Trends in the world of Agile: Notes after Agile 2008

August 11, 2008 by Artem Marchenko

Agile 2008 that was held last week was the largest and the most influential conference on the Agile ways of developing software. After such big events bloggers often present their impressions and and observations. You will find the links to more reports below and meanwhile let me present you my impressions on what changed in Agile lately.

Trends

During the last year Agile methods definitely crossed the chasm and at the moment are definitely accepted at least as yet another legible way to create software. On the conference several clear trends were pretty obvious [for me at least].

Scrum + XP became just Agile

There is no big Scrum VS XP arguing anymore. In fact there is almost no clear Scrum or XP method anymore (the idea expressed explicitly in the Uncle Bob's keynote), they merged in something called "just Agile". This "just Agile" doesn't insist on the strict following of X practices, nor it insist on calculating the task estimates and updating the sprint burndown daily. All the Scrum and XP practices are considered useful in general, but welcome adaptation to the concrete environment.

Buzzwordization

On the other hand, just as it happened with the trends of the past, more and more clients have heard that there is value in something new, called "Agile", demand it from their contractors and those have little choice, but to start offering all blends of Agile regardless of whether they employ it for real or not. Agile and especially Scrum became a demand, companies are hiring Certified Scrum Masters and advertise their Agile processes. Some are truly following the Agile principles, but many just picked up yet another buzzword. Be careful, when choosing a company to work with, buzzwords don't mean too much whatever they are about.

Tools grew up

Last time I paid close attention to tools was one or two years ago. At that point of time a customized Excel sheet was easily outperforming most of the competition. On the conference I had a chance to have a look at the several contemporary tools (expect reviews some time soon) and, boy, they have improved. There is still nothing to beat the task board used by a colocated team, but if your team is large, distributed or you just have to plug in electronically into the bigger organization view, you might like to evaluate the modern Agile management tools. There is some value in them and when used right they might indeed be better than Excel.

Other opinions

Have a look at the what others learned from the conference:

• Mishkin Berteig
• Gojko Adzic
• Klinton Keith
• Alan Cooper on his own keynote
• Lisa Crispin
• Tom Perry in many parts
• Bob Aiello
• Jason Mawdsley
• Kent McDonald

And by the way, in case you've been to the conference yourself you might find the conference photos interesting. You can find hundreds of those directly on Flickr or as a slide show on this site.

Trends around you

Did you lately notice any significant changes in how people perceive and implement Agile? What are the real trends in your opinion?

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