A few months ago, I wrote a controversial post in these very pages calling for the end of Agile.
The feedback went exactly like you might expect. A link ended up on Hacker News. There were epic battles. Feelings got hurt. I think Hitler got invoked at one point, but even that didn’t stop the name calling.
My bad.
See, I went out on a limb and said the obvious thing out loud; that what was passing for Agile-inspired continuous delivery and continuous improvement had devolved over time into a bunch of make-work led by people who viewed technology as a commodity. The crowd of folks making the work got mad at me for pointing out that they were making work.
4 Steps to a Post-Agile World
- Heads of product and engineering push back against the status quo of Agile, Scrum, Jira, AI and cookie-cutter software.
- CEOs sign off on and defend this strategy to the board.
- Board members and investors vow to win the old-fashioned way, by giving customers new and novel solutions for old problems.
- Everybody remembers that AI is not a panacea.
So yeah, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting blowback. But it also led to a lot of ideas, ideas that I wasn’t expecting.
Look, no matter where you stand on Agile, Scrum or Jira, no one can name-call their away around the fact that continuous delivery and continuous improvement have, more often than not, given way to over-management, over-documentation, and over-scrutinization of the software development process, turning development into a joyless slog where nothing new and innovative gets done, and certainly not quickly.
Something has to change. The vast majority of folks agreed with this. But a lot of them also asked an obvious next question.
If we ditch Agile and Jira and Scrum, what do we replace them with?
I’m glad you asked.
What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?
The thing is, I agree with most of my dissenters on their dissent.
Agile was originally a manifesto, not a methodology. Scrum was a quick-hit framework meant to reduce meetings and interruptions. Jira was just a digital version of a whiteboard and sticky notes. And this all came together at one time to build elegant software quickly, maximizing benefit for both company and customer.
Salad days.
But here’s the problem. Do a search on “Agile” and see how many times the word “methodology” comes up before the word “manifesto.”
Spoiler alert: All the times.
It’s not the spirit of these things that are causing bloat, it’s the practice. It’s the manifestation of a product development tenet I have to repeat to my purist colleagues all the time. Quit defending how the thing was meant to be used and understand how it’s actually being used.
That tenet is still important and will play a role in my answer.
Because my answer to the question “What replaces Agile and Jira?” is “I don’t care.” Whatever you want. If you can use the same grouping of tools and methodologies and manifestos to get where you want to be, go for it.
That said, the fact that the feedback on the original post went two separate and unequal ways made me realize…
That’s not the right question to ask.
Software Development Is Forking
The problem isn’t even so much Agile and Jira and Scrum themselves. It’s what we’re pumping out of the software factory when we use them, and subsequently, how they lend to the commoditization of the products that get pumped out.
Slap my forehead that I didn’t see this as the root of the Agile problem, because it happens all the time. It’s dinosaurs versus innovators, and making hard choices about which one the company is going to become.
Here’s what I mean. Economically speaking, the last few years have been marked by cycles of:
- Panicked budget tightening.
- Growing demands for profitability.
- Hyperfocus on quarterly results.
- Top-and-bottom-line misses.
- Fiduciary blowback and punishment.
- Mass layoffs, resulting in the expectation to do even more with even less.
- Repeat.
The result? There’s a fork happening in the software development world. Innovation is yesterday. Shareholder earnings are the future.
And it’s time to choose a side.
Here’s Where This Is Heading
What if you could automate the building of a product and a company? Let’s ask our new friend, AI.
“While it’s currently not possible to build a fully operational company solely using AI, you can leverage AI significantly to automate many aspects of a business, from customer service to product development, essentially allowing AI to play a major role in running a company, even if human oversight and decision-making remain crucial.” – AI (Google)
“Crucial.” For now.
Here’s what I’m hearing.
“Not only can it be done, but you’d be crazy not to do it. The cost savings alone make it irresponsible not to let AI be the driving force for a company to hit its quarterly numbers with measurable, predictable, consistent results.” – A late stage investor friend and this is typical of about a dozen responses I got.
And Agile, Scrum, and Jira are the perfect bridge to that Utopia.
Hell, just use AI Agents to teach Agile to AI Agents for Scrum using AI Agents for Jira to track AI-written code tested by AI Agents for QA and delivered with AI deployment and monitoring tools.
It’ll be fine.
For the record, I personally know three serial entrepreneurs who are attempting this, and one of them even got his business idea, business model and product specs from AI.
That’s So Going to Work
/s
But what if it doesn’t?
The split between innovation and cookie-cutter software is widening, and the players on the non-innovation side are dug in. They’ve already made their moves; slashing jobs, replacing human error with AI perfection, and rolling software off the assembly line at a never-before-seen clip.
And it’s working. For now.
But if your job — anywhere in the tech chain, from business leader to product/project manager to developer/designer to tester/support — is more about making work under Agile and Scrum using Jira or something like it, how long before your oversight and decision-making isn’t considered crucial anymore?
How long before the company becomes an AI-driven dinosaur?
You know, in a perfect Utopia, the leaders, the managers, the CEOs, the boards, the investors — they can be replaced by AI, too. Why can’t AI do the quarterly earnings call and answer all the AI-generated questions from the algorithm-driven shareholders?
The Answer Comes From the Top
But it starts where, as we old folks used to say, the rubber meets the road.
A few years ago, I called for the end of software development deadlines. I got laughed at. And that’s fine. Again, I was saying the obvious out loud. What if instead of delivering what everyone else is also delivering every two weeks, we took the time to deliver the thing that beat the competition?
You know. Throw out the Gantt chart. Talk to each other. Bring the human back into it.
But that made them just laugh louder. So okay, CEOs and board members and investors and shareholders. You got your way. Let’s see how this plays out.
Is the company going to grow ever-so-slowly but consistently and thrive marching along with everyone else doing the same thing and somehow expecting to stand out?
Or are you going to differentiate and disrupt?
It starts with the heads of product and engineering pushing back against the current status quo of Agile, Scrum, Jira, AI and cookie-cutter software.
It’s the CEO signing off and defending this strategy to the board.
It’s the board and investors taking a long view, trying not just to survive and please the shareholders, but to win by doing it the old fashioned way and giving customers what they need to solve old problems in a new and novel way. Not just replace a help doc with an AI agent because all your board member friends are calling for the same thing.
You can’t “win with AI” when everyone is “winning with AI.”
Because we’ve been here before. Even after all the talk of new AI science and android dreams and seismic innovation, a third-rate chatbot is where a lot of these efforts will end up, because everyone will end up chasing the other dog’s tail. You can’t “win with AI” when everyone is “winning with AI.” You can’t continuously improve if you let machines and spreadsheets dictate and define continuous improvement.
There’s a fork in the road. One of them is leaning into Agile, Scrum and Jira. The other is taking a longer view.
So use whatever you want. What really matters is what you’re making with it. That’s what comes next.
