The Agile Industrial Complex
- Darren Emery
- Jun 9
- 5 min read
Burn the Playbook: Reclaiming Agile from the Consultants
Agile began as a radical shift - a break from rigid, top-down control toward adaptive, principle-driven collaboration. But somewhere along the way, it got hijacked.
Today, it’s become an industrial complex: a bloated ecosystem of certifications, frameworks, and consultants selling ‘agility’ as a pre-packaged product. The spirit of Agile is suffocating under a mountain of playbooks and templates.
Here’s the real question: How did a philosophy rooted in pragmatism become so prescriptive?
And more importantly, how do we reclaim it?
The Agile Industrial Complex: When Mindsets Become Merchandise
As Agile gained popularity, so did the desire to package it. Frameworks like SAFe, Scrum at Scale, and others became the commercialised solution to organisational change. These frameworks promised predictability, scalability, and transformation - all neatly packaged in jargon-heavy formats that somehow made senior executives feel like they were buying a guarantee of success.
Here’s the problem: In their quest to commoditise agility, they often sidelined the core principles that made Agile transformative in the first place. Instead of fostering a mindset of experimentation and adaptation, companies were handed a playbook. And as any professional athlete will tell you, playbooks don’t win league titles, players do.
It’s like wandering through an agile ghost town - teams religiously perform stand-ups, sprint planning, and retrospectives, but it’s eerily quiet when it comes to delivering real value. The rituals are alive, but the outcomes are long buried.
Agile as a Thinking Model, Not a Framework
Dan North once noted that the real power of Agile is not in its rituals but in its principles. The problem is that too many organizations have been led to believe that implementing a framework is the same as being agile. It’s not; agility is an emergent property of how people think and work together - not how well they follow a prescribed process.
Agility is a mindset - one that encourages rapid learning, experimentation, and adaptability. It’s about principles, not prescriptions. Frameworks are fine - until they become the goal. When your teams are more worried about the next sprint planning than about delivering value, you’ve lost sight of what truly matters.
Practical takeaway: Make principles your anchor. Instead of evaluating your teams on how well they stick to a framework, assess how well they respond to change, collaborate, and deliver outcomes. Measure agility by adaptability, not by how strictly people follow the ritual playbook.
Agilicist: We’re Not Selling Agility - We Help You Build It
At Agilicist, we don’t arrive with a folder full of answers - we help your teams ask the right questions.
We’re not here to sell you a framework or camp out for two years.
Our focus is fast, pragmatic, and tailored to your reality. We strip away the complexity, amplify what already works, and help you build the capability to drive outcomes long after we’ve gone.
Agile isn’t something we do to you. It’s something we help you reclaim - and embed where it belongs: inside your teams, culture, and leadership habits.
Rebuilding from Principles
Imagine if we rebuilt Agile today. Would we start with frameworks and certifications, or would we start by asking: What problem are we trying to solve?
At Agilicist, we take a pragmatic approach: stripping back the layers of dogma and returning to core principles. Here’s how you can do the same:
Reframe Success: Stop asking, “Did we follow the framework correctly?” and start asking, “What customer problem did we solve this week?” Make this a weekly leadership check-in question to reorient teams towards outcomes.
Encourage Principle-Based Autonomy: Rather than mandating uniformity, give teams a few clear principles and the freedom to interpret them. Let them own the how.
Use Practices on Purpose: If a practice doesn’t directly help deliver value or reduce complexity, question its existence. Ceremonies should serve the work, not the other way around.
Burn the Playbook
Buying a framework is easy - that’s why the big consultancies are so keen to sell them. Recently, I heard about one of those major firms (you know, the one commonly referred to by three capital letters) trying to sell the Spotify Framework as part of a multi-million pound transformation to one of the largest UK banks. Luckily, a senior executive had the sense to point out that the Spotify Framework doesn’t actually exist - and promptly showed them the door.
Building a learning culture is hard. When your strategy for transformation looks like a checklist of “agile best practices,” you’re setting yourself up to miss the point.
The rise of the Agile Industrial Complex has led to a reactive approach to transformation. Leaders often fall into the trap of thinking that buying a framework equates to buying results. They purchase it, implement it, and then wonder why the promised transformation doesn’t materialise.
But here’s the truth: you can’t buy agility. You can’t certify your way to a culture of learning.
Practical takeaway: Before rolling out any agile framework, get your leadership team to answer these questions:
What outcomes are we actually trying to achieve?
How will this framework help us deliver value more effectively?
If this framework didn’t exist, what would we do differently?
If the answers sound vague or rely on statements like, ‘because that’s how the framework works,’ take that as a warning sign. It’s not just a red flag - it’s a signal to pause, reassess, and realign with principles before more time and resources are wasted.
Avoiding the Trap of Agile Theatre
The biggest challenge isn’t implementing a framework - it’s avoiding Agile Theatre. In a recent survey, executives expressed frustration that despite adopting agile frameworks, they didn’t see improved business outcomes. This disconnect often comes down to focusing on process adherence rather than genuine value creation.
When leaders rigidly follow frameworks without questioning their relevance, they unintentionally create Agile Theatre - where teams feel pressured to comply with rituals rather than focus on meaningful outcomes. It’s performance without purpose.
Practical takeaway: Conduct a quick pulse check. Ask a few delivery teams one simple question: Why are we doing it this way? If the answer is, “Because it’s in the framework,” dig deeper. Help them reconnect to the underlying principles.
The Path Forward: Principles at Scale
When scaling agile, resist the temptation to over-engineer the process and enforce uniformity. Think of it like coaching a football team. You don’t just hand players a manual on formations; you build a culture of awareness, anticipation, and adaptability. You develop players who can make decisions on the pitch - based on principles, not just rehearsed plays.
The same applies to large enterprises. Create an environment where strategic intent is clear, but how teams achieve it is flexible. Avoid the one-size-fits-all mentality and instead build an organisation with a shared understanding of the principles.
Practical takeaway: Set the expectation that teams will adapt their processes when context demands it. Hold them accountable for results, not rituals.
Reclaiming Agile: A Call to Action
If you’re leading a transformation, ask yourself:
Are we trying to buy agility, or are we cultivating it?
Are we focusing on principles or compliance?
Are we evaluating our success based on outcomes or rituals?
As a leader, your job isn’t to enforce Agile compliance - it’s to create a culture where principled adaptability thrives. Agile isn’t something you purchase; it’s a mindset you build. Burn the playbook, focus on outcomes, and give your teams the freedom to think, learn, and adapt.
Don’t let the industrial complex steal that from you. Own it.
