Will Agile survive the post-truth era?

The dismissal of a learning culture

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” - George Orwell, 1984

Agile, in a nutshell, boils down to a team collaborating to verify their ideas by taking small steps on their journey, reflecting, and then adapting. They use the newly gained insights to their benefit. Agile approaches are about accepting that you can’t know everything upfront, so you are on a journey of discovery.

Agile took inspiration from the scientific approach to verify assumptions by experimenting and working with objective facts: the experiment's results. Teams don’t trust their value estimations to be 100% true. They will verify if the users really like the product by gaining feedback or inspecting information like user satisfaction or market share. They will take small steps because a long period without reflection is risky.

Agile has had a long period of success. In 2024, a majority of organizations work Agile in any shape or form. But will it survive the post-truth era?

With the rise of social media, we have entered the post-truth era. Fact-checking is a thing of the past. Many people spend their social media lives in an information bubble that confirms their cognitive bias.

More and more, people perceive misinformation as fact as it confirms their ideas or it leans towards what they want to believe. Unconsciously, people pick and choose the things they wish to be true.

People have forgotten what it means to be wrong. They forgot what it means to pivot based on new information that has come to light. What’s worse: they distrust those who come with different insights than theirs.

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” - George Orwell, 1984

The post-truth era doesn’t only impact the view on learning approaches like Agile. It also gives a podium to people with unfriendly motives. This exists in all kinds of shapes and forms.

One way is an unfounded hating of Agile. Hate blogs, for instance, get far more reads than positive information. It seems that people love to hate. The internet is filled with articles and videos hating on Agile. When you read or view them though, they are often building a strawman, call it Agile and then criticize Agile unfounded.

I acknowledge Agile isn’t a magic solution, but unfounded criticism flooding the social networks is something else.

Another way is how snake oil salesmen dismiss Agile as something from the past, selling their next big thing. They gamble that no one will notice that this next big thing is nothing more than a watered-down version of Agile with many misunderstandings of the original and throwing in things that are popular today.

Then we have the billionaire bullies who force their people to work long hours, do what they tell them, however stupid the idea is, and dismiss anything resembling self-management. All the while presenting themselves as the greatest geniuses of the world, urging other so-called leaders to follow in their footsteps.

The post-truth era impacts us in many more ways that are more important than the state of Agile. It profoundly impacts us on a global scale, often in a scary way. I think we all have examples of this.

I can’t separate the lower popularity of Agile from the current post-truth era. For me, the only way to thrive is to embrace the truth, however uncomfortable it is. And be Agile and adapt to the truth. In every aspect of life.

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” - George Orwell, 1984

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