Agile isn't Scrum and Kanban

Why are we focusing on the methods instead of the problem?

The original agile manifesto has 180 words, and it doesn't have the word Scrum or Kanban in it.

Agile Manifesto Summary

👉 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
👉 Working software over comprehensive documentation
👉 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
👉 Responding to change over following a plan

The Issue

Everyone keeps putting it all in one basket, assuming everything is the same. "We have a Scrum Master; we are a very agile company". Having a Scrum Master doesn't make you agile!

Agile solves the issue of delivering workable software because this is a challenging task! General principles include: shipping early, focus on value for customers and collaboration. You can use Scrum to achieve this goal, but there is nothing to stop you from using Scrum and not being agile. As such, I propose to look again into the problem that we are solving with agile.

The same goes for Kanban! Kanban is a scheduling system for lean manufacturing and just-in-time manufacturing. It got adapted for Software Development to solve specific problems. Having swim lanes and columns aren't making you an agile team!

For me, this is important because you want to improve the process. Improving something without understanding the problem is impossible!

So go out there, understand what issues you have in your flow of work, and learn about methods like Kanban and Scrum. Identify what might work for you and use it. Stop focusing on a framework to solve an issue that you didn't even have from the start.