"You're not a Certified Scrum Master? Then you can't possibly understand."
I've heard this too many times.
My response: "Yes, and I'm proud of it."
The Theater We're All Performing
Let's be honest about what "agile" has become in most organizations:
- Daily standups that last 45 minutes where nobody actually talks to each other
- Sprint reviews where we show PowerPoint slides instead of working software
- Retrospectives where we write post-its we'll never read again
- Backlogs that replace architecture
- Jira tickets that replace thinking
- Certifications that replace experience
This isn't agility. This is performance theater.
We've learned to say the right words, follow the right ceremonies, and use the right tools.
But somewhere along the way, we stopped asking: Are we actually building better software?
How Did We Get Here?
Agility didn't die by accident. It was captured.
The Consulting Industrial Complex
More roles = more consultants to place.
Scrum Master, Product Owner, Agile Coach, Release Train Engineer...
Organizations that promised "self-organizing teams" now have more intermediaries than ever.
Where developers used to talk directly to customers, we now have certified professionals mediating every interaction.
The Certification Cartel
$2,000+ to learn to recite a manual.
Two days of training, an MCQ, a laminated card.
Certification doesn't guarantee competence. It guarantees conformity.
The Jargon as Gatekeeping
Sprint. Backlog. Velocity. Burndown. Epic. Refinement.
This language doesn't help us communicate better. It helps us stop communicating while appearing to.
Those who ask "what does that actually mean?" get labeled as not understanding agile.
The Tools That Replaced Thinking
We stopped thinking in terms of "what problem are we solving?"
We started thinking in terms of "how many story points this sprint?"
Jira convinced us that chopping things up was the same as understanding them.
It's not.
A backlog isn't architecture. It's a to-do list.
What "Agile" Actually Meant
Before it was a method, agile was a word.
From Latin agere: to act with rightness, not speed.
Look at nature:
- The cat doesn't pounce without observing
- The tree bends in the storm but doesn't break
- Water finds its way through discernment, not force
True agility isn't moving a lot. It's moving well.
The original Agile Manifesto (2001) said:
"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools"
Today we have:
- More processes than ever
- Tools that dictate our thinking
- Individuals who've learned to perform rather than interact
We got it exactly backward.
The Questions We Should Ask
Instead of another methodology, here are questions to ask before your next sprint, meeting, or decision:
About Direction:
- Before chopping this into sprints, do we know where we're going?
- Can we explain this project in one sentence?
- What must NOT change in this project?
About Rituals:
- Will this meeting produce a decision or a report?
- If we canceled this daily for a week, what would break?
- Does this ceremony exist because it's useful, or because we're afraid?
About Thinking:
- Have we spent as much time designing as executing?
- Does this project have architecture, or only a backlog?
- Who in this team talked to a real user this week?
About Reality:
- Are we observing reality, or are we observing our Jira board?
- Are we solving a problem, or working around one?
- Why are we doing this? No, really — why?
The Evidence
This isn't just philosophy. The cracks are showing:
- Capital One laid off 1,000+ Agile roles, deeming them unnecessary
- Dave Thomas (original Manifesto signatory) declared "Agile is Dead"
- Ron Jeffries (co-creator of XP) coined "Dark Scrum" to describe what it's become
Even the people who created agile practices are saying: this isn't what we meant.
What We Can Do
Stop performing. Start thinking.
Question the rituals. If a ceremony doesn't produce decisions or learning, why does it exist?
Reject empty jargon. If you can't explain something in plain English, you probably don't understand it.
Value architecture over backlogs. Yes, plans change. But "no plan" isn't the same as "adaptive."
Trust experience over certification. Someone who's shipped 10 projects knows more than someone with a laminated card.
Demand real autonomy. If every decision goes up three levels, you're not agile — you're just using different words for the same hierarchy.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Most of us know this is theater.
We see it every day.
But we participate anyway because:
- We don't want to seem like we "don't get it"
- We're afraid of being excluded
- We need to keep our jobs
Agility didn't die because of consultants or certifiers.
It died because of our collective consent to the performance.
Moving Forward
True agility isn't a framework. It's vigilance.
It's asking, constantly:
- Are we building the right thing?
- Are we building it well?
- Are we learning from reality or from our assumptions?
It's preferring:
- Intelligence over conformity
- Questions over rituals
- Thinking over performing
The original Manifesto got it right: Individuals and interactions over everything else.
Maybe it's time we actually meant it.
What's your experience? Have you seen agile work the way it was meant to? Or are you also performing in the theater?
Share your stories in the comments. Let's have an honest conversation about what we've built — and what we should build instead.
This is adapted from a longer manifesto. Read the full version: Agile, Really? A Manifesto Against Performance Theater.
Efficient Laziness — Think once, well, and move forward.
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Top comments (24)
This was spot on.
I was clawing to get into some tech job. Fighting gatekeepers who would never give me the time of day.
Eventually, I gave up trying to fit into their system.
Now I just build because I love it. The endless possibilities. Pushing my devices beyond what they're capable of. Filling the gaps when something doesn't exist.
You nailed it here: "Most of us participate anyway because we need to keep our jobs."
I never got that choice. No one was hiring me without credentials. So I stopped waiting for validation and started solving problems I actually had myself
You're living what the manifesto describes: true agility.
No ceremonies, no certifications, no theater — just direct contact with reality. You observe problems, you build solutions, you push boundaries.
The system excluded you for lacking credentials. The irony is: you've been more agile than most certified professionals will ever be.
"I stopped waiting for validation and started solving problems I actually had myself."
That sentence is worth more than any Scrum Master certificate.
Keep building. You're doing it right.
Thanks Pascal. This means a lot.
Here's what I wonder though: I can do this because it's just me. No compliance, no approvals, no 50-person teams.
Is what I'm doing actually "agile"—or is it just "small"?
Can true agility even exist at scale, or does size inevitably create the theater you're describing?
You're asking the right question — and yes, true agility can scale. But what you do intuitively has to be intentionally designed in larger organizations.
At scale, you need architecture that enables autonomy: clear boundaries, loose coupling, minimal coordination overhead. The processes should be just enough to prevent chaos, not standardized theater mandated from above.
Most orgs skip this thinking. They retrofit Scrum onto existing hierarchies and wonder why it becomes performance art.
Real agility at scale requires designing the organization upfront — not just buying the playbook and hoping it works.
Does that match what you're thinking?
That's exactly what I do when I build my own tools instead of forcing existing ones to work.
I don't start with requirements. I start with constraints I refuse to accept.
But here's what I'm wrestling with: Can an organization actually architect for autonomy, or is that a contradiction in terms?
Because the moment you design a system for emergence, you've constrained what can emerge. You've decided in advance what kinds of autonomy are acceptable.
Maybe true agility can only exist in the gaps—the spaces organizations haven't formalized yet.
This might be one of those never ending conversations, Pascal—and I mean that in the best way.
As an early signatory (March 2002), I have watched the entire decent into the Seventh Circle of Agile . We never adopted anything beyond what the document says. We just DO it. It doesn't require any of this scaffolding to be agile. That was the whole point! We were trying to break free of the useless constructions that hampered what we wanted to build. We wanted to talk to customers, pivot when needed, discard what wasn't working and communicate at every level all the time. What is now called agile is the opposite of what was intended; It is dystopian.
Toby, this is gold — “dystopian” sums it up perfectly. It’s amazing to hear this from an early signatory. The spirit of Agile was about action and constant communication, not the bureaucracy that has crept in. Your comment perfectly captures what we see today.
It's not "we", it's "them". I don't know any developer who ever wanted more scrum meetings.
You are absolutely right!
Love it and sending the link off to all of my team members. You so described how this works on my job.
Thanks, Noah! Always good (and a bit sad) to hear that this resonates… Hope it sparks some good team discussions!
I can relate to this post so much I had to create an account to drop a comment in appreciation, thank you!
Thank you so much — that really means a lot!
And now that you’ve joined, you’re officially free to comment on as many articles as you want 😄
Or how can we split this task into 1- or 2-point tickets so we can show progress?
Loved this piece. This is what writing software in a corporate environment looks like.
100%. It’s crazy how quickly “progress tracking” replaces “progress itself.” Curious — have you seen any team escape that trap successfully?
Nope! I was the one escaping! LOL
OMG! All those points under "The Theater We're All Performing" are so on point. They perfectly described pretty much all jobs I've had.
Yeah, it’s like we’re all actors in the same play — different companies, same script. Thanks for reading!
Great read, Pascal. Hope it makes it to the Top7 next week. Have a great weekend!
Thanks a lot! Nice weekend to you too!
Amazing post! This really resonated with me.
I remember having long debates with Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches about this very issue. Sometimes, we were pushed to follow certain ceremonies or rules even when they didn’t make sense in our actual context — it felt more like performance theater than genuine agility.
At one point, a Scrum Master even showed me a “rule” that said they could remove someone from the team for not following Agile — which, looking back, completely misses the spirit of Agile. The Scrum Master’s role is to serve and enable the team, not police it.
Another misconception I’ve seen is that architects aren’t part of the team. That’s not true. In real Agile environments, architecture is a shared, evolving responsibility, and experienced architects add huge value by helping teams learn from their depth of experience, ensuring decisions align with long-term scalability and technical integrity.
Posts like yours remind us that Agile was never meant to be about rigid enforcement — it’s about empowerment, collaboration, and continuous improvement. We’re supposed to adapt processes to serve people and outcomes, not the other way around.
Thanks for highlighting this — it’s a great reminder of what true agility looks like.
Thanks — you nailed it. Agile was never meant to be a religion, yet too often it’s practiced like one. When “process guardians” start enforcing rituals instead of fostering collaboration, we lose the very thing Agile was meant to protect: adaptability.
Totally agree on architecture — real agility includes long-term thinking. Cutting experienced voices out of the loop isn’t empowerment, it’s amnesia.
haaa Finally somebody nicely talked about this reality.. Many thanks for this article
Thanks! 😊
Looks like we’re slowly rebuilding reality — one honest paragraph at a time.
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