The Agile Manifesto is a fantastic document and something that I really support and value.

In practice, sadly, we often seem to adopt some kind of (fr)Agile Manifesto that contradicts the values we proclaim - in practice, we value processes and tools over individuals and interactions, we see status updates as the primary measure of progress rather than working software, and we value silos over collaboration.

In other words, we get caught up in processes and ceremonies but we miss the core reasons behind why we actually follow those processes. We disregard the fundamental differences between Agile and traditional approaches and then we try to run waterfall projects, but with standups and retrospectives thrown into the mix so that we can claim that we're "Agile". We end up doing the exact things that we want to get away from, but we do them under the guise of "Agile" - and then nothing changes and we conclude that "Agile doesn't work".

In this talk, we'll go back to the fundamentals and help the audience to see through the noise. It's not a critique of any specific methodology, but it's a look at the core things we want to accomplish. It comes from the perspective of someone who's been in the trenches on a multitude of projects - good projects and bad projects.

I realize that I'm not the first person to pick up on the "Fragile Manifesto" word play, and there have been a couple of other takes (and April Fools jokes) on it. However, in this talk, I give a frank view of my own experience as someone who has been involved in a multitude of projects (some of which went well and some of which didn't), not as a coach or outside observer, but really being in the trenches and being responsible for delivery.

I'll talk about the Agile Manifesto, the (Fr)Agile Manifesto that we actually seem to adopt based on our behaviour, and I'll go back to the values and the core things that we actually want to accomplish.