SaaS vs. On-Prem – Or Why Agile Happened When It Did

I agree with the author on SaaS as a forcing function for agile delivery.

But an interesting history lesson. Agile in the form of Scrum in '86 [1] was a delivery mechanism for physical products. The case study was actually cars, which is about the most consequential product you can imagine in terms of defects. A "bug" was a product recall.

Notably, "sprints" were properly named back then. There was time in-between sprints, and this is key. The (variable!) time between sprints is when the org would reassess and plan, and then Sprints would be the mini-waterfall Gantt chart style period where work was fully scheduled and worked on without surprises.

It wasn't until the bastardization of that model under the 95 SCRUM paper that sprints lost their true purpose as a distraction-free period of time in which do "ordinary" work as opposed to tougher conceptual or integration work. Shortly thereafter, sprints became mini-marathons, and the period of planning that was always a part of Scrum in the physical product iteration model was jettisoned. It made life easier for PMOs, but I feel we lost something in that process.

[1] https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game