Forecast for 2015: The beginning of the end of Agile?
From the Agility and Project Leadership Blog
by Don Kim
My forecast for 2015 is that Agile, or rather the term “Agile” as we all know it, starts to fade away. The reason isn’t so much that it has not met up to its promises, but rather that it becomes redundant to add a moniker to a term that should already lie at the heart of how we all do projects and business in general. It is like saying we should do projects better in the future, but of course we should be them better because the converse is to not do them better and lose our jobs, businesses and organizations!
But this is not to say that individuals and organizations will not need more training, education and knowledge of Agile, rather the contrary, because one could argue that it is redundant and even contradictory to call “common sense” common, since if it were already so common why would we even need to identify it? Shouldn’t it already be so common that it becomes redundant to tell people to use it? I think that is because despite sentiment of the commonality of certain common sense ideas, very few people follow them commonly! Many people seem to do the contrary and are why for example, the self-help genre with all its books, seminars, workshops, etc. still prevail. Likewise, all the books, seminars and workshops for Agile will prevail.
I guess what I’m really saying is that the hype around Agile starts to fade away if it hasn’t already. But that’s a good thing since it now becomes part of the genre for which anybody involved in project management should know about.
So with that I conclude my year end forecast and I wish you all a prosperous 2015. I look forward to more interesting discussion on agility and beyond!
Posted on: December 31, 2014 03:13 PM |
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Interesting points, Don. Thanks for sharing.
Bindu Pillai
Manager - IT| Lödige Systems Middle East
Doha, Qatar
Never thought of the fact that the term "Agile" is a redundant term to what we practice. Well said. Happy New Year!
Kristin Jones
Social Media Specialist III| PMI
Newtown Square, Pa, USA
Interesting perspective. Thanks!
Jim Branden
Senior Project Manager| Retired from UNC Charlotte - IT Services - PPMO
Charlotte, Nc, USA
Don Kim, Thank you for saying what I have felt for a long time. I created WBSs for 25 years before I learned that PMI(r) had given them a name. If PMI(r) had asked me, I would have suggested calling them: "Deliverables Breakdown Structures" (DBSs). The same goes for Agile; I used those tools for many years before they were named and co-opted by a group. I used the "appropriate tools for each project to successfully manage my projects. The results speak for themselves and don't need
copyrighted terms and manifestos to justify how my projects succeeded! Happy New Year to All, Jim Branden, MBA, PMP
Mike Frenette
Community Champion
Manager, IT PMO| Halifax Water
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Yes - I have often heard that it is common knowledge that common sense is not so common. :)
I believe the tenets of high visibility, involving the client day to day, self-managed teams, relative estimating and so on are here to stay and will bring (or should I say, have already brought) a splash of reality to the way we do projects.
Nice post! I really appreciated this flow of ideas.
I wonder if it was even "common sense" whether it is really the case to ignore it.
Eventually almost everything can be held up under the hat of common sense. So what? Maybe that's why you will have to stop teaching the good, honesty, ethics ... just because common sense? And more, I also have a doubt: common sense is also the good sense? Therefore I hope that 2015 will be a year full of good sense for all of us!
I think 'Agile' was brought in to draw the line between itself and traditional methodologies in the context of project management. If were look at 'Agile' from speed/velocity perspective it may feel rather 'common sense' or 'given'.
So, in the universe of project management i do believe 'Agile' is to going stick for a while. So, it depends the perspective we look at it.
Good article and assessment Don, I do believe the same as organizations start to find the balance in adopting & modifying the framework that suits them better. Thanks for sharing.
Suhail Iqbal
Suhail Iqbal PMIATP CIPM FAAPM MPM MQM CLC CPRM SCT AEC SDC SMC SPOC PRINCE2 MCT| PM Training School
Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan
I would rather say project management would change or evolve into agile project management, no matter what you call it then. Maybe the term project management itself gets obsolete or agile becomes an integral part of project management.
My concern is not what it would be called but what new developments and innovations we see coming to the base concept of project management. I feel lean which has already infiltrated in project management just like agile, definitely for better results, we must be looking at a marriage of lean and agile affecting and further evolving the very concept of project management. LeAgile and AgiLean are terms which have already been tossed and some are testing their application to various fields and industries to be used in project management. That is the way forward... maybe we keep calling all these evolutions still as project management but the project management of future would be greatly evolved and different from today.
Diego Ferrer
Managing Principal| EKI-Digital
Chicago, Il, USA
Calling it "The beginning of the end of Agile" may be a little extreme but I agree that the term may be a fad but the inherent concept will prevail
Rajinder Parti
Project Manager PhD PMP| Lonza Biologics Inc.
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
I agree with Diego and Vijayakumar. We should not be too keen on using the word AGILE. If you understand the thought behind it well, Agile does make sense. You can call it by any name you like, embellish it the way you like.
Hadi Rajabbeigi
Educator/Trainer| Applied Science and Tech University
Tehran, Tehran, Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Thank you Don.
It is an innovative article. We should learn more about future trends in different aspects of Project Management such as "Agility". Also we should do more research and study to better understand destiny of this field of study.
Sergio Luis Conte
Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations
Buenos Aires, Argentina
With all my respect, there is a big problem here and in the name of the blog too. And please sorry if I misunderstood. I think most of the people and the intention of the blog itself is talking about Agile in the context of Software Development. But Agile is not IT or software related only, Agile is not a method of methodology. I have performed conference inside the PMI World Tour talking about that. Agile and Agility are enterprise wide terms and disciplines that can be applied from strategy formulation. That is not new. That´s started in 1990 and before. You can search for USA DoD Agile Forum papers and work of Rick Dove book "Responce Ability". I am working in my 7 project in a hugh company to create an environment where gain in agility is the objective.
Austin Hundley
Senior Consultant| Nordic Consulting
Nashville, Tn, USA
Loved this article. I've always thought many things I encounter on a daily basis are redundant, but that's because they should be redundant, but they're not because people don't follow them, use them, etc, so they have to be given a label to call them out and remind people that these things they should be doing but aren't are out there and available.
Vincent Guerard
Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance
Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
I think the Agile approach is there to stay, could be by other name with improvement.
Sergio I agree it should not be see a strictly an IT related method
Karthik T
Senior Engineering Manager| Nike
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Now-a-days trending - > Value - Flow - Quality
Radhika Namburi
Associate Vice President Site coordinator| Wills Towers Watson Company
Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India
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