Naming Original Agile

The original words introduced by the agile movement have lost their meaning, and I believe we need new ones.

I was recently in a situation where I wanted to tell my client that they would improve their software delivery if they focused on value delivered rather than features produced. Also, it would be a good idea if teams were responsible for delivering software rather than having individual contributions coordinated by a project manager.

Fifteen years ago, I could have told my client to try this newfangled thing called “agile” software development. The problem today is that the client believes that they are already are doing that - for all they know being SAFe certified and using JIRA is all it takes.

At another client we had stories, in JIRA of course, with titles like “Fix compilation errors” and “Add Dockerfile”. When I made the argument that this was actually tasks, and not stories, I was corrected and told that this was indeed stories, and tasks was just things that was quick to fix.

The words we once had to describe things have all but lost their meaning. This can be seen a just a way of the world, but the problem I have is that I don’t have name for “agile the way it used to be”.

Or maybe it is as easy as calling it “Original Agile” and “Original Story”. I might try that the next time.