Originally published on September 20, 2022
I was lucky. One of my first real gigs was at a startup that actually understood agile—not just the part where you stand around at 9:30 reciting what you did yesterday.
No, I mean real agile.
The founder believed in it. Not just the words, but the mindset. And in 2007, that made them look a little unhinged.
- Estimates in points instead of hours?
- Delivering small, usable increments?
- Developers writing tests on purpose?
- Teams interviewing and hiring their own teammates?
It was weird. It was new. And it worked.
Agile, Then and Now
By the time I left that company in 2021, the process had evolved. It wasn’t textbook Scrum anymore. We had shaved off what didn’t fit and shaped what did.
It was lean.
It was human.
It was… sufficient.
And I’d made the classic mistake of assuming that this was the new normal. That we were all on the same page now. That maybe—just maybe—we’d moved past “Agile” and into something better.
I was wrong.
We Are Not in a Post-Agile Era
When I left and started working with new teams, I expected to see modern, adaptive processes.
Instead, I saw… ceremonies.
Lots of them.
Sprints. Retros. Planning poker. Burndown charts. Scrum masters who didn’t code and product owners who weren’t allowed to own anything.
Everyone was doing agile, but almost no one was being agile.
Reminder: Scrum ≠ Agile
Let’s be clear.
Scrum is a framework.
Agile is a philosophy.
You can follow every Scrum ritual and still be entirely non-agile in practice. You can ship every two weeks and still be months behind in delivering value. You can run a retrospective and change absolutely nothing.
If you haven’t read the Agile Manifesto lately, it’s worth revisiting. It’s not long. Just 12 principles. Most companies I’ve seen lately struggle to meet even one.
Let’s talk about one of them.
“Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.”
This is my favorite. Because it’s not just about code. It’s about everything.
- Processes.
- Meetings.
- Diagrams.
- The twelve-page confluence doc explaining the Jira workflow.
If it doesn’t help, kill it. If it sort of helps, test it. If it helps a lot, make it easier to use. That’s agile.
Make the Process Serve the Team
This is the bit that seems to get forgotten most often.
Agile isn’t about sticking to the process. It’s about changing the process when it stops serving the team.
- Daily stand-up not adding value? Kill it.
- Sprint planning bloated? Trim it.
- Velocity gamed to make charts look better? Burn the chart.
Try something else. See what breaks. Learn. Repeat.
You’re allowed to improve your process—even if it’s not in the official Scrum playbook.
Why Most Companies Get Stuck
Because process is comfortable. Because rituals give the illusion of control. Because “we followed the framework” is easier to explain than “we took a risk and learned something.”
And also—because trust is hard.
Businesses still want:
- Detailed specs for projects six months out
- Fixed timelines for inherently uncertain work
- Commitments that double as ultimatums
That’s not agility. That’s waterfall with a poker deck.
What Actually Works
Same as always: trust.
If you want agile to work, you need to trust your team. And I don’t mean putting “trust” in your mission statement—I mean giving the team actual space to deliver value.
- Give them access to real product owners
- Let them commit to small, realistic chunks
- Let them ship
- Let them learn
- Then let them do it again
Don’t demand upfront certainty and call it commitment. Let trust build like working software: incrementally, and with feedback.
Final Thought
Agile wasn’t supposed to be a product. Or a job title. Or a license.
It was supposed to be a mindset. A way of working that adapts to change, values people over process, and aims to build useful things without burning out the people building them.
If your team is stuck in ritual mode, maybe it’s time to step back.
Read the principles. Talk to your team. Ask what’s working. Be brave enough to drop what isn’t.
And maybe—just maybe—you’ll find your way back to agile.
Not the brand.
The idea.