This is a question we have seen floating around recently, and many people have passionate views about it. I myself have shared a very opinionated take previously. That is still largely how I feel about the whole situation. In a nutshell:
It depends. And I don't mean it in a way of not taking sides and being on the wall, just that it largely depends on the framing we are talking about.
But this isn't even the focus of this piece, where I'd rather like to offer a more nuanced and perhaps even hopeful take. To stop "beating around the bush", in some sense, it is fair to call Agile as dead, at least if by that we largely mean an industry of massive certifications and a kind of changing-paradigm discipline that is coming from the fringes to influence the main(stream).
What we typically would consider agile (small 'a' meaning not the industry, but the core discipline) cannot possibly be that anymore, because that would be the biggest testimony of its failure. And while arguably agile hasn't been as successful (yet?) as some would imagine, it's unfair to say it hasn't made mainstream either.
The very fact that there's debate along the lines of its "death" is, again, a testimony, or a signal, of both relevance and penetration in the market. As something that has made it into the mainstream of systems of how things work in organizations, there's a chance of happening precisely what I believe is largely happening with agile (as a discipline).
This even isn't anything new, we have seen movements like that before (in my opinion). Where what used to be a fully separate discipline, gets embedded into how things are done in organizations, to the point that is largely absorbed as just an expected skill. Although it might still occupy a niche as a separate discipline as well.
A couple of examples of this sort of phase-shift (to use a complex system terminology) come to mind:
Back in the day, project managers were a big thing in IT teams in organizations. In these teams (now more commonly referred to as tech or product teams), there is still a notion of projects happening, and somehow that is managed, more often than not organically (just like how things are done over here). Organizations will still sometimes enact it in more complex situations (these days more often called technical program managers, but that's essentially part of project management as a discipline), but it's largely just taken for granted, an expected skill (tech or product) teams should have.
If you take the whole DevOps movement, I believe a point can be made of being well on its way to also largely phase-shift in technology teams of all kinds of organizations. To have that as largely just an expected skill (and the associated behaviors expected from the change of paradigm), with perhaps some nuances of niche expertise still kept separated (probably more looking at the Ops part of the equation, such as system reliability engineering).
When it comes to agile, this is what I believe is going on, just in an earlier stage of that phase-shift than the examples I just gave. But it's on its way to becoming just more of a "commodity" of how our (product) teams are expected to work, for the most part. There might still be a place for highly specialized coaches, or structural change-makers of sorts, but they probably will be expected to work on a much more strategic level (as opposed to supporting teams on a daily basis, where the whole agile thing never truly faced its main challenges anyway).
This is my view on the matter – and take it as any other opinionated one, by its own face and as a lens, a way to try making sense of what's going on. Knowing that reality is more complex and messy (e.g., different organizations will quite likely be in different stages of that journey); here I am talking about the general trend. As usual, there's never going to be a definitive view or "real truth" (being complex and influenced by all kinds of other constraints, like pure economic pressure of the time, for instance), rather perceptions and models by which we see the world and all its dynamics, to act on it. For as long as they are somewhat useful, that's about as good as it can get.
I particularly find it useful to look at what's going on in the whole "where-agile-is-going-debate" with this perspective I just shared in mind. It feels less emotional as well as better matches real-world observations I happen to have (directly or indirectly).
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By the way, and on a side note, since I've been working in the information/data world pretty much my entire career… I would like to offer a prediction of a next area where we might see a similar dynamic happening: the so-called "data governance". There will likely still be a level of centralized (a sort of "platform-like" thin layer) that would set the guardrails and common policies. But more and more we will see the emergence of true federated governance and shift-to-left (quality at source) principles being advocated and implemented – as technology advancement much more easily is catering for that as we speak.
By Rodrigo Sperb, feel free to connect, I'm happy to engage and interact. If I can be of further utility to you or your organization in getting better at working with product development, I am available for part-time advisory, consulting or contract-based engagements.
In fact, agile has become more of an expected skill in technology people than the need to have a team dedicated exclusively to it.
I've noticed that the agility team at the company where I work has practically disappeared. Currently, we only have one senior agilist who acts as a consultant for the different teams in the company. He helps define processes and methodologies, but is not present in the day-to-day running of the teams.
Previously, I had someone dedicated exclusively to agile in my team, but I didn't see much real benefit, given the cost involved and the number of times meetings were held to review processes and define things that barely helped us at all. It's useful to have someone to help with daily organizational tasks, but I always questioned whether we really needed it, it took up a lot of the team's time and that comes at a cost.
Nowadays, I realize that the market is demanding these skills more in management positions (especially product-related positions). I don't think companies expect you to play the role of an agilist, but rather to understand the principles of agile and know how to apply them on a day-to-day basis. It's important to know how to plan and how to effectively conduct software development based on objectives and stories defined for the product, and agile helps a lot with this.
It’s starting to feel like this to me too as a Scrum Master and I’m not sure how to pivot in this complex world.