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When/how did "Agile" become synonymous with "Scrum"?

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Cris Casey Managing Director| Exertus, Inc.
Everyday I read at least half-a-dozen stories that include the use of the word "agile" to describe what is clearly the Scrum agile method. Since there are no less than a dozen different formal agile methods in use, just for software development, I'm curious why it seems most people think agile only means Scrum.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Unfortunatelly for people like me that are working on creating and defined Agile practice from the genesis and are working with Agile practices in the field from the genesis the common use of lot of buzzwords jeopardizes our daily work. I was part of the USA DoD NSF/Agility Forum (1990) where Agile and Agility was formally defined. I was part of the group of authors of the DSDM version 1 and 2 former Agile Software Development method (today Agile solution delivery method). Agile can be used with any type of project life cycle (waterfall for example) and totally independent of the use of a method (DSDM, SCRUM, others) or not.
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1 reply by Cris Casey
Jul 18, 2017 9:37 AM
Cris Casey
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Thanks Sergio. I remember the NSF work as I had been using short-turn, iterative waterfall starting around 1988 and was happy to see some "validation" for what I had adopted on my own.
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S Rajasekar Senior Project Manager| Allscripts Bangalore, Karnataka, India
It is because of people mentality if something works somewhere People want to replicate everywhere , everyone wants to be successful somehow. Each method works in different way for different situation but goal /end result is same. Scrum is light weight and simple compare to others so people want quick/simple thing to follow…That's where scrum become meaning of agile , Funny part is people apply this everywhere irrespective of need.
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1 reply by Cris Casey
Jul 18, 2017 9:40 AM
Cris Casey
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Thanks S. Your comments are sad (from a critical thinking perspective) but true.

In this context "Agile" is the proverbial "hammer" - once you have one, everything looks like a nail. :)
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Wade Harshman Scrum Master| GDIT Indianapolis, In, United States
Scrum is simply the most popular / recognized framework.

It's kind of like asking for a "Kleenex" when you want a tissue.
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1 reply by Cris Casey
Jul 18, 2017 9:44 AM
Cris Casey
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Thanks Wade. I like your Kleenex(r) analogy. You would think these days people would have a little bit more sensitivity to intellectual property (trademarks and such), but maybe not. I'll need to "google" it. ;)
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Cris Casey Managing Director| Exertus, Inc.
Jul 18, 2017 8:07 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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Unfortunatelly for people like me that are working on creating and defined Agile practice from the genesis and are working with Agile practices in the field from the genesis the common use of lot of buzzwords jeopardizes our daily work. I was part of the USA DoD NSF/Agility Forum (1990) where Agile and Agility was formally defined. I was part of the group of authors of the DSDM version 1 and 2 former Agile Software Development method (today Agile solution delivery method). Agile can be used with any type of project life cycle (waterfall for example) and totally independent of the use of a method (DSDM, SCRUM, others) or not.
Thanks Sergio. I remember the NSF work as I had been using short-turn, iterative waterfall starting around 1988 and was happy to see some "validation" for what I had adopted on my own.
avatar
Cris Casey Managing Director| Exertus, Inc.
Jul 18, 2017 8:20 AM
Replying to S Rajasekar
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It is because of people mentality if something works somewhere People want to replicate everywhere , everyone wants to be successful somehow. Each method works in different way for different situation but goal /end result is same. Scrum is light weight and simple compare to others so people want quick/simple thing to follow…That's where scrum become meaning of agile , Funny part is people apply this everywhere irrespective of need.
Thanks S. Your comments are sad (from a critical thinking perspective) but true.

In this context "Agile" is the proverbial "hammer" - once you have one, everything looks like a nail. :)
avatar
Cris Casey Managing Director| Exertus, Inc.
Jul 18, 2017 8:51 AM
Replying to Wade Harshman
...
Scrum is simply the most popular / recognized framework.

It's kind of like asking for a "Kleenex" when you want a tissue.
Thanks Wade. I like your Kleenex(r) analogy. You would think these days people would have a little bit more sensitivity to intellectual property (trademarks and such), but maybe not. I'll need to "google" it. ;)

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