Agile is an approach first developed for software development because of all the failures of large-scale IT systems
It has many advocates
An article in the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘Embracing Agile’ even said: “Given its success to date, it should become the go-to means for organisation-wide transformation”
But its success record has not been good
For example, consider what John Seddon, CEO of Vanguard Consultants, had to say about it in his book ‘Beyond Command and Control’, describing the government’s Universal Credit project as an appalling example
His team came to regard it as ‘the most dysfunctional management fad we have ever come across’, not least because:
It assumes IT features are always beneficial
There’s no recognition of what IT should and should not be employed to do
It dreams up things to create rather than grounding change in knowledge of the likely outcomes
There’s no recognition of the importance of knowledge as the right starting-place
‘Stories’ are inappropriate representations of reality
Cost control drives delivery of IT rather than effectiveness
Real customers’ needs are not understood, so not met
