Continuous Knowledge

The First Rule of Agile: You Don’t Talk About Agile

• October 7, 2024

Zeus extinguished all fire on earth after the giant Prometheus insulted him by offering a vile bag of entrails instead of a delicious steak. As a result, humanity suffered from cold and hunger.

The giant Prometheus asked Zeus if man could have fire, but Zeus refused because fire was only for the gods. Prometheus ignored Zeus, ascended Mount Olympus to steal a piece of the sun, and gave fire back to man.

Zeus punished Prometheus by tying him with chains and having an eagle feast on his liver daily. At night, his liver would regrow so the torture could continue the next day.

The torture of Prometheus wasn’t enough punishment, as Zeus also wanted to punish humanity. He created a beautiful woman called Pandora, and she had to marry Prometheus’s brother, Epimetheus. Zeus gave Pandora a box as a wedding present: Pandora’s box. It came with the warning to never open it.

Unfortunately, Pandora’s curiosity got the best of her and she opened the box. By opening the box, she released greed, envy, hatred, pain, disease, poverty, hunger, war, and death upon the world. The last thing that came out of the box was hope.

Ever since, humans hold on to this hope to survive the wickedness bestowed upon the world by the opening of Pandora’s box.

The Pandora’s Box of Agile

I remember when I started out, I used the Agile manifesto to explain Agile, and would mention why it’s important to be Agile, but for the past few years, I’ve noticed that I mostly stopped using the word Agile altogether.

The reason for this is that talking about Agile is like opening Pandora’s box:

Agile comes with all kinds of strings attached you don’t control. You don’t know what misconceptions and emotional baggage you’re tapping into when you drop that word in conversation. Agile doesn’t mean what you think it means to the person you’re talking to.

By talking about Agile, you suddenly get “That’s not Agile” discussions.” as if Agile is a goal by itself.

To circumvent this problem altogether, it’s pretty simple: you don’t talk about Agile. You decide never to open Pandora’s box and not unleash evil upon the world.

Let’s get real, Agile is about the ability to adapt and that’s an easy concept to understand. No need to introduce a whole Agile manifesto to get people to grasp it.

In the words of Charles Darwin:

“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most adaptable to change.” -Charles Darwin

We’re all descended from ancestors who were highly adaptable and resilient, as otherwise we would not be here. Evolution is all adaptability and no foresight, that’s why it’s called the blind watchmaker.

Of course, in a software development context focusing on adaptability was something novel, and we called it Agile, but don’t be fooled we feel and understand it in our bones.

In short: the first rule of Agile is you don’t talk about Agile.

And if you don’t know how to do that: my Agile from First Principles Guide might be a good place to start.

Further Reading

Greek Myths by Marcia Williams. It’s a comic explaining the Greek myths, and I obsessed over these stories as a kid. Highly recommended.

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