Is Agile dead? Only for places where it is suffocated by rules
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/04/23
Over the last few years I have seen more and more posts where people are fed up by Agile.
The whole fundament if Agile, or better any lightweight methodology, is to be able to flow as a team. That is only possible when the flow is not disturbed by a truckload of rules or schedules overloaded with ceremonies.
The best way to implement over the last 40+ years I have been in IT is to use common sense.
This basically has not changed since before “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum), so please read this other quote from René Descartes‘s same book “Discourse on Method” where* he begins by allowing himself some wit:
Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.
Or in other words*:
Everyone has a similar and sufficient amount of common sense, but it is rarely used well.
For me, lightweight methodologies vary by team and project and always involve both critical thinking and together with other team members regularly thinking about:
- why to do things
- how to do these things
- the steps to perform the how
- when to change parts or all of the above three points
Agile Software Development is that simple.
Oh: always think about why Software Development or any other work you are involved in differs much or little from Lean Management in car manufacturing (the place where many people advocate the Agile methodologies in Software Development are supposed to stem from: strongly disagree with that as they have their own origin. Try to think about why I disagree, even if your opinion differs from mine).
Via:
- [Wayback/Archive] Anne Jan Brouwer on Twitter: “There’s no such thing as #agile”
- [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers @wiert@mastodon.social on Twitter: “@annejanbrouwer Though I still prefer lightweight methodologies over heavyweight ones. The best ever is “common sense”.”
- [Wayback/Archive] Agile Software Development Needs to Die (And Everyone Knows It) | Tim Denning
- [Wayback/Archive] I’ve been employed in tech for years, but I’ve almost never worked – Emmanuel Maggiori (especially the section on “What does truly agile teamwork look like?”, then browse through the comments)
*both quotes from the mentioned Wikipedia articles.
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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