I still see this question a lot on social media: “Should we still use Agile?”
It usually comes wrapped in strong opinions — “Agile is good,” “Agile is bad,” “Agile is evil.”
Everyone seems to have a take, but few stop to ask what Agile was really meant to be — and what it means now, in an AI-driven world, or how it has transformed under the influence of AI.
It’s one of those questions that seems simple but opens the door to an entire philosophy — one that’s often misunderstood, oversimplified, or wrapped in buzzwords. Each person has their own definition of agile.
I’ve worked in environments where Agile ceremonies were treated as sacred — daily stand-ups, retrospectives, planning sessions — all perfectly scheduled, all perfectly timeboxed. But to me, many of those rituals often felt like a loss of time. Teams spent more energy talking about the work than actually doing the work. Then the manager would come, surprised, asking “Why isn’t it ready yet?” — even though half the week was already spent in meetings about progress.
Agile shouldn’t feel like theatre. It should feel like flow — real collaboration, transparency, and purpose, where every conversation moves the product closer to the customer.
To me, Agile isn’t a methodology or a set of ceremonies — it’s a mindset of deliberate delivery. It’s about getting something valuable into customers’ hands quickly, learning from their experience, and adapting based on real feedback.
Because until a user interacts with what you’ve built — or decides not to — you’re only guessing. You can debate design, UX, and priorities endlessly, but certainty only comes from the real world.
Agile Is About Flow
At its core, Agile is about flow — the ability to move value smoothly from idea to reality.
Flow comes from alignment, transparency, and collaboration. It’s not about doing more work; it’s about ensuring that the work moves.
To achieve flow, teams need to:
- Share the same goal and stay focused on it.
- Make work visible, so nothing hides in the dark.
- Believe in what they’re building.
- Use their combined skills to move value forward together.
Flow doesn’t mean rushing or releasing unfinished work. It means delivering intentionally — perhaps to a smaller group — to test, learn, and evolve.
Planning Without Illusion
Yes, Agile teams plan — but plans can create a dangerous illusion of control.
Backlogs and roadmaps are tools, not truths.
Real agility means accepting uncertainty. Customers’ needs change. Priorities shift. Technologies evolve.
Our job is to stay flexible enough to keep delivering value through it all.
That’s why Agile isn’t about theatre or jargon — it’s about visibility, collaboration, and deliberate delivery. It’s how we turn complexity into progress.
Conscious Technical Debt: A Business Decision
I often say: “Agile means releasing something intentional — maybe not final — so you can learn and adapt.”
That idea ties directly to what I call “Technical Debt Is Business Debt.”
Taking on technical debt consciously — with a plan to pay it off — is part of being agile. It’s a trade-off that lets you learn faster. We go into production, validate, learn, adjust, and repeat. That’s the rhythm of real agility.
So when someone asks how agile a team really is, you must ask yourself a simple question:
“How often do you deploy to production?”
Because in most cases, ‘often’ isn’t actually often enough.
The Future of Agile in an AI-Driven World
There’s another shift happening now — one that will redefine what Agile truly means in practice.
In a recent conference about AI and the future of business models in IT services, someone asked:
“How does AI change the business model for outsourcing companies?”
The answer was sharp and honest:
“It dismantles it.”
Traditional outsourcing relies on hourly billing — time and materials, fixed rate cards — models built for a world where productivity grows linearly. But AI doesn’t grow linearly. It compresses work. What once took days now takes hours. And when your revenue depends on time spent, progress suddenly becomes a financial loss.
As one panelist said, “Companies that sell efficiency but bill inefficiency sabotage their own model. The better they get, the less they earn.”
And this is where Agile comes back in.
If we truly embrace Agile as intentional delivery of value, not measured hours of effort, then the AI-driven world is simply reinforcing what Agile always stood for: results over rituals, outcomes over output, flow over fixed time.
The next evolution of Agile will belong to organizations that monetize outcomes, not effort — those that measure success by impact delivered, not hours logged.
A QA Perspective
As a Quality Assurance engineer, I see Agile as the process of learning through delivery. Every test, every iteration, every release teaches us something new.
And in a world increasingly shaped by AI, Agile thinking will be what separates teams that fear automation from those that harness it to deliver smarter, faster, and with purpose.
Agility isn’t about moving fast — it’s about moving with intent.
It’s not about clocking hours — it’s about creating flow that drives real value.
Testing Agile 
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