It has been 20 years since the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was published, and even longer since the idea was first formed, and yet there still isnt a clear understanding in the industry of what Agile really is. Far too many teams that claim to be Agile are not. Ive had people with a straight face tell me they are Agile because they do a few Scrum practices and use a ticketing tool. There is an awful lot of misunderstanding about Agile, said Andy Hunt, one of the authors of the manifesto and co-author of the book " The Pragmatic Programmer ." According to Dave Thomas, co-author of "The Pragmatic Programmer" and the Agile Manifesto, just the way Agile is used in conversations today is wrong. He explained Agile is an adjective, not a noun, and while the difference may be picky, its also really profound. The whole essence of the manifesto is that everything changes, and change is inevitable. And yet, once you start talking about Agile as a thing, then you've frozen it, said Thomas. However, Alistair Cockburn, a computer scientist and another co-author of the manifesto, believes that Agile being misunderstood is actually a good thing. If you have a good idea, it will either get ignored or misinterpreted, misused, misrepresented, and misappropriatedThe fact that people have misused the word Agile for me is a sign of success. Its normal human behavior. What is Agile? One thing that is missing from the Agile Manifesto is an actual definition of Agile. In one of Hunts books, " Practices of an Agile Developer ," he defined Agile development as an approach that uses feedback to make constant adjustment in a highly collaborative environment. I think that's pretty much spot on. It's all about feedback and continuous adjustments. It's not about standup meetings, or tickets or Kanban boards, or story points, said Hunt. But Thomas believes there is a good reason a definition wasnt included in the manifesto, and thats because Agile is contextual. Agile has to be personal to a particular team, in a particular environment, probably on a particular project because different projects will have different ways of working, he noted. You cannot go and buy a pound of Agile somewhere. It doesnt exist, and neither can a team go and buy a two-day training course on how to be Agile. Thomas does note he doesnt mind Hunts definition of Agile because you have to work at it. None of this can be received knowledge. None of it can be defined because its all contextual. The way of expressing the values that we had was so powerful because it allowed it to be contextual, he said. Dave West, CEO and product owner at Scrum.org , believes the real reason people dont understand Agile is because of social systems, not the practice, the actual work or even the problems they are looking to solve. Over and over again, we see this sort of pattern that agility is undermined not by the work, not even by the skills of the practitioners, but by the social systems and the context that those practitioners are working in&Bosses want to know when something is going to be done, but when you ask them what it is they want you to deliver, they cant tell you that&but they want to know when it is going to be done, he explained. If we really want to take the opportunity that Agile presented, we need to change the system agility runs within, according to West. For instance, he said while Fidelity was one of the first companies to ever do Scrum, they are still wrestling with the ideas around it today because they didn't necessarily change the way they incentivize people. It's about the core principles To get back to the true meaning of Agile, we need to get away from the terms and get back to the four core principles, according to Danny Presten, founder of the Agile.ai community.. Delivering incremental value, having a good look at the work, being able to prioritize and improve cycles is what really makes Agile hum. Its not the terms. The more people get focused on the principles and the less they are focused on the terms, the better Agile will be, said Presten. A great starting point for teams that have only experienced waterfall or havent had as much success with software delivery is to start with Scrum, according to Hunt, but it should only be used as a starting point. Modern Agile thought goes much further than Scrum, into true continuous development and delivery, committing directly to main many times a day& the goal has always been to shorten the feedback loops, to be able to change direction quickly, to leverage the team's learning, Hunt continued. Presten compared learning to be Agile with learning to play an instrument. As you start out, you read the sheet music. It helps make momentum happen for you and gives clarity, but if it stops there and all we do is mindlessly read the sheet music and go through the motions, then theres a problem, he said. A good way to look at it is to look at how much feedback you are getting and when you are getting it, s