Are You Doing Fake Agile?

According to the 14th Annual State of Agile report, organizations are still learning how to implement Agile. About 50% of the respondents said that half of their teams are using Agile, and 84% of them admit that their organization has not reached a high level of agility.

Seeing that companies and teams have achieved great success after implementing Agile, more teams are flocking to it and transitioning to Agile methodologies. However, it is by no means an easy task. A common problem is that teams do not understand the principles and core values of Agile; they are simply "doing" Agile instead of "being" Agile. Ultimately, these transformations fail. Consequently, teams or members who have undergone this experience begin to publicize the "Agile is useless" theory, claiming it involves too many gimmicks and only wastes labor and resources. Is Agile really useless, or are you just using it the wrong way?

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Some companies claim they are doing "Agile," but their practices deviate from the Agile Manifesto and its principles. In the end, it is often poorly executed. Robert C. Martin, a co-author of the Agile Manifesto, said in an interview that any tool or process that makes the team feel burdened in their work environment cannot be Agile. Teams that merely look like they are doing Agile are practicing "fake Agile."

What is fake Agile?

Agile skeptics have a handful of terms that have risen to describe the phenomenon referred to as “fake Agile”:

• Zombie Scrum
• Faux Agile
• Dark Agile
• Agile Theater
• Agile In Name Only (AINO)
• Agile BS

The distinction is that when it comes to "being" Agile, it doesn't matter what framework you use as long as the key Agile principles are retained. These are the core principles that virtually all "true" Agile frameworks share.

On the other hand, fake Agile is a form of waste, justifying the complaints of the failed teams mentioned earlier. Significant waste occurs when teams mindlessly generate a high number of operating builds without truly facilitating customer feedback.

Fake Agile Symptoms

1. Extreme Agile

"Agile" is not just about being "fast." When implementing Agile, a lightweight framework, people mistakenly believe that it solely means rapid response and fast delivery. Consequently, the entire team pursues velocity above all else, often sacrificing quality in the process. A product focused solely on fast delivery cannot truly meet customer needs and may even fail quality assurance tests.

"Agile" is not just about "simplicity." The tenth of the Twelve Principles of Agile states: "Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential." Some people interpret this as a mandate to eliminate all processes. Daily stand-ups are deemed too time-consuming, so they skip them; retrospective meetings seem meaningless, so they omit them; preparing documentation is too complicated, so they abandon it; Agile advocates responding to change, so they ignore planning meetings. Absolutists often believe in simplifying drastically just for the sake of simplicity. However, after such chaotic reductions, the truly valuable practices are "eliminated," leaving confused programmers to continue writing code in repetitive and tedious environments.

2. Zombie Agile

• Daily Scrum meetings: The daily stand-up is a bridge for Agile teams to communicate. It does not require team members to make a detailed and exhaustive report on their work; it only takes a couple of minutes per person to make a simple statement. The total time is generally about 15 minutes, but this is only an approximate guideline—the specific time can vary according to the team size and the nature of the work. In practice, some teams miss the point of the stand-up and rigidly enforce the 15-minute rule above all else. When the meeting time becomes a strict constraint rather than a guide, it puts unnecessary pressure on team members. This prompts them to report trivial tasks just to fill the time, ultimately failing to achieve the true purpose of the meeting: promoting team communication.
• Kanban boards: Kanban is typically used to help teams visualize tasks, ensure work status transparency, motivate members, and improve concentration and efficiency. However, a major flaw often occurs after setting up the Kanban board: it falls into a semi-idle state, fails to be updated in time, and team members cannot obtain accurate feedback from it. As a result, the Kanban board becomes a mere prop used to simulate agility. A manager might point to the board on the wall and say, "Look, our team is undergoing an Agile transformation!" But aside from the team members, no one truly knows whether Agile concepts have been genuinely implemented.

3. Conservative Agile

Before a team transitions to large-scale Agile, its leadership needs to be Agile. In a traditional team's transformation, leaders must take the initiative and adopt Lean and Agile thinking. Only Lean and Agile leaders can truly foster team agility by leveraging the strengths of both the team and its individual members.

I know of a company where the leader wanted to maintain the traditional Waterfall development model. When the team began its transition to Agile, the leadership continued to advocate for Waterfall practices. This caused massive resistance when the team tried to implement Agile sprints. If there is no unified attitude toward the Agile transition within a company, the Agile team will struggle, inevitably leading to fake Agile.

Therefore, if you want to break the "curse" of a poor Agile transition, you must have the courage to break free from the shackles of the team's current model. You must see through the "fake Agile" practices, adapt your strategy according to the team's actual situation, and truly bring Agile to life.

Conclusion

A truly Agile organization adapts quickly to change, utilizing flexible processes that allow it to easily assimilate new insights and integrate learnings into its products and customer experiences. True agility requires empowering teams. This empowerment demands trust, which takes time to build. Ultimately, the most difficult lesson for leaders is learning how to properly engage, trust, and appreciate their talented employees.