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As somebody who uses this argument, and somebody who cares about reasoned debate, I must disagree. Agile is not a standard. There is no class, there are no tes

As somebody who uses this argument, and somebody who cares about reasoned debate, I must disagree. Agile is not a standard. There is no class, there are no tests, and there is no governing body to determine whether you are agile or not. As such, it's just a marketing term around best practices in iterative and incremental development. Along with XP and the latest hotness in CI/CD/DevOps/etc, it's where you go to see how the cool kids are doing it. Since it's "cool stuff that works most of the time in hi-tech teams", the real question here is this: are you trying new stuff? If so, are you trying stuff that seems to work for a lot of people? If you are not, then, by definition, you are not "doing agile" (or however you want to phrase it). If you are, good for you! You still might suck, but at least you'll suck in different and interesting ways. So in this case the writer is correct. The "No True Scotsman" label does not apply. There are no Scotsmen to begin with. ADD: And of course the flip-side to my argument is also true. Don't get me started with the folks who think that simply because you're doing various Agile practices you should automatically be succeeding -- or the folks that think "if we were only doing Scrum the right way". I've had a lot of headaches there. Tools exist to get work done. If the work is not getting done, use a different tool. "Agile" is simply the sign over the place in the hardware store we go to get certain kinds of tools. We understand and apply tools expertly, but we do not do work by spending all of our time and energy being focused on tools. Instead, good tools allow us to focus our time and energy on the problem.

noarchy 11y ago
Of course it is a marketing term. There are enough people billing themselves out as Agile "coaches", or Scrum "consultants", that the marketing seems to be working. But if they aren't Scotsmen, they've done some great marketing to make people think that they are. So if you or your organization failed, it is because the wrong people were implementing it and/or you did it wrong.
- DanielBMarkham 11y ago
  Here's an apt quote from HN a few years back regarding tools. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380679
  - noarchy 11y ago
    The excerpt from that post that I find most appropriate is, "Bad tools typically take longer to work with, and typically teach bad habits to get around their deficiencies." That's how many of us feel about Agile.
incepted 11y ago
> there is no governing body to determine whether you are agile or not Tell that to agile advocates who are always quick to point out that when a project using Agile fails, it's never Agile's fault, it's always because the team didn't apply Agile correctly. It's the text book definition of "No True Scotsman".
- exelius 11y ago
  Those "agile advocates" are just trying to sell their own services to improve your "agile functioning". Shame on you for falling for it. Agile is so widespread at this point that "doing Agile wrong" isn't a reason teams fail. Most Agile teams fail for reasons outside the development process. Ineffective leadership, lack of experience, poor product focus, etc. These teams would have failed with a waterfall model too; it would have just taken longer to realize it.
  - noarchy 11y ago
    >Those "agile advocates" are just trying to sell their own services to improve your "agile functioning". Shame on you for falling for it. Agile is so widespread at this point that "doing Agile wrong" isn't a reason teams fail. To be fair, it isn't often the individual developer who "falls" for it. These management methodologies are imposed on them, and the developer has to learn to roll with it. You may not be in a position to determine whether or not a project manager was sent off for "Scrum master certification".

noarchy 11y ago

Of course it is a marketing term. There are enough people billing themselves out as Agile "coaches", or Scrum "consultants", that the marketing seems to be working. But if they aren't Scotsmen, they've done some great marketing to make people think that they are. So if you or your organization failed, it is because the wrong people were implementing it and/or you did it wrong.

DanielBMarkham 11y ago
Here's an apt quote from HN a few years back regarding tools. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380679
- noarchy 11y ago
  The excerpt from that post that I find most appropriate is, "Bad tools typically take longer to work with, and typically teach bad habits to get around their deficiencies." That's how many of us feel about Agile.

incepted 11y ago

> there is no governing body to determine whether you are agile or not Tell that to agile advocates who are always quick to point out that when a project using Agile fails, it's never Agile's fault, it's always because the team didn't apply Agile correctly. It's the text book definition of "No True Scotsman".

exelius 11y ago
Those "agile advocates" are just trying to sell their own services to improve your "agile functioning". Shame on you for falling for it. Agile is so widespread at this point that "doing Agile wrong" isn't a reason teams fail. Most Agile teams fail for reasons outside the development process. Ineffective leadership, lack of experience, poor product focus, etc. These teams would have failed with a waterfall model too; it would have just taken longer to realize it.
- noarchy 11y ago
  >Those "agile advocates" are just trying to sell their own services to improve your "agile functioning". Shame on you for falling for it. Agile is so widespread at this point that "doing Agile wrong" isn't a reason teams fail. To be fair, it isn't often the individual developer who "falls" for it. These management methodologies are imposed on them, and the developer has to learn to roll with it. You may not be in a position to determine whether or not a project manager was sent off for "Scrum master certification".