pliantalliance.org

Just so we don’t get accused of being complete snotty Agile bashers, I wanted to point out this page on the XP website. It basically says what PSD says, which is to fix the process when it is broken and improve the way software is being developed.

So this is a bit of a conundrum. If the XP website itself has some pliant leanings, why has XP, along with the other Agile processes gotten so many people frustrated? Has agile become the victim of book sellers and process consultants? Is it the monetization of the process(es) that has led “agile” to mean something completely different than what was originally intended? And if so, how could we have let this happen?

Jimmy Nilsson suggests another Agile replacing nomenclature, namely, Lagom programming. “Lagom is a Swedish word for balance, not too much and not too little, just right, harmony.” To take it a step further, in order to get to Lagom programming, you have to be pliant.

Dave Thomas of the Pragmatic Programmers did an interview on the Agile Toolkit Podcast last month which contained some decidely pliant sentiments. He talks about how he is “pulling back away from the individual agile methodologies.” While he still believes in agility, he thinks some of the implementations of agility are “scary” and “dogmatic”.

When people like Dave Thomas are saying stuff like the following, you know there is something going on.

“It’s kinda like ‘My way or you’re not doing it properly’. A lot of blackmail. A lot of absolutes. And to me that is not what agility is all about, so I pull back from that. I don’t want to be associated with that.”
- Dave Thomas, May 4, 2006

Cedric (and I suspect there are more people of like mind) is starting to get annoyed with the capital ‘A’ agilists pushing their all or nothing views of their techniques on the industry. He specifically talks about a TDD presentation he went to and comments like “If it’s not testable, it’s useless.” and “Well, if you had started with TDD in the first place, you wouldn’t be having this problem today” that he heard there. I couldn’t agree with him more. Agilists have to stop being so freaking rigid.

Some choice quotes:

To them, Agility is a silver bullet that is applicable in all cases with no compromises.

On agile practices:
The truth is that these practices come at a price, and for a lot of organizations, the price gets high very quickly. Agile development will never go far if its proponents keep ignoring these organizations and make condescending comments to its members.

Update: The comments on Cedric’s post indicate that there are more people out there who are frustrated.

James Bach has written another great blog post with pliant leanings. This time he talks about the growing division in the agile community between capital “A” Agilists and small “a” agilists (or pliant developers as we refer to them). The fact that some leading Agilists are apparently not interested in the dictionary definition of ‘agile’ is telling.

Also, #8 on James’ list of things that the small ‘a’ agile community does is “We question. We criticize. We learn. We change. We are agile.” Sounds like PSD to me.