical approach, allowing you to inspect, adapt, and continuously improve to find what works best for you.
It’s not just about delivering faster; it’s about delivering value early, learning from feedback, and pivoting when needed.
Agile Requires an Empirical Approach
One of the key aspects of Agile that organisations often miss is its reliance on an empirical approach. Successful Agile teams test their assumptions, gather feedback, and adapt based on what works. The process isn’t fixed—it’s fluid, allowing teams to pivot as new information emerges.
While some areas of the organisation, like HR, may not traditionally operate in an Agile way, they too can benefit from aligning with Agile principles. For example, lengthy hiring processes and slow approvals can create bottlenecks that disrupt agility. By focusing on removing waste and reducing delays, HR can support an Agile organisation without necessarily adopting every Agile practice. On the other hand, certain areas that are more predictable and repeatable may not need Agile at all, such as compliance or routine operations.
A hybrid model may be part of the journey, but it shouldn’t be the final destination. Mixing Agile with rigid frameworks can hinder the full benefits of agility, especially in areas requiring responsiveness and flexibility.
One of our favourite courses to help shift this approach and start having the right conversations around outcomes and data-driven decisions is our Professional Agile Leadership Essentials (PALE) and Evidence-Based Management (EBM) courses. These courses empower teams to adopt a more outcome-focused, empirical approach to their work.
Why People Think Agile is Dead
The claim that “Agile is dead” often comes from misunderstanding. Many organisations mistake Agile for a set of practices rather than a comprehensive mindset shift. When they implement the practices without embracing Agile values - like collaboration, responsiveness, and continuous learning - they don’t see the benefits and then conclude that Agile doesn’t work. But the truth is, Agile isn’t dead; it’s just being misused.
Agile requires a shift in how organisations operate - from leadership to delivery teams. It’s about fostering an environment where experimentation, feedback, and rapid learning are encouraged. Without this shift, organisations struggle to see the real value of Agile, often falling back into traditional methods.
The True Nature of Agile
Agile isn’t about rigid frameworks or prescriptive practices. It’s about adopting a mindset where the journey - learning, adapting, and improving - is as important as the result. Agile transformation is a long-term shift that emphasises value-driven delivery, continuous improvement, and the ability to pivot when needed.
At b-agile, our mission is to make agility part of your organisation’s DNA. We help you understand Agile tools and practices like Scrum, Kanban, and DevOps, can be enablers if used and understood correctly. It’s about fostering a deeper transformation that drives collaboration, continuous improvement, and value-driven decision-making.
If you're ready to go beyond just delivering and want to embrace real business agility, come explore our services and training! We can guide you through your Agile journey, embedding agility into your organisation’s DNA for long-term success.