I get pretty salty in this interview series about agile with Andrew Park of Edensoft Labs.
The Agile Manifesto started as a smart, practical guide to get work done effectively. But somewhere along the way, we got tangled up in practices that don’t serve us. And here’s the thing: they’re not set in stone. We built this system, and we can change it.
If there’s one thing Agile can’t fix, it’s the lack of a clear strategy and direction. You really, really need that to make Agile work. So, before you reach for a process solution, make sure you’re actually dealing with a process problem.
A lot of agile teams focus on small bets, small wins and predictable results but this isn't how machine learning and AI projects work. Those projects mean big risks, longer time scales and potentially huge upside if you get them right.
CEOs Are Done With Agile – They Just Want Results
In this straight-shooting conversation, we dive into how CEOs have lost patience with Agile. They’re done with the jargon and rituals (and yeah, the whole “ritual” thing is weird) – they want results, plain and simple. Agile often morphs into endless “activity” without meaningful “value.” Leaders are tired of hearing “We’re almost there,” and some are ready to scrap Agile entirely if it doesn’t start delivering real, measurable impact. It’s time to redefine what real progress looks like.
There Are No Rules
Every team should constantly ask, “Is this serving our customers and our business?” If not, scrap it and adapt. Let’s move past the cult-like fixation on “doing Agile right.” Every organization needs its own flavor. Trying to force-fit “best practices” without tailoring them to each team’s unique context misses the mark. Teams need the freedom to build principles that align with their specific goals and people.
Agile Can Work Against Strategic Priorities
Agile as most teams do it is all about the short-term, but product, design, and AI teams need the ability to think long-term. Chopping projects into tiny deliverables can mean never reaching the strategic vision or big picture. We need balance: teams must be able to zoom out to broader goals without giving up the iterative progress that Agile enables. This balance isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s essential.
Agile Feels Like It’s for Engineers, Not Product and Design
For product and design, Agile often feels like it’s made for the engineering crowd and not for us. It’s engineering-driven, rarely considering how product and design work. Agile can even incentivize the wrong behaviors – short-term actions that don’t always support long-term business goals.
Why Agile Makes Design Especially Painful
Designers know the pain of being asked to drop critical projects just to give engineering something to work on. This disrupts design’s workflow, shifting focus away from strategic goals to keep engineers busy. Agile as it’s often done doesn’t account for design timelines – and that has to change. Most engineers I know would actually prefer fixing known issues to pushing out half-baked work. The real win here? Giving both design and engineering time to do things right.
Image: Dried paint leftover from a project