The arguments for Pragmatic Agile and the “body of knowledge” on the subject have been growing over the past decade. Thanks to the myriad Agile, Scaled Agile and Lean frameworks and methodologies, there has been a considerable amount of push and pull between the various methods – and it has become increasingly hard for organizations and teams to decide which framework to pick for their own Agile transformation or journey.
Combine that with the frustration that a vast number of experienced Agile practitioners have felt with the rigidity and dogma that has been perceived to have crept in forcing teams to believe they were not really Agile unless they were following a certain number of minimum ceremonies or rituals or practices. The famous (on infamous!) “Scrum, but..” phrase truly represents this tussle.
This has led to a growing number of Agile thought-leaders to take a step back and advocate a more pragmatic approach to implementing Agile. These “Pragmatists” in the Agile community advocate for adapting Agile principles and practices to the specific context and needs of an organization, rather than adhering strictly to a single methodology. They often emphasize practicality and flexibility, focusing on what works best in real-world situations.
Here are some prominent pragmatists – many of them co-authors of the Agile Manifesto – and their contributions to Pragmatic Agile.
Mike Cohn
Mike Cohn is the author of several books, including Agile Estimation and Planning, and User Stories Applied.
Cohn focuses on practical techniques for user stories, Agile estimation, and planning. His approach blends elements from various Agile methodologies to create a flexible, context-specific framework, and his book Succeeding with Agile focuses on that.
Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory
Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory coauthored the book Agile Testing – A Practical Guide for Testing and Agile Teams.
They emphasize integrating testing practices into Agile frameworks in a practical and flexible manner, ensuring quality is maintained without rigid adherence to specific testing methodologies.
Scott Ambler
Scott Ambler is the author of Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) – a scaled-agile method.
DAD – or DA as it is known now – is a process decision framework that integrates practices from Scrum, Lean, Agile modeling, and others. One of its key principles focuses on being Pragmatic. It emphasizes being pragmatic by providing guidance for tailoring processes to the unique needs of each organization.
Jim Highsmith
Among other books, Jim has written the definitive guide on Adaptive Software Development (ASD)
ASD is inherently pragmatic, focusing on iterative learning, collaboration, and adaptability to changing requirements. Highsmith emphasizes flexibility and practicality over strict adherence to predefined processes.
Alistair Cockburn
Alistair Cockburn, another coauthor of the Agile Manifesto introduced Crystal Clear – a lightweight methodology for small teams. He also wrote other books including Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
Crystal Clear is a family of methodologies that are adaptable based on project size and criticality. Cockburn promotes tailoring the method to the project’s specific context, emphasizing practicality and people over processes.
Key Work: “Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game.”
Dave Thomas
Dave Thomas wrote the book The Pragmatic Programmer.
This influential book helped a generation of programmers examine the very essence of software development, independent of any particular language, framework, or methodology, and the Pragmatic philosophy has spawned hundreds of books, screencasts, and audio books, as well as thousands of careers and success stories. Thomas’s Pragmatic Programmer philosophy aligns with Agile principles by advocating for flexibility, practicality, and continuous improvement in software development practices.
Neal Ford
An advocate for pragmatic software development, Ford emphasizes the importance of adapting Agile practices to fit the specific needs of projects and teams.
Ford has written the book “The Productive Programmer” and numerous articles and given talks on Agile and software development.
Martin Fowler
A key figure in the Agile community, Fowler advocates for practical and context-sensitive applications of Agile practices. He is also a proponent of continuous integration and refactoring.
Fowler has written “Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code” and numerous articles and talks on Agile and software design.
Summary of Contributions
These thought leaders have contributed to the development and promotion of Pragmatic Agile by:
☑ Emphasizing the importance of adapting Agile practices to fit the specific context and needs of an organization.
☑ Advocating for practical, real-world applications of Agile principles.
☑ Providing tools, frameworks, and techniques that support flexibility and continuous improvement.
☑ Promoting a focus on delivering value and improving processes based on feedback and learning.
Their work collectively supports the core principles of Pragmatic Agile, ensuring that Agile practices remain effective and relevant in diverse and evolving project environments.
Pragmatic Agile at NimbleWork
At NimbleWork, we strongly believe in the concept of Pragmatic Agile. Havin adopted a mix of Lean and Agile practices in our own business – from product management and product development to marketing and support – we have used a combination of many of these practices to suit the needs of each function and team.
Our Product teams use a combination of Scrum and Kanban, but have also adopted specific tools and techniques such as Agile Estimation, Story Mapping and Portfolio Kanban. Over the last decade, they have truly mastered the art of making product releases like clockwork every 2 weeks, while minimizing defect-leakage and maximizing throughput of value-added features and capabilities.
Our Marketing team uses a combination of Portfolio Kanban and Sprint-based planning to ensure that various marketing campaigns are run tightly while allowing team members to focus on the most important marketing deliverables at any point of time in an interrupt-driven environment.
Some of the key Agile practices and tools that we use at Nimble include the following –
☑ Agile estimation, following the Relative Sizing approach. Relative sizing is fast and significantly more accurate
☑ User Story Mapping, a practical way to help team’s break large scope into User Stories that follow the principles of INVEST
☑ Agile Program Management, that helps answer the question – when is it going to complete, and if the team is behind, what options do they have to increase velocity or to reduce scope to get it back on track?
☑ Hybrid Agile project planning, that enables Project Managers do waterfall-style high-level milestone-based planning to provide some predictability and visibility for stakeholders, and teams to do sprint-based Agile execution for rapid customer feedback and building products that customers actually want/ need.
☑ Daily Standups, one of the most common Lean-Agile practices followed by every team
☑ Retrospectives, to enable Continuous improvement – an integral part of Lean-Agile execution
☑ OKRs, to help with Alignment of Strategy to execution – a big issue for all teams and organizations
If you’d like to learn more about Pragmatic Agile and how you can benefit from it, contact us to set up a session with one of our Agile practitioners. Or, get a demo of Nimble’s Pragmatic Agile support.