Summary

The article discusses the recent admittance of defeat by Cliff Berg, a major advocate of "Agile," and the problems with the lack of leadership skills and managers in the industry.

Abstract

The article begins with the author acknowledging Cliff Berg's recent post on LinkedIn, where he admits defeat in advocating for "Agile." The author then discusses the lack of leadership skills and managers in the industry, citing Berg's recent take on the issue. The author also mentions their own previous articles on the same topic and criticizes the "Agile 2" framework for not addressing the issue of leadership skills. The author concludes by expressing their willingness to give "Agile 2" a chance to prove that it can teach leadership skills.

Opinions

The author criticizes the "Agile" framework and its advocates for not addressing the issue of leadership skills.
The author believes that the lack of leadership skills and managers in the industry is a major problem.
The author is skeptical of the "Agile 2" framework and its ability to teach leadership skills.
The author is willing to give "Agile 2" a chance to prove itself.

Was Agile Bullshit All Along? Almost Yes.

This is gonna be a short one, just wanted to touch on an affirmation of something I saw coming years ago.

For those of you who missed it, Cliff Berg recently posted this gem on linked-in, and most of his posts since follow the same vibe.

For those of you unfamiliar, Berg was one of the largest advocates of “Agile” which is why his admitting defeat is kind of big news. Especially pointing out how much akin to TypeScript not only are the cracks showing, the rats are deserting the ship!

And indeed many of his posts and agile2.net’s content speaks to my own recent take on a major problem in the industry. A lack of leadership skills, and a lack of managers who… well… even manage anything. They choose marketspeak-doubletalk and business scam “plans” so they can avoid learning to lead, much less be expected to do any actual work.

Even goes back to one of my previous articles years-past where I identified the same issues.

Is Agile Bullshit? ALMOST. It’s A People Problem!

The problem with Agile isn’t Agile itself. It’s people who do it wrong.

medium.com

That agile2.net even goes so far as to call out frameworks for their “our way or sod off” application by overzealous fanboys is a radical departure for anyone who swallowed the “agile” malarkey.

My own views on the ignorance, incompetence, and ineptitude of the clown-shoes who CREATE frameworks being far beyond well documented at this point.

The problem is that he fails to learn the lesson; this “Agile 2” nonsense seeming to think that they can develop a system to teach leadership skills despite knowing nothing on the topic. I appreciate the effort, but honestly “agile principles” and “agility” is still bullshit-bingo marketspeak rubbish.

But to be fair, when I see stuff like “holistic” and “don’t be extreme” I generally think they’re trying to pack our fudge. With caramel creams.

I dunno, is this joke too old for people to get?

Instead of actually touching on leadership skills, they’re falling back on the same hippy-dippy nonsense, scam artist doublespeak, and terminology that feels good but doesn’t actually mean anything.

Thus it’s comedy gold to see everything I’ve been saying for over a decade come to pass. As I wrote previously the problem with all this stuff is twofold:

People using these systems are trying to make up for a lack of leadership skills because:
They don’t actually want to learn to lead or to even have to put in real work.

I don’t see hippy-dippy feel-good tripe like:

Fixing that. It leaves me channeling Steve from GN saying “yes, but what does that MEAN?” It’s all gormless tripe written by professional marketers likely trying to push the latest scam; to fill seats at paid lectures and sucker suits who don’t know any better into yet another new hot wet mess.

I mean I know that I personally have a problem with “corpo-speak”, “market-speak” and other telltales of vapid mental manipulation of the feeble minded. It’s far more insulting than an entire truck-stop full of four letter words, pejoratives, and interjections… but DAMN do the nose-breathing double-digit IQ rank-and file wuck-fits have to be so blasted gullible about it?

To that end so far as I can tell, “Agile 2” is the same herp, just a different derp. None of it can make up for actual leadership such as:

Show your underlings you’re working as hard if not harder than them by getting down in the mud with them.
Be strict on rules, lenient on failures.
When you have people skilled in their jobs, let them do their damned job their way.
Build actual plans and goals, but let people surprise you by coming up with their own process. Predetermined pedantic “ideals” like Agile — much less processes derived from it like Scrum — are more oft than not damaging and hindering to actually achieving legitimate goals!

That’s been my experience drifting from company to company as a freelance accessibility and efficiency consultant. It is heartwarming, comforting, and affirming to see major companies waking the hell up and realizing what I’ve been telling them for over a decade was the truth!

All that said, I’m willing to give Agile 2 a chance to prove they’re serious about teaching leadership. That is what the industry as a whole NEEDS! I don’t see anything on the site or from its advocates to support that yet, but time will tell. And even if it fails miserably there’s no reason to think it won’t catch on with the types of developers and managers who hop from one dumbass framework to another with all the frequency of cheap AM radios.

To that end I’d suggest reading up on it. It’s coming, and hell’s coming with it.