(2025-01-27) Procopio Agile Is Broken So What Should Startups And Tech Companies Do Instead

Joe Procopio: Agile Is Broken, So What Should Startups and Tech Companies Do Instead? If we ditch Agile, Scrum, and Jira, what do we replace them with?

Continuous delivery and continuous improvement have, more often than not, given way to over-management, over-documentation, and over-scrutinization of the software development process, turning development into a joyless slog where nothing new and innovative gets done, and certainly not quickly — even at, and especially at, tech startups. (command and control)

Agile was originally a manifesto, not a methodology. Scrum was a quick-hit framework meant to reduce meetings and interruptions

It’s not the spirit of these things that are causing bloat, it’s the practice.

My answer to the question “What replaces Agile?” is “I don’t care.” Whatever you want. If you can use the same tools and methodologies and manifestos to get where you want to be, go for it. There’s no secret club I’m trying to disband.

That’s not the right question to ask.

The problem isn’t even so much Agile and Jira and Scrum themselves. It’s what we’re pumping out of the software feature factory when we use them, and subsequently, how they lend to the commoditization of the products that get pumped out.

Economically speaking, the last few years in technology have been marked by cycles of: Panicked budget tightening...(list).
Growing demands for profitability.

There’s a fork happening in the software development world. Innovation is yesterday. Shareholder earnings are the future.

And it’s time to choose a side

Hell, just use AI Agile Agents to teach AI Scrum Agents to use AI Jira Agents to track AI Code Agents, and then test using AI QA Agents and deliver with AI Deployment Agents using AI Monitoring Agents.

That’s So Going To Work
/s
But what if it doesn’t?

The split between innovation-driven technology and cookie-cutter software is widening, and the players on the non-innovation side have already made their moves; slashing jobs, replacing human error with machine perfection, and rolling software off the assembly line at a never-before-seen clip.

And it’s working. For now.

But if your job — anywhere in the tech chain, from business leader to product/project manager to developer/designer to tester/support — is more about making work under Agile and Scrum using Jira or something like it, how long before your oversight and decision-making isn’t considered crucial anymore?

A few years ago, I called for the end of software development deadlines. I got laughed at. And that’s fine. Again, I was saying the obvious thing out loud. What if instead of delivering what everyone else is also delivering every two weeks, we took the time to deliver the thing that beats the competition and makes more money?

You know. Throw out the Gantt chart. Talk to each other. Bring the human back into it.
But that made them just laugh louder.

It starts with the heads of product and engineering pushing back against the current status quo of Agile, Scrum, Jira, AI, and cookie-cutter software.
It’s the CEO signing off and defending this strategy to the board.

the result of most of these AI efforts is going to be a better chatbot, because everyone will end up chasing the other dog’s tail.
You can’t “win with AI” when everyone is “winning with AI.”

Use whatever you want. What really matters is what you’re making with it.