12. The agile reaction

The Agile Manifesto is an immune response on the part of programmers to bad management. The document is an expression of trauma, and its intellectual descendants continue to carry this baggage. While the Agile era has brought about remarkable advancements in project management techniques and development tools, it remains a tactical, technical, and ultimately reactionary movement. (Taylor, 2020)

Agile as Trauma (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

As Dorian Taylor writes above, Agile is a reaction to the trauma of bad management. It isn’t the first reaction and won’t be the last because the problem isn’t the process. It never was. Each was a reaction to pervasive poor management in the industry. When that reaction didn’t magically fix mismanagement, the development culture immune response triggered again and spawned another movement.