pliantalliance.org

Over a year ago, I posted Agile Is An Adjective, Not a Noun on spew. I moved it to pliantalliance.org last January.

Now I come across Perryn’s latest post, which sounds awfully familiar. Read the comments as well.

In one comment, Steve Bates says:

It seems to me that saying ‘Agile Practices’ makes about as much sense as saying ‘Lightweight Running Shoes’. A person will generally run faster with lighter shoes than heavier shoes, but that’s not always the best tradeoff. For example, for trail running you might want a heavier (somewhat less agile) shoe to lower the risk of damage to your feet.

Of late there has been more and more people piping up in the blogosphere about issues pliantalliance.org is concerned with. Perhaps I’ll have to find another soapbox to stand on soon. I can only hope.

Could the Agile Manifesto possibly have some short comings?

A couple of interesting posts talking about the manifesto and usability popped up this morning. Check them out.

- The Interface is the Program, and it ain’t Agile
- Refactoring the agile manifesto

I like that more people are questioning things. We should all _always_ be questioning all things. Nothing is stable and everything is questionable. Challenge the status quo, because no matter what else it is, status quo != progress. We can always improve.

So apparently, people at ThoughtWorks, arguably the leading Agile consultancy in the industry, are starting to question and debate what “Agile” is and whether or not the whole term needs to be abandoned. I posted about Jim Webber’s post the other day in which he declared himself an ‘Agile atheist’. For a good run down on the ensuing discussion check out this blog post.

What I find most interesting is the different perspectives people have on what “Agile” is. Some people feel “Agile” is rife with dogma and religiosity. Others apparently think everything is fine and haven’t experienced the dogma.

In a comment to Jim’s post, Jeff Santini (another ThougthWorker) says:

You said you are not Agile because you don’t believe in it’s religion and you don’t accept its dogma. Yet I AM Agile and I also don’t believe in its religion nor do I accept its dogma. As a matter of fact I don’t have any idea what its religion or dogma are.

That last sentence just baffles my mind. It is one thing not to have experience the dogma, but to deny its existence is … I actually can’t think of an adjective here. Even if you are a strong believer in “Agile” and the practices that some people say you must be doing in order to be “Agile”, I can’t see how you can deny the existence of some force in the industry trying to push “Agile” methodology as the one true way to develop software. Perhaps we can debate the size of that force (I personally think it is huge) but to deny the existence of “Agile” dogma, one must have been seriously not paying attention to what is going on for the last couple of years.

Later in her post Deborah describes exactly what the “Agile religion” is, although still not committing to its existence.

If Agile religion exists, it seems to consist of a focus on strict adherence to practices without a need for understanding, combined with judgmental criticism of others - clearly ignoring the spirit of the Agile Manifesto’s “people over process,” values-driven approach.

That’s pretty much the whole issue in a nutshell and the entire reason for pliantalliance.org’s existence.

If nothing else I guess the mothership is at least starting to think about what people like Jonathan and myself have been saying for the better part of the last year. I’d call that progress.

I don’t know much but I know that when people start singing songs about a methodology, it is time to move on. We’ve definitely reached a high point (or low point depending on your perspective).

Jim Webber posts about his lack of belief in Agile. He calls himself an Agile atheist.

From Jim:

I am not agile because I don’t believe in the agile religion and I don’t accept its dogma. I like the engineering and planning practices that agile teams use - in the same way that I like people who do nice things (even when they do it because of fear of divine retribution).

Even if you don’t believe in Agile, that doesn’t mean you don’t believe in some (or all) of the techniques that come along with the Agile dogma. Some may think we are throwing out the baby with the bath water when we talk about pliant development or post-agilism, but they are mistaken. We are well aware that the techniques espoused by Agilists do work in some cases. They just don’t work in all cases and sometimes not as nicely as some would have you believe. So let me be clear. We have to be careful not to through out the techniques while attempting to rid ourselves of the dogma. Keep the baby, syphon off the bath water.