WHAT IS AGNOSTIC AGILE?

• It’s an oath designed to bind the agile community together

• It’s non profit and non commercial

• It means one size does not fit all, one framework is not the answer, and the 'what' and 'how' should be suited to context

• It’s about mastery of the craft, good conduct, and a learning mindset

• It’s about remembering why we do agile, putting the customer first

• So far been signed by ~700 people across the globe

• Written by Sam, supported, reviewed and collaborated on with three others, one being a co-author of the Agile Manifesto itself…

• Now getting feedback from the community

agnostic / aɡˈnɒstɪk

Agnostic, in an information technology (IT) context, refers to something that is generalized so that it is interoperable among various systems. The term can refer not only to software and hardware, but also to business processes or practices.

http://agnosticagile.org/agnostic-defined/

… and ~700 more people and companies who have signed the oath, and counting!

AGNOSTIC AGILE RATIONALE

1. CANNED AGILE IS FASHIONABLE

AND EASY

2. FRAMEWORKS BLOODY CAUSE

PROBLEMS

3. THE MALADY OF FRAMEWORK

WARS

4. THE CESSPIT OF CERTIFICATION

SCHEMES

5. THE HOLLOW PURSUIT OF PERFECTION

6. AGNOSTIC AGILE AS A PRACTICE

ARE WE DRIVEN BY FASHION?

XP!

Scrum!

Kanban!

Scrumban!

AgilePM!

Scaling…!

FASHION IS NOTHING

NEW TO THE INDUSTRY

From the 1970s through to today:

• The first published methods separated functions from data

• 25 years ago it was all about OOP

• 20 years ago it was about components, UML, Unified Process (RUP)

• 15 years ago it was about CMMI

• Then along came Agile (XP, DSDM, Scrum, Lean, Kanban, and more)

• Today Scaling Agile is the craze

• Any idea what it will be tomorrow?

• E.g. Teal Organisations has been trying to take off quite recently, but isn’t gaining much traction

THE PROBLEM WITH FRAMEWORKS

(PS - I LOVE YOU, DEAN)

PROBLEM: FRAMEWORKS ARE MONOLITHIC

• They’re non-modular

• You can’t mix and match practices from different frameworks

• They’re on their own little island

PROBLEM: FRAMEWORKS ARE HOMEGROWN

• Their structure

• Their terminology

• Their style

• Their user experience…

THEY’RE LIKE DIFFERENT CULTURES, SPEAKING DIFFERENT

LANGUAGES

PROBLEM: FRAMEWORKS HAVE LITTLE COMMON GROUND

• They all deal with software, so they should share a lot, right?

• Fact is, they share almost nothing, not even the basics:

• What is Software?

• What is Software development?

• What are Requirements?Design? Test?

• What is a Team? What is our Way of Working?

PROBLEM: PRACTICES ARE LOCKED IN ‘FRAMEWORK PRISONS’

There’s some really good stuff in each of these,but sometimes bias prevents us from looking deeper

SUMMARY SO FAR

PROBLEM

•Frameworks are monolithic

•Frameworks are homegrown

•Frameworks have little common ground

•Practices are locked in framework prisons

AGNOSTIC SOLUTION

• Modularise frameworks

• Specify a standard language

• Discover a standard kernel

• Free the practices into a common library or ‘pattern language’

CERTIFICATION CESSPITS

WE ARE FORGETTING THE

SPIRIT OF THE MANIFESTO AND

THE CERT. ROBOTS ARE TAKING OVER.

YOUR AGILE IS NOW…

CST REGISTERED EDUCATION PROVIDER (REP)

AGREEMENT (2016)

Ref to CST REGISTERED EDUCATION PROVIDER (REP) AGREEMENT (2016)

QUOTE SECTION 3.6.2:

3.6.2 Certification Courses. During the Term, You (either alone or in conjunction with others) may not teach, promote, market, advertise or support any certification course that (i) is primarily devoted to the field of Scrum or Agile, and (ii) directly competes with a current Scrum Alliance offering.

AGNOSTIC AGILE AS A PRACTICE?

Hint: It’s all about context

IMAGINE A PRACTICE

ECOSYSTEM

YOU SELECT THE

PRACTICES THAT SUIT

YOUR CONTEXT

AND IGNORE THE ONES

YOU DON’T NEED

YOU CREATE YOUR OWN CONTEXTUAL METHOD, AGNOSTIC OF ANY OTHER

THIS ILLUSTRATES WHAT THE AGNOSTIC AGILE PRACTITIONER DOES, AND IS THE ESSENCE OF AGNOSTIC AGILE IN PRACTICE

EXERCISE WITH CAUTION, HOWEVER

• Picking and choosing a few practices without understanding how they support each other can lead to failure

• This is where experienced agile practitioners and coaches come in

• And this is where experience with at least two frameworks becomes very relevant very quickly

• Agnostic Agile emphasises experience with at least two frameworks (two for team, two for scaling) for this reason

THE AGNOSTIC AGILE OATH

1. To put my customer first, making them independent.

2. To do my best, complementing theory with

practical experience.

3. To tailor agility to context.

4. To understand hindering constraints and work to remove them.

5. To share, learn and improve.

6. To respect other frameworks and their practitioners.

7. To acknowledge unknowns and seek help.

8. To never mislead and to never misrepresent.

9. To remember that agility is not the end goal.

10. To acknowledge that dogmatism is non-agile.

11. To recognise that there is more to agile than agile.

12. To give to the community as it has given to me.

Can we enable andempower our teams

andbecome true learning

organisations whilst webehave like the fashion

industry?

Can we really see our ourselves

as an open, diverse andcollaborative community

whilstwe continually attack one

another and rebrand, reinvent

and rename everything?

Are we doomed to be locked ina never ending

framework war?

SOMETHING TO PONDER OVER

Our organisational maturity will always be constrained by our leadership maturity.

The next phase…

CMS website to allow for content publication and to act as a support hub for the community

Global and local meetup chapters,

anyone can be involved, that means you.

Working with Ivar Jacobson and other

names in the industry, in making Agnostic Agile

a practical reality

Starts with software engineering itself, all

the way up to lean/agile frameworks.

Book to be published on this initiative, which is called “Essence”. You

can find out more about Essence, here

Sam Zawadi

Arie Van Bennekum

Adrian Lander

Melanie Franklin