Nice article, full of contradictions. Let me react only to some of them:
- State of Agile: Are the statistics that you did not forge credible enough for you? Because in all SAFe implementations, that I saw, I am missing the choice. It was not about how to choose the best method, the method was imposed by senior management instead. "Like this method and no questions". Huge organizations are not interested in change, they want the security of the "results" so they buy frameworks.
- Goodness-to-fit: I have never met a consultant, who knows all the frameworks and can advise which one to choose. Instead, It was always about implementing the framework the consultant is certified in. Because if you choose IBM to design your infrastructure, guess which hardware will be deployed.
- Simple vs. complex: I can't help myself. But in a complex environment, I try to implement a simple change and adapt based on the result. It would lead to simple frameworks in all cases. And I just can't buy that complex and bureaucratic multilayered framework can be somehow a better fit for an organization starting the change.
- The result: I guess it is not very well defined what the result should be. If I read the comments here or even the article, my impression is, that creating a better flow in a code factory is the better result. All is purely in the software development domain. But what is the purpose of the entire Agile? To unlock the creative potential of the people and with them deliver better value for stakeholders. I do not see this. So I have to ask. How has improved trust and transparency, if "agile" organizations continue to hire/fire people as pure resources? How has improved employee-stakeholders if all financial gains go to a limited number of shareholders? How has improved the organization if all the structures remain intact, including HR, finance, marketing, sales, ... you name it? Agile is not about software development, it is about cross-company transformative change to deliver better value, ideally faster. And in most organizations, we do not have such results.
Therefore state-of-agile report, without single questions about the improvement of the stakeholders, is a problematic foundation to evaluate the impact and draw conclusions.
