The Empire Strikes Back: The End of Agile as we Know it?

Agile methods have co-evolved with the onset of rapid change andturbidity in software and systems development and the methodologies andprocess models designed to guide them. Conceived from the lessons of practice,Agile methods brought a balanced perspective between the intensions of thestakeholder, the management function, and developers. As an evolutionaryprogression, trends towards rapid continuous delivery have witnessed theadvent of DevOps where advances in tooling, technologies, and theenvironment of both development and consumption exert a new dynamic intothe Agile oeuvre. We investigate the progression from Agile to DevOps from aCritical Social Theoretic perspective to examine a paradox in agility – whatdoes an always-on conceptualization of production forestall and impinge uponthe processes of reflection and renewal that are also endemic to Agile methods?This paper is offered as a catalyst for critical examination and as an overt call toaction to engage in emancipatory scholarship in advocacy for the Agiledevelopment team. Under threat of disenfranchisement and relegation toautomation, we question how a tilt towards DevOps will preserve key elementsin the tenets and principles of the Agile methods phenomenon