The Age of Agile Must End

Burnett's argument is the one many product directors have been quietly thinking but struggle to say out loud: the word "agile" has been consumed by the industry it was meant to correct, and what is sold today under its name is mostly ceremony detached from the practices that made it work. The piece is short, controlled in its anger, and lands because Burnett does not romanticise what came before — he simply shows how practice has decayed into theatre. Read it alongside the Agile Manifesto in its original form to see the distance travelled. For product direction it is useful permission: the problem with your current process may not be that it is insufficiently agile, but that "agile" has stopped being a useful word.