Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
As Agile practices mature, many organisations adopt frameworks that introduce greater structure and process. Some also incorporate traditional practices, tools, and metrics, sometimes presenting them as novel Agile solutions. While learning from other methodologies can be beneficial, significant ethical concerns arise when content is copied, relabelled as ‘scaled’ Agile, and implemented without alignment to the core values of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Yes, I have seen this happen in several large-scale Agile transformations.
In many cases, the issue was not the integration of ideas from Lean, Project Management, quality management, or other disciplines. Management knowledge has always evolved through adaptation and recombination.
The deeper problem emerged when practices were relabelled as “Agile” without sufficient transparency about: • Where they originated, • Why they were adopted, • What trade-offs they introduced.
I have also seen teams initially embrace Agile because it increased ownership, collaboration, responsiveness, and customer proximity. But as frameworks scaled, additional layers of governance, metrics, reporting, and coordination sometimes made teams feel less empowered and more process-constrained.
At that point, teams are often not resisting agility itself. They are reacting to environments where the language of Agile is preserved, while many underlying management behaviors remain fundamentally unchanged.
I also believe it is important to distinguish more carefully between Lean, Lean Six Sigma, traditional management approaches, and Agile, because these traditions emerged from different historical and operational contexts, even if they later influenced one another.
Process and structure are not inherently anti-Agile. Large-scale adaptive systems require some level of coordination and governance.
The real risk begins when structure stops enabling adaptation and starts constraining it.
An important and valuable discussion for the profession. Saving Changes...
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
I don’t think the problem is mixing practices from different approaches. The issue starts when everything gets labeled as “Agile” while the way teams work and make decisions stays the same.
I’ve also seen cases where scaling added so much governance and reporting that teams ended up feeling less empowered instead of more adaptive. Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Luis Branco, thank you. Agile is, by definition, an empirical process, and adapting to change is the core value. Therefore, it should be expected that Agile should evolve faster and deeper than traditional practices. Unfortunately, one reason for the 'success' of scaled Agile is the ability to hide a conservative mindset behind an Agile label. Lean, Lean Six Sigma, and Agile were well defined before 2001. Lean is a manufacturing concept with a focus on quality and cost, mainly by eliminating waste. Six Sigma is a mathematical tool that was added to Lean to facilitate measurement of process improvement initiatives. "Agility is the ability to thrive and prosper in a competitive environment of continuous and unanticipated change, to respond quickly to rapidly changing markets driven by customer-based valuing of products and services. It is the coming business system that will replace the mass production businesses of today." (US Agility Forum Literature 1990s). Lean and Agile are product development approaches; management is a different science that, in principle, should balance Lean and Agile. "The real risk begins when structure stops enabling adaptation and starts constraining it." deserves a separate discussion. Risk and Risk Management is one of the known Agile practice weaknesses. Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa , thank you. That's one of the reasons for some of the 'scaled' Agile successes: Keeping the old management style as 'new Ways of Working.' Saving Changes...
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