When Agile Is Not Good Enough - An Initial Attempt at Understanding How to Make the Right Decision

Sep 12, 2026

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Particularly over the last decade, Agile has drawn both strong enthusiasm and substantial criticism, often tied to insufficient understanding rather than a rigorous, well-informed decision process. The paper analyzes the dual nature of anti-Agile arguments and organizes them into a critical taxonomy of risk factors. Based on this taxonomy, it proposes a decisional model and an online supporting tool. The tool provides guidelines to help software engineers and stakeholders evaluate the suitability and criticalities of Agile methods through community contributions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time4 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

State of the Art

Context: Criticism on Agile as a myth

Risk Factors and Critical Taxonomy

Decisional Model and Experimental Tool

Guidelines for Tool Usage

Authors: Vito Veneziano*, Austen W. Rainer** and Sheraz Haider****, ** School of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire College Lane Campus AL10 9AB, Hatfield (UK)*[v.veneziano@herts.ac.uk](v.veneziano@herts.ac.uk), +44 (0) 1707 284363 (Corresponding author) **[a.w.rainer@herts.ac.uk](a.w.rainer@herts.ac.uk), +44 (0) 1707 284763 ***The IMC Group Ltd Unit 8-9, Pendle house SG6 1SP, Letchworth Garden City (UK) ***[s.haider@the-imcgroup.com](s.haider@the-imcgroup.com), +44 (0) 1462 688070 ext. 123 Title: When Agile Is Not Good Enough: an initial attempt at understanding how to make the right decision Abstract: Particularly over the last ten years, Agile has attracted not only the praises of a broad range of enthusiast software developers, but also the criticism of others. Either way, adoption or rejection of Agile seems sometimes to be based more on a questionable understanding than on a critical, well-informed decision making process. In this paper, the dual nature of the above criticism is discussed, and the arguments against Agile have been classified within a critical taxonomy of risk factors. A decisional model and tool based on such taxonomy are consequently proposed for supporting software engineers and other stakeholders in the decision-making about whether or not to use Agile. The tool, which is freely available online, comes with a set of guidelines: its purpose is to facilitate the community of software developers to contribute to further assessing the potential and the criticalities of Agile Methods. Keywords: Agile, Criticism, Process Models, Decision-Making, Software Engineering, Critical Taxonomy 1. INTRODUCTION Software engineering, like any other human activity, is not immune from accepting and adopting approaches and paradigmsin a manner that, in other contexts, people wouldn't hesitate to label as "fashionable" and "trendy" those who follow it. On the same dimension, but with much less levity, adherence to such paradigms can easily become a matter of "orthodoxy","good practice", "standards" . In the recent past, just to mention one example, object-orientation has established such a culturally dominant paradigm within which to develop software systems, that very few practitioners and academics would feel confident enough in suggesting or pursuing alternative approaches to programming, even when there might be scope for such 1. Similarly, Agile is currently becoming the approach to follow in software engineering. As the heirs of Toyota Production System (TPS) and lean-manufacturing2, Agile Methods implement a set of principles and practices, which aim at optimizing efforts and resources whilst attaining fast, effective programming outcomes. Both the approach and the methods do not come without criticism. Two arguments are usually set out against Agile: the one based on a critical analysis of the several contradictions that are inherent, although often left unacknowledged, in Agile itself, and that aims at depicting it as a myth; and the one grounded on the specific issues that could affect the suitability of adopting Agile for developing given software systems in certain contexts or against certain constraints. In the next section of this paper, these two kinds of criticism will be considered and discussed in some detail. In the third section, a number of issues, which are considered to be risk factors, will be grouped in a critical taxonomy. This relates to the second argument against use of Agile. Next, a hypothetical decisional model based on the critical taxonomy of the identified risk factors is identified. An experimental tool is then derived and defined, aimed at informing practitioners ’ decisions on whether an agile method is the most suitable for their project. The tool is a questionnaire with weighted answers implementing the decisional model. In the fifth and final section, after a short description of how such a tool has been used and could lead to the dec

FAQs

Why is Agile adoption or rejection often considered a questionable decision process?

Because the decision is sometimes based on an inadequate understanding of Agile rather than on a critical, well-informed evaluation process.

How does the paper handle criticisms of Agile?

It discusses the dual nature of criticisms and classifies arguments against Agile into a critical taxonomy of risk factors.

What is the proposed decisional model and tool for?

It supports software engineers and stakeholders in deciding whether Agile should be used for a specific project, implemented as a questionnaire with weighted answers and guidelines.

Sep 12, 2026

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