The Death of Agile - Long Live Agility

It's time we admitted something uncomfortable: Agile, particularly Scrum, as most organizations practice it today, is failing. Scrum promised liberation from the slow, inflexible methods of waterfall development. Yet, in many organizations, it has simply traded old frustrations for new ones, such as rigid rituals, repetitive stand-ups devoid of substance, and endless sprints that rarely produce genuine innovation.

When I started my career as a Product Manager, I embraced Scrum enthusiastically. It seemed like the answer to my problems. We could have rapid iterations, be more responsive, and have clearer team dynamics. Early on, I saw productivity spikes and believed I had found a silver bullet. But over time, the cracks began to show. Stand-ups became routine recitals of ticket statuses rather than genuine opportunities to unblock progress. Sprint planning sessions started to feel like bureaucratic overhead rather than strategic planning sessions. Retrospectives generated superficial feedback, rarely touching on the deeper issues.

I faced the reality that many teams secretly acknowledge:

Scrum was devolving into agile theater.

The Illusion of Scrum

Scrum thrives on the illusion of perfect clarity, with detailed user stories, neatly planned sprints, and meticulously groomed backlogs. Yet software development is inherently messy. It thrives on uncertainty, innovation, and flexibility, aspects Scrum unintentionally suppresses through its overemphasis on clarity and predictability.

When I started Pi Tech, I observed specific problems that vividly illustrated Scrum’s shortcomings. Product Owners struggled to keep the backlog groomed to perfection, often at the expense of strategic thinking.

Developers became ticket-driven robots or mere ticket-takers, discouraged from exploring creative solutions beyond what was explicitly described in the very detailed ticket.

QA teams found themselves boxed into rigid test cases, rarely empowered to address broader quality concerns proactively.

The result? Teams were perpetually frustrated, clients noticed diminishing progress, and overall productivity plateaued.

My CTO and I quickly realized that Scrum had inadvertently reinforced a blame-oriented culture rather than one focused on collective learning and agility.

Breaking Free: Specless Engineering

Recognizing these critical flaws, Pi Tech broke away from traditional Scrum.

Our team sat down to fundamentally rethink how we approached software development, leading us to create Specless Engineering, a methodology based not on detailed specifications, but clear, high-level objectives.

Specless Engineering dismantles the illusion of certainty that Scrum promotes. Instead of obsessing over perfectly detailed requirements upfront, we now focus on clearly defined outcomes and empower teams to innovate towards achieving these goals.

Transitioning wasn’t easy. Developers, previously accustomed to explicit tasks, initially struggled with autonomy. One senior engineer candidly expressed anxiety at the lack of detailed user stories, saying, “Without detailed specs, how will I know exactly what to build?” Another complained about the lack of Figma designs and was stuck, not knowing what to build.

The shift required substantial retraining, not just technically but culturally. We codified Specless Engineering into a methodology that everyone is trained on when they join Pi Tech. Then, we have to reinforce the tenets over and over and over again, because it does not sink in just by reading the methodology. You have to live and breathe it and be given the latitude to make progress based on your understanding of the objectives instead of simply following a ticket. We now coach team members to embrace uncertainty, take initiative, and collaboratively define the path forward.

Embracing Ambiguity, Fostering Ownership

Soon, changes started taking root. Developers, now liberated from micromanagement, proactively began suggesting improvements and identifying potential issues early. For instance, during a recent project, a developer independently proposed a vastly improved data security model, something previously unlikely under Scrum's rigidity.

QA teams evolved into proactive partners, embedded deeply into the development process. Rather than checking off narrow test cases, they worked closely with developers to ensure comprehensive, flexible quality assurance.

Documentation also evolved. Instead of static, up-front documents, our documentation became dynamic, capturing decisions, experiments, and lessons learned, continuously updated to reflect the living reality of each project.

We firmly believe that you should document as little as possible up front to leave room for creativity. Define the customer's problem and let the entire team solve it.

Scrum tickets are so detailed that they only use the Product Owner's brain instead of the collective to solve the problem. But while Specless Engineering does not value a ton of documentation up front, we must document what we have built, which is much easier and more valuable.

A New Way of Delivering Results

Clients quickly noticed the difference. With Specless Engineering, we could pivot seamlessly as we received new feedback, dramatically improving customer satisfaction.

Specless Engineering didn't merely change our process. It revitalized our company culture. Teams felt genuine ownership, and decision-making speed increased dramatically. Rather than being constrained by rigid rituals, team members thrived in an environment of empowerment and creativity. This is not for everyone, and we learned that the hard way. We have to screen for this flexibility in thinking during the interview process. We don't always get it right, but we've significantly improved.

Agile Must Evolve or Die

Scrum’s intentions were noble, and its initial impact positive, but its limitations have become too significant to ignore. As traditionally practiced, Agile has reached the end of its effective life. We need methodologies that genuinely embrace uncertainty and empower creativity.

At Pi Tech, we've moved past Scrum's constraints. Specless Engineering represents an alternative and necessary evolution in agile practice. It is our response to a rapidly changing development landscape where adaptability, empowerment, and genuine agility are paramount.

Agile may be dead in its conventional form, but the spirit of agility, embodied in our Specless Engineering version, is more alive and essential than ever.