Agile 2

Preface

A few people who have become aware of Agile 2 have dismissed it as “more of that Agile stuff,” not realizing that Agile 2 is a departure from the original Agile in attitude, approach, and substance. One of those individuals—a chemical engineer—said that he had discussed Agile at length with an Agile advocate, but still concluded that Agile is not for him. Another—an experienced systems engineer who has testified before Congress regarding aircraft and spacecraft systems reliability—also believes that Agile methods do not provide a robust process for trustworthy systems.

We view ourselves as Agilists, and yet we find widespread doubt about the efficacy and usefulness of Agile in many quarters. One of these is among engineers. These people are not ignorant. They know their job extremely well, yet Agile, as described to them, or as they have experienced it, has not resonated or has not answered critical questions.

The Agile movement also uprooted the product design community to some degree (which we will document in this book), although this is an area in which the Agile community has realized the issue and some are trying to rectify it.

Agile authors largely ignored the role of data: something that is so immensely important, that it is akin to speaking about mountains but missing a vast canyon immediately beside you.

The Agile community also sidestepped the issue of leadership — something that the DevOps community has tried to address. Leadership is so important for any ...