Agile project management, agile software development, agile people: what manager can escape this — what is it, a trend? a Zeitgeist? a hype? If you’re not operating agilely, then how? Agile vs. Waterfall — let’s take a closer look.
“Agile” derives from the Latin “agilis,” which in turn relates to “agere.” “Agere” means “to do,” “to act,” “to make.” In everyday language, agile means being nimble and flexible. That is certainly a positive quality, and this attribute has served the methodology very well. “Agile” carries far better connotations in Western culture than “extreme” does — which is precisely why “Extreme Programming” never became extremely widespread.
Calling a methodology “agile” is as clever a marketing move as naming an operating system “Windows.” If you’re not agile, you are inflexible, rigid, or at the very least sluggish. None of these are flattering qualities, and one should feel rather ashamed for not yet being — or no longer being — agile.
Only blasphemers and cynics enjoy needling the agile community with the fact that the word “Scrum” did not actually originate the way the legend suggests. The story goes that it was a handful of mediocre programmers who came up with the brilliant idea — well before the post-factual age began — of turning a label assigned to their products around to create a project management methodology. And so “Murcs” allegedly became Scrum.
So what do we call the well-established methods built on many years of experience? The “Waterfall” method? No — that sounds like you’d end up drowning in it. “Classical” project management? That’s better. We love classical music and appreciate its quality, even though it was composed more than 250 years ago. We could also simply call the methodology “Good Methodology” — which would immediately make clear what we think of the alternatives. But most people talk about “Agile vs. Waterfall.” We should also note here that many methods, practices, and project management tools, such as the Kanban board, are considered agile — yet were invented long before the agile movement began.
The agile movement (try translating that) has given software development and project management some genuinely positive impulses. For implementation, project management tools and agile project management software provide solid support. In particular, the movement has reminded us that people don’t live by code alone — though mostly they do. Despite this contribution, a slight unease lingers when you hear the word “agile” and you happen to belong to the species that doesn’t consider requirements engineering and design entirely obsolete — and who can’t be convinced that you can publish a new market-ready version of a truck every two weeks.
Agile or classical is probably not the right question: beyond all dogma, successful pragmatists look for what is genuinely useful. They don’t allow methodology evangelists to instill in them a feeling similar to what comes over a critical reader who stumbles upon one of the 203 passages in the noble Quran that describe what awaits the unbelievers.
Further Reading
Read more about effort estimation with planning poker and agile project management. For implementation: agile project management software and project management tools. In-depth articles: agile principles, agile values, agile practices, Scrum artifacts, Scrum roles, Kanban board, and Scaled Agile Framework.
CEO Alltena GmbH
Christoph Friedrich is a computer scientist and certified Project Management Professional. He has extensive experience in the introduction and integration of project management tools as well as the analysis and definition of processes in project and service management.
