McKinsey’s “Agile Transformation Office” Is the Final Nail in the Coffin

I agree with the sentiment. Too often does the idea of agile get replaced by a top-down we-replaced-project-managers-with-delivery-leads-and-want-to-micromanage-everything version of agile that some of the rituals but none of the autonomy. I think big consultancies and SAFe snake oil merchants are to blame there.

Though I try to be optimistic and don’t think agile is dead. If the right people use the right ideas it can be beautiful to watch (from the inside and from without). I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules as to what is agile and what isn’t. Like very much it depends on people not written down processes. Many a time have I felt that just following the ceremonies blindly or having everything written down in stories doesn’t make sense (a side effect of doing agile via an expensive agile consultant trying to impose process on an unwilling team).

When it’s driven from the bottom up and supported from above, it can work wonders.

Scott Middleton: Two decades after it started, the Agile movement is now dead with the final blow dealt by McKinsey recently promoting an “agile transformation office”.