The Agile Manifesto followed Luther’s Reformation arc: radical simplicity hardened into scaling frameworks, transformation programs, and debates about what counts as “real Agile.” Learn to recognize when you’re inside the orthodoxy and how to practice the principles without the apparatus.
This is Part 2 of a three-part series; check out Part 1: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Agility.
Your LinkedIn feed is full of it: Agile is dead. They’re right. And, at the same time, they’re entirely wrong.
The word is dead. The brand is almost toxic in many circles; check the usual subreddits. But the principles? They’re spreading faster than ever. They just dropped the name that became synonymous with consultants, certifications, transformation failures, and the enforcement of rituals.
You all know organizations that loudly rejected “Agile” and now quietly practice its core ideas more effectively than any companies running certified transformation programs. The brand failed. The ideas won.
So why are we still fighting about the label?
Your Agile events aren’t failing because people lack training. They’re failing because your organization adopted the rituals while rejecting the transparency, trust, and adaptation that make them work. And often, the dysfunction of mechanical ceremonies isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.
Leadership resistance to your pre-mortem reveals whether your organization’s operating model prioritizes comfortable narratives over preventing failure. This article shows you how to diagnose cultural dysfunction and decide which battles to fight.
The public Scrum training market is shrinking, while demand for self-paced AI and Product courses is growing among agile practitioners. Consequently, I will shift toward online courses on AI for Agile and Product Operating Models in 2026. And I will rejuvenate the Agile Camp Berlin in the summer of 2026. Learn more about what is in the pipeline.
What if your organization’s “Agility” dysfunction isn’t an implementation problem but a missing-conditions problem that switching to, say, a product operating model cannot solve? This article identifies the success factors for agility that are absent in your organization. It gives you concrete Monday-morning actions to test what’s actually possible within your sphere of influence to drive change, because agility matters.
