Reports of Agile’s Death are Exaggerated

Amid swirling rumors that Mark Twain was gravely ill, a journalist wrote to inquire about his health. The ever-witty Twain responded, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Numerous articles, videos, and blog posts have declared, “Agile is dead!” Agile is not dead; it is evolving.

Agile is an Idea

Agile is an idea. Ideas don’t die—people do. An idea’s popularity may wax and wane; however, until it is completely forgotten, ideas continue to exist. Its concepts predate the creation of the Manifesto (2001). Its principles have evolved and will continue to evolve. And it will endure the current disruptions in the methodology marketplace.

Agile concepts have deep roots. Mary Parker Follett [1] (1886-1933) described collaborative leadership, participative decision-making, and people-centered business processes. These ideas laid the foundation of the Toyota manufacturing model and foreshadowed Peter Drucker’s “knowledge worker” in the 1950s. All of which laid the foundation for Agile’s core values and principles.

Iterative and incremental design and development are natural and effective approaches to solving complex problems. They are the basis of the scientific method. In his article introducing the waterfall process (1970) [2], Winston Royce recognized feedback loops are essential to software development. As a young economist, I used an iterative approach to develop complex financial models. Later, I employed prototyping tools (wireframes) to design and deliver applications rapidly.

Takeuchi and Nonaka (1986) [3] coined “scrum” to describe how leading companies changed their product development process. They used the analogy of a relay race to describe the traditional approach and borrowed a rugby term to describe a new, collaborative process. Reaganomics, Thatcherism, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street birthed “entrepreneurial spirit” to define new business innovation and creativity models.

The Agile Manifesto eloquently synthesized and articulated existing ideas from emerging practices such as eXtreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Crystal, DSDM, and Feature-Driven Development. It was a forward-looking snapshot describing the realm of the possible and sparked a movement.

Fortunately, Agile is not frozen in the past. The thought-landscape remains dynamic. New practices arise, and some fall out of favor. Good ideas morph and are combined into legacy frameworks. DevOps, scaling, and the Agile Value Management Offices [4] are examples of the next wave.

Market Maturity

Products follow a lifecycle path from launch to retirement. When new products enter the marketplace, they face their first critical test: Is there interest? The product must cross the chasm from early enthusiasts to mainstream adoption to survive.

Agile’s initial success was seemingly serendipitous. The Snowbird gathering was loosely planned. Nevertheless, four powerful value statements that sparked a mass movement emerged. The signatories [5] cannot recall who coined “The Manifesto of Agile Software Development,” but it was a brilliant marketing choice. Shortly afterward, the Scrum Alliance was formed and began offering its now ubiquitous Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certification.

The growth period is when market demand and product adoption accelerate. A 2010 Forrester Report [6]claimed it had entered the mainstream. Second-generation Agile practices, such as DevOps (2009), Scaled Agile Framework (2010), and Disciplined Agile (2012), expanded the marketplace.

Some quantitative data and many anecdotal reports indicate that Agile has reached the maturity or potentially decline stage. Maturity is when sales peak, and decline is when demand decreases. For the first time, the 2023 PMI Pulse of the Profession Report [7] showed a decrease in the number of organizations using Agile.

When Capital One Bank began its Agile transformation [8] in 2010, it was regarded as an industry leader. Its move to eliminate its Agile job family [9] in 2023 was a shock. Over a thousand Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches were fired. The move was described as “a natural next step is to integrate agile delivery processes directly into our core engineering practices.”

The market for Agile certifications may have reached its saturation point. Scrum Alliance has over 1.8 million certificate holders, [10] and Scaled Agile reports over a million [11]. In comparison, there are 1.6 million PMI-certified project managers [12].

The Agile training, certification, and coaching industries show signs of maturity, with consolidations and founders exiting. A French investment group [11] acquired Scaled Agile (2001), and Andrew Sales [13] replaced Dean Leffingwell (SAFe founder and framework creator) as the Chief Methodologist (2023). PMI acquired Disciplined Agile [14] in 2019, and its founders left three years later [15]. Agile Alliance joined PMI [16] in January 2025 and now operates as PMI Agile Alliance.

Reset Expectations

Agile was heralded with evangelical zeal. Jeff Sutherland’s book [17] is “Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time.” I love the book, find it inspirational, and include it on my class reading list. I have also trumpeted the CHAOS Report [18] statistic that large Agile projects are three times more likely to be successful than waterfall ones.

Good Agile is great; bad Agile disappoints. Not every project should be Agile, and not every organization or team is ready to be Agile.

The Manifesto’s first value statement, “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools,” is often misapplied. Far too many organizations have operationalized this as “Agile practices and tools over an Agile mindset.”

Culture matters. Agile’s magic is creating an environment where high-performing teams collaborate, innovate, and deliver high-value solutions quickly. Using Jira, calling the development cycle a “sprint,” and holding daily stand-ups, demos, and retrospectives are good practices. However, practices alone do not create agility.

It may be time to reset expectations and align them with reality. Scott Ambler’s article “The Agile Community Shat the Bed [19]” has a provocative title. As Scott points out, “Agile is not dead, but the gold rush is.” In this two-part series, he describes the state of the industry and a potential path forward.

Agile has evolved. The Manifesto served its purpose—a handful of cutting-edge software frameworks united under an exciting banner. Over 20 years later, the reality is different. The battle between the Goliath of Waterfall and the David of Agile is no longer relevant. Agile is here.

While I dislike the “hybrid” label, it best describes today’s project management environment. Few projects are fully Waterfall or Agile; most are somewhere in between. Today, Waterfall projects embrace design thinking, Lean, and Kanban principles. Aspirational Agile teams face organizational and contractual constraints. Predictive and adaptive approaches are blended within a single project, as with Windows 10 [20].

So, the conversation needs to shift to align with reality. What practices are appropriate considering this project’s realities, constraints, and context? How can we ensure the best outcome for the project?

See related articles:

To learn more about our training and consulting services or subscribe to our newsletter, visit our website: http://www.pmessentials.us/ [28].

Image generated by ChatGPT