The magic moment you are classified as agile

Bob Maksimchuk’s interesting article Are We Agile Yet discusses the problem with defining if you are agile enough.

We like categorizing stuff. Is it an A or a B? When something is somewhere in the middle, we struggle with it. But that magic moment when you are classified as agile does not exist. Perhaps there will be some test sometimes, with which you can be qualified as agile. But I hope not since I think it would be quite useless.

When someone asks if you’re agile, you can explain the problem by comparing with a similar question:

When is a person considered an adult?

The question is not that easy to answer. Yes, you could say that legally someone is adult by the age of 18 in Sweden. But that is in Sweden. And in certain circumstances. You can vote but not buy alcohol. And it’s even harder when you look at specific individuals. Is she an adult? What about him? And when did he become an adult? Again, it’s hard to be specific. And someone can be an adult in some aspects and still behave as a child in other situations. My mobile phone signal is the Star Trek The Next Generation communication signal. Childish, perhaps. But does this mean I’m not an adult? And if you look at people suffering from dementia and showing a behavior we consider childish, does this mean they are children?

As with the question of adulthood, the question of agility is a question of scale and aspect. Maksimchuk even offers examples of criteria. But as with adulthood, there are no strict rules of which criteria are useful in your environment.

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