Are We Agile? Fundamental Patterns of Agility

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Agility powers the most innovative and successful celebrities, teams, and companies. Like them, you can innovate rapidly and succeed anywhere, if you understand and apply deep fundamentals. But a certificate course does not teach you fundamental agility, just as a Certified Public Accountant course does not teach you economics. Some of us have gone far beyond the “developing software” premise of the Agile Manifesto, to drive our companies, marketing departments, and careers with agility. We operate intuitively, informed by the philosophy of agility.

What invariant concepts lie at agile’s core? Few can tell you. As a result, charlatans can all themselves agile, and critics can dismiss agile as religion or fad.

This workshop teaches you the fundamental patterns of agility, and how to compose them for the win. Using those patterns, you can rapidly diagnose problems that inhibit success, you can make thoughtful tradeoffs, prescribe improvements, and, sometimes, with sadness, identify lost causes.

The workshop is based on original research. Collaborating with pals, I decomposed popular agile frameworks, and re-synthesized the components by their contribution to rapid adaptation. It’s no coincidence that agile practitioners are attracted to other frameworks. Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Lean Startup, DevOps, Lean Manufacturing, Getting Things Done, Theory of Constraints, Design Thinking, Pomodoro, Grit, LeSS, Scrum@Scale, Nexus and SAFe share most of the fundamental patterns of agility.

Well-written patterns teach intuition. Patterns combine contexts and problems with thoughtful solutions. These interconnected agile patterns form a “pattern language” that defines the whole of agility. Pattern languages have been used in urban planning, software development, and other fields to express deeper holistic wisdom. I believe these patterns are approaching that ideal. Some agile coaches and I have seen good results when we incorporated the patterns into our teaching and practice.