Modern Agile: Beyond the Framework Wars

The software development world has witnessed a profound evolution since the Agile Manifesto was penned in 2001. What began as a rebellion against heavyweight methodologies has itself become institutionalised, leading to what many practitioners call "cargo cult Agile"—teams going through the motions of ceremonies and artefacts while missing the underlying principles that made Agile transformative.

Despite widespread adoption—94% of organisations now report practising agile in some form—only 46% say they are satisfied with the outcomes (Digital.ai, 2022). This suggests that while agile has gone mainstream, much of its transformative potential has been diluted by rigid, process-heavy implementations.

Enter Modern Agile, a movement that seeks to distil agile practices down to their essential human-centred core. Rather than prescribing specific frameworks or processes, Modern Agile offers four guiding principles that transcend methodology wars and focus on what truly matters: delivering value while nurturing both customers and team members.

The Four Principles of Modern Agile

Make People Awesome stands as the cornerstone principle, recognising that technology exists to amplify human capability, not replace it. This means creating environments where team members can do their best work, customers can achieve their goals effortlessly, and everyone involved feels empowered rather than diminished by the process. Research backs this up: engaged employees are 23% more productive, and turnover is 43% lower in organisations where people feel empowered (Gallup, 2022).

Make Safety a Prerequisite acknowledges that innovation requires psychological safety. Teams need the freedom to experiment, fail fast, and learn without fear of retribution. Edmondson's research shows that teams with high psychological safety outperform peers by 20–30%, as they are more likely to share ideas and take creative risks (Edmondson, 2019). This extends beyond team dynamics to encompass technical practices, security considerations, and sustainable work practices that prevent burnout.

Experiment and Learn Rapidly embraces uncertainty as a constant. Rather than pretending we can predict the future through detailed upfront planning, Modern Agile encourages small, safe-to-fail experiments that generate learning and reduce risk incrementally. Evidence supports this: companies with a strong test-and-learn culture are 2.4 times more likely to achieve above-average growth (McKinsey, 2020). Spotify's use of lightweight squads and rapid experimentation enabled it to scale from 10 million users in 2010 to over 200 million by 2019, showing the compounding effect of continuous learning.

Deliver Value Continuously shifts focus from delivering software to delivering outcomes that matter to users. This principle pushes teams beyond feature factories towards understanding and optimising for real business value and customer impact. The DORA Accelerate State of DevOps Report (2021) found that elite software delivery teams deploy 973 times more frequently and recover from failures 6,570 times faster than low performers—demonstrating how continuous delivery directly translates into resilience and responsiveness.

Beyond Process Orthodoxy

Modern Agile's power lies in its framework-agnostic approach. Whether a team practises Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, or something entirely custom, these principles provide a north star for decision-making. This flexibility addresses one of traditional Agile's biggest challenges: the tendency for organisations to implement the ceremonies without embracing the mindset.

Indeed, the 15th State of Agile Report shows that the top challenges organisations face when scaling agile are inconsistent processes (46%) and cultural clashes (43%) (Digital.ai, 2022). These issues highlight why principles—rather than rigid frameworks—must guide long-term transformation.

The movement recognises that different contexts require different approaches. A start-up building an MVP needs different practices than an enterprise maintaining critical infrastructure. Modern Agile provides principles that scale across these contexts while allowing teams to adapt their specific practices to their unique constraints and opportunities.

The Human-Centred Shift

Perhaps the most significant departure from traditional Agile thinking is Modern Agile's explicit focus on human outcomes over process compliance. While the original Agile Manifesto valued "individuals and interactions over processes and tools," many implementations became surprisingly process-heavy.

Modern Agile brings the focus back to people by asking different questions. Instead of "Are we following our sprint commitments?" teams ask "Are we making our customers more successful?" Instead of "Did we complete our story points?" they ask "What did we learn that changes how we should work next week?"

This shift manifests in practical ways. Teams might abandon daily stand-ups if they're not serving the team's communication needs, or they might add new practices like user shadowing or customer journey mapping if those better serve the goal of making people awesome.

Continuous Learning as Competitive Advantage

The "experiment and learn rapidly" principle recognises that in today's fast-changing business environment, the ability to adapt quickly is more valuable than the ability to execute a plan perfectly.

Rather than organising around projects with defined endpoints, Modern Agile teams organise around continuous learning loops. They might spend time each week talking directly to customers, running small experiments with new features, or exploring emerging technologies that could create new opportunities.

Cross-skilling also plays a vital role in sustaining this adaptability. By developing skills outside their immediate specialism, team members can support one another, reduce bottlenecks, and respond more flexibly to shifting priorities. Organisations that embed cross-functional skills tend to see efficiency gains of up to 30% when team-focused transformation is done well (McKinsey, 2021). Companies also report that 79% of L&D professionals believe cross-skilling improves productivity, and 91% of organisations say reskilling and upskilling (including cross-skilling) has enhanced productivity in their workforce (Panopto, 2022).

McKinsey found that organisations that embed continuous learning into their culture are more resilient and competitive, with those embracing test-and-learn approaches achieving up to double the rate of revenue growth compared to their peers (McKinsey, 2020).

This approach also requires different metrics than traditional project management. Success is measured by learning velocity, customer outcome improvements, and the team's increasing ability to deliver value, rather than just story points completed or features shipped.

Implementation Without Prescription

Modern Agile deliberately avoids prescriptive practices, instead providing principles that teams can interpret within their specific context. This creates both opportunity and challenge. Teams have the freedom to innovate their practices, but they also bear the responsibility of thoughtful implementation.

Successful Modern Agile adoption typically starts with team reflection on current practices through the lens of the four principles. Teams might ask: Which of our current practices make people awesome, and which create frustration? Where do we need more safety to enable innovation? What experiments could we run to test our assumptions about what customers value?

The beauty of this approach is that it meets teams where they are rather than demanding wholesale process changes. A team might start by adding customer interviews to their routine, or by creating safer feedback mechanisms, long before they consider changing their sprint structure or planning processes.

The Future of Agile

Modern Agile represents a maturation of agile thinking, moving beyond the framework debates that have dominated the last decade towards a more nuanced understanding of what makes teams effective. By focusing on principles over practices, it provides a path forward that honours agile's original intent while adapting to contemporary challenges.

As organisations grapple with remote work, AI integration, and increasingly complex customer needs, the flexibility and human-centredness of Modern Agile offers a sustainable approach to continuous adaptation. Rather than asking teams to implement someone else's best practices, it empowers them to discover their own best practices within a framework of proven principles.

The movement acknowledges what many practitioners have learned through experience: there is no one-size-fits-all approach to software development, but there are universal principles that guide teams towards effectiveness regardless of their specific context. In a world where change is the only constant, perhaps this principled flexibility is exactly what modern teams need.

Sources

• Kerievsky, Joshua. Modern Agile (modernagile.org, 2016).
• Denning, Stephen. The Age of Agile: How Smart Companies Are Transforming the Way Work Gets Done. AMACOM, 2018.
• Edmondson, Amy C. The Fearless Organisation: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley, 2019.
• Rigby, Darrell K., Sutherland, Jeff, & Noble, Andy. Agile at Scale. Harvard Business Review, 2018.
• Digital.ai. 15th State of Agile Report. 2022.
• Highsmith, Jim. Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products. Addison-Wesley, 2009.
• Gallup. State of the Global Workplace Report. 2022.
• Google Cloud / DORA. Accelerate State of DevOps Report. 2021.
• McKinsey & Company. The Business Value of Design and Experimentation. 2020.