Ask 10 different developers, Agile salesmen, and product owners and you'll get 10 different explanations of what Agile is.

Occasionally you'll come across somebody with a healthy dose of skepticism.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5406384

I think a lot of people are conflating Agility with SCRUM. If you look at the official SCRUM guide, you'll find ZERO references to agility. And if you look at the original Agile Manifesto, you'll find ZERO references to stories, sprints, story points, velocity, standups or any other thing that we consider agile.

For me, the essence of agility is: break down large projects into smaller and smaller projects until the "mini-project" becomes simple enough for you to execute. But each such mini-project must delivery something that works. Also, don't show documents about the software, show the software.

That is an excellent comment, thanks for sharing.

I believe the agile manifesto was written by smart people that knew what they're talking about. But what is known today as agile has nothing to do with what they really meant.

The agile manifesto says "working software over comprehensive documentation", but in practice, all agile projects I have seen put more emphasis on project documentation than working software: kanban boards, sprint burndown charts, the backlog, project planning documents... that's documentation.

The manifesto also mentions "individuals and interactions over processes and tools". Standup meetings, sprint planning, sprint retrospectives, etc. are processes. And agile practitioners I have met put more emphasis on those rather than doing something in the spirit of the manifesto, which is using reason and logic to collaboratively find solutions.