This talk will highlight cultural narratives; the stories we use to explain and discuss the world. It will show how these models affect our thinking and caused the corruption of software development methodologies, agile principles being example, known as "Dark Agile" today.

At the start I'll give an overview of the three main western models, the ceramic model (the world as something made), the mechanistic model (the world as a machine) and the monarchistic model (the world as a hierarchy). With this overview we can then discuss agile and how it follows the organic model (complex system with loose boundaries). Managers and business owners are firmly stuck in the first three models, they view the world as a machine that they must be seen to control, this is why anti-patterns like waterfall and release trains are so popular, they align with those models. They also don't work. Agile, DDD, TDD on the other hand do work, but it's all about accepting that you don't have control and that it's up to the team to make key decisions, not those managing the team.

In short, methodologies don't stand a chance because their principles run counter to the implicit model used by management, re-enforced by our culture and its narratives. That's why agile has been bastardised into a one size fits all process, because it aligns with the models. Any attempts to bring in agile, DDD, or any sort of team focused model is doomed to failure unless these models and their effects are made explicit, otherwise they will silently corrupt these concepts as time goes on.

If we want to fix our organisations, we must be aware of these models and their effects. Let's begin the conversation.