I see this sometimes: To be agile requires technical practices, that's the foundation. If technical practices are ignored (which is the common case), we get FlaccidScrum.
I might agree, but I need to ask, what are the technical practices for an org transformation project? and what are the technical practices for installing a clean water system in a rural village?
Expansion on the question: XP was mostly tech practices for programming. Scrum contains no tech practices for any domain. People complain about SCrum that it misses XP's tech practices. Now I see general comments that "agile in general" is missing XP's tech practices, but they don't say "XP's tech practices", they say just "tech practices."
But agile is applicable everywhere, not just programming. When you are not in programming, XP's tech practices are not relevant ---- so, if we choose to agree that tech practices are essential to agile, we have to ask what are those tech practices that apply to some other endeavor.
People who know me also spot here that this is my way of rebutting the assertion that tech practices are the foundation of agile. if you/they can't name the tech practices for other fields, then the assertion "tech practices are the foundation of agile" is false.
So it is both an interesting question in its own right, and a challenge to the assertion. Typical Alistair styles, lol.
@totheralistair If we try to apply agile to everything, we must inevitably lose content. To begin with "working software", right there on the tin. Sure, there are parallels in other disciplines, but when we remove the differences, we're left with little more than platitudes, it seems to me.
@RonJeffries @totheralistair: For a while now I've been using "solutions" instead of "software" when talking about Agile.
The name of The Manifesto alone restricts it to software, however, the values, principles, practices, and tools should be applied beyond software. imho
Focus on people working together to deliver value collaboratively and adapting to an ever-changing context.
In a way, that idea is a widely applicable platitude.
you know, if i had to start over from scratch, i would possibly just choose 4 words that contained no reference to sw at all.
like:
collaborate - deliver - reflect - improve
and then see how that might fit different contexts.
@totheralistair Yes, sure. Since all the tech practices and focus of "agile" have been washed out anyway, why not go for vague (but valuable) generalities right out of the box?
@totheralistair @RonJeffries: On emigrated say the heart of agile. :)