Opening Statement

Agile* is the right way. Period.

The sheer wisdom and magnitude of vision that Kent Beck brought to our industry was, and still is breathtaking. The Agile Angel is a big fan. And she suggests you should be too.

But, alas, our industry is such a pillar of mediocrity.

We are offered a pure vision of the way software should be built, a way out of the darkness. And yet, instead of gratitude and respect we simply move to corrupt it. Even those who were amongst the most evangelical in earlier times now sound almost apologetic that they once held such strong beliefs. The Agile Angel is sad to see this has happened.

And why? What has brought us to this? How have we arrived at a place where....

When we say ‘if its not working for you then you’re not doing it right’, we are laughed at.

When we make money from dispensing wisdom we are branded charlatans, snake-oil saleswomen and worse by the very people whose coffers we are helping to fill.

When we suggest that Agile scales, is robust and is suitable for all we are told we do not work in the real world.

We are told, in condescending tones, that Agile is an improvement but that it is no silver bullet. We are told this and we accept it. We seem embarrassed. We capitulate to people who have never even read a book!

The Agile Angel has become frustrated and her contempt for the industry and her fellow professionals (ha!) grows daily. Enough.

Its time for some good old-fashioned straight talking. No pussyfooting around, no apologies, no water-it-down-so-we-fit-in mentality. Just the Truth.

*The Agile Angel uses Agile as a shorthand for Extreme Programming. She has always been suspicious of Scrum (and its bastard son Scrum-Ban) but over the years this has grown to outright contempt.