Here's all that matters when it comes to Agile—everything else is complete crap: "We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it" It's entirely about learning based on experience. Uncovering, not uncovered. "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" Rituals, ceremonies, Sprints, SMs, POs, various meetings. NONE of that is useful. Dump it all. Talk to people. Get feedback. Pay attention. "Working software" Anything that's not directly putting working software into customer's hands is just waste. Stop it. "Responding to change over following a plan" We learn as we work, we adapt based on what we learn. That's it. Anybody who says "Agile" is anything other than that is selling you snake oil. Any corporation that's calling anything other than the above "Agile" is either delusional or evil.

"Agile" is not a code word for some rigid corporate process. It's in the dictionary. It means flexible, nimble, &c. Look it up!

"Technical Debt" stems from doing the best job you possibly can, but later on you learn something that makes that code have a large 🤮 factor. It's inevitable. As Ward Cunningham says, refactor the code by replacing it with the code you would have written if you know what you now now. Bugs are just crappy programming (e.g. without sufficient automated unit tests), not technical debt.

A: Show me data that proves that mob/ensemble programming works. B: Show me data that proves that whatever you're doing now works! A: Erm…

Henrick Kniberg's picture on the left is often used to illustrate agile dev, but I think it's fundamentally misleading. It's an evolution, not a radical change to the type of vehicle. I prefer the picture on the right. 1/1

I think one of the most destructive myths in software is that it costs more or takes longer to develop higher-quality code. IME, the higher the quality, the faster the development goes. You cannot be fast if you can't trust your code.