Agile is Dead: Do Kung Fu instead

The demise of Agile

Everywhere I go, the song is the same: Agile is dead.

Corporations have fallen prey to the siren call of cheap consultants that promise the Agile revolution in a couple of months. Smaller companies do Scrumbut wherever you look. Agile coaches tell me in hushed voices that they are looking to change their title because "Agile Coach" is burned by too many ignorant practitioners who think they can buy understanding along with their certificate. 

Bloggers are already predicting the demise of the once-almighty Agile, and managers worldwide are more than happy to share that they were never really Agile because it was obvious that it didn’t work.

Where to go next

So, Agile is dead. But where can you go from here if you want to produce high-quality software with a short time to market? 

The answer is simple: Do Kung Fu.

Kung Fu is most commonly known as "the stuff that this guy, Bruce Lee, was doing", but it’s actually a lot more and can be applied to any situation in life.

The principles of Kung Fu

Constantly reinventing itself

As a martial art with about a thousand years of history, it relies heavily on the wisdom of those who came before it, but it is constantly reinventing itself. The fighting world of a thousand years ago is not the same as today, and to survive as a fighting style, Kung Fu uses an open mind to compare itself with other fighting styles. In open matches, the usefulness of techniques is frequently tested, and if they’re found wanting, they’re adapted or thrown out.  

You too can do that in your company: Your fight is different, but the principle is the same. Your fight is the free market, the competition with other products. Look constantly at how your products perform, how happy your customers are, and how fast your teams can develop. Introspection is your friend, but do not fear getting external help. As we say, Mastery is a road, not a goal. Never stop improving. Let no process be untouchable, and no management title be a wall in the way of your constant evolution.  

Learn to adapt to the situation

In Kung Fu, the fighting is fast. It’s not uncommon to enter a fight with one style and need to adapt in seconds to win or just stand your ground.  

Follow this strategy for your company: When you encounter something suboptimal while following the advice from the last paragraph, change it fast. The other market players might be better at one point, but if your processes are built to change frequently, you can outmaneuver them.  

To specialize is to go the way of the Dodo

You might know Tai Chi. If you do not: Those are the old guys in the park who do slow-motion movements. That, too, is a martial art, but it has long stopped being useful in any fight because it focuses too much on the internal aspects of fighting. What they do is not wrong, but they lack so much to compete in a fight.

A true Kung Fu fighter is a jack of all trades. You must not have magic unicorn individuals in engineering or one-trick ponies in management for your company.  

As you change your ways, overly specialized individuals or teams will fight against you, rightfully fearing for their position and power. Instead, rely on managers who can adapt quickly to new situations and on teams with a broad knowledge spectrum. Only when you employ these will you be able to outsmart your competitors by adapting to new situations fast.

Own your fate

A Kung Fu fighter owns his progress. If they rise to the top, it’s because they fought hard in their internal struggle against the demons of slacking and resignation. If a Kung Fu fighter loses, they do not blame the opponent or the circumstances. They only know they must train harder and prepare for new situations.

Let this be a lesson for your team building: Build teams in a way that they are the owner of their product without any strings holding them back. On the way from idea to production, any step that needs to be performed outside the team will hold them back and allow them to shed the responsibility. Allow your teams the freedom to change their processes and their way of working as long as they can prove that it improves the situation. Do not think for them, but let them think. When they excel, let them know and feel it was them, not the anonymous process. When they fail, give them a chance to learn and improve. Show them that they are the owners of their product and the masters of their fate.

Practice makes perfect

A Kung Fu practitioner spends a lot of time repeating the same movements until they’re perfect. Only when a movement can be applied automatically, without even the smallest thought, is it useful in a fight. At the same time, a movement that isn’t useful in a fight is dead weight, however long you spend practicing it.  

In a company, this means that you should absolutely automate where you can. But do not automate for automation's sake. Always ask yourself if what you are automating benefits the process, the people, or the product, and if it looks like automation for automation's sake, throw it out. That is doubly true for anything AI. If it looks like the use of AI just because AI, then there are better ways to spend the money.

Focus on the people

Kung Fu has a set of virtues, the Wu De, to help focus on the spirit and humanity. As for your company, never forget that you’re doing everything in your company to benefit humans. Either the humans working in the company, or the humans out there, using your products. You might not be altruistic, and someone absolutely must pay the bills. But ultimately, if you do not improve the lives of your employees and your customers, you’re just building a bureaucracy without any real value.

Demon hand, Buddha heart

As you see, a lot of Kung Fu is a mindset. This is true for most martial arts, but nowhere is it as evident as in Kung Fu. Follow the steps of Wong Fei Hung or Huo Huang Jia and become a master of your trade by carefully tending to your company culture. Let your managers be shining examples of what you expect in others.

Being a manager can be tough, and you must know that your leaders address technical problems of process inefficiencies humanely.  I was once told that a good manager has steel in their eyes and gold in their heart.

Make clear the culture rules by which you operate and tolerate no trespassing. Nobody goes to learn from a Master who does not follow what he preaches. 

道可道，非常道

Finally: Do not call it Kung Fu. As the Dao De Jing states, "The path that can be named is not the true path". Clinging to a name will get in the way of your self-improvement.