From Agile to {{AIgile}}: Updating the Manifesto for a Co-Creative Future
SERVICES METHOD BLOG Contact FR EN TESTIMONY CV X get started article Home > blog article From Agile to AIgile: Updating the Manifesto for a Co-Creative Future Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus ultrices erat ut ante fermentum, sed molestie tellus luctus. Donec et dignissim nunc. Morbi aliquet risus eu odio efficitur vehicula. Duis ac scelerisque quam, at placerat diam. “One day, we’ll realize the Agile Manifesto was to agility what training wheels are to cycling: a great starting point, but eventually limiting if never revisited.” This thought struck me during an agile coaching session that reminded me of what I described in “The Hidden Struggles of Agile Coaching”. The team was facing that uncomfortable silence after a powerful question—one of those moments that secretly makes every coach sweat. They were doing agile perfectly, every ceremony on point, but destabilized by how fast AI was reshaping their reality. I saw what I once called Scrum Theater, now with an AI twist: Perfect rituals Beautiful dashboards Yet a disconnect from real value creation Why AI Changes Everything The 2001 Agile Manifesto was groundbreaking. But it was written in a world without: ChatGPT GitHub Copilot AI writing production-level code ⚠️ Today, AI actively contributes to value creation. If we don’t update our frameworks, we’re not evolving. We’re pretending. 🔄 The AIgile Manifesto: The 4 Updated Values We value more the bold part rather than the left part: Individuals and their interactions (with or without AI) over processes, even automated ones, and AI tools Working software co-created over comprehensive documentation, even AI-generated Customer collaboration, AI-augmented or not over contract negotiation, even automated ones Responding to change over following a plan, even one predicted by AI 🧭 These values don’t reject AI—they place it where it belongs: a tool in service of humans, not a replacement. 🔄 The 10 Principles of AIgile Take an AI-augmented economic view Apply AI-assisted systems thinking Embrace variability with AI-enabled options Build incrementally with AI-enhanced feedback loops Base milestones on systems suggested by AI, validated by humans Visualize and limit WIP with AI insights Apply cadence and sync using AI Unlock intrinsic motivation, amplified by AI Decentralize decisions, enriched by AI data Organize around value with augmented teams 📌 AIgile in Practice In my work as a Professional Coach and Agile Coach, I’ve seen that the companies who thrive aren’t the most “agile” or the most “AI-savvy”. They’re the ones who integrate both harmoniously. This isn’t about “post-its and push-ups”. It’s a fundamental shift in how we create value in an AI-human world. Examples: Finance → Faster scenario analysis, human-led decisions Product → AI-generated mockups, human design leadership Engineering → Co-written code, human-led architecture 🧩 The AIgile Manifesto Doesn’t Replace — It Evolves The original Manifesto is not obsolete. It’s incomplete. Just as I warned about Scrum Theater (performing agility vs. being agile), we must now watch out for AI Theater: using tools without transforming how we create value. 👉🏽 The real question is no longer: “Are we agile?” It’s: “Are we AIgile?” ⁉️ Let’s Talk Is your organization still grounded in pre-AI agility? Are you starting to explore this new human-AI synergy? What’s challenging you at this frontier? 🧠 I’d love to hear your perspective. Leave a comment or reach out. 👋 I’m Salim — professional & agile coach. After 13+ years helping teams escape ceremonial agility, I now explore how we co-create with AI while keeping humans at the center. Curious? Let’s connect. Note: Sensitive souls, beware. 🎭 Welcome to the Scrum Theater: Where Agility Is Just an Illusion. “We’re agile—we do Scrum.” I hear this claim from organizations every week proudly checking all the Scrum boxes. Daily standups? every day… Sprint reviews? at the end of each sprint Jira dashboards? for sure, the scrum master is also administrator of JIRA… And yet, their teams are stuck. Value delivery is stagnant. Customer satisfaction isn’t improving. The same problems resurface sprint after sprint. They’re not doing Scrum. They’re performing it. 🎭 Welcome to the Scrum Theater, where every ceremony is flawlessly executed, yet real agility is nowhere to be found. For confidentiality reasons, I won’t name the real teams behind these stories and because I love Sherlock Holmes I will use his characters — but their struggles are very real. Let me tell you the story of three teams trapped in the grand illusion of agility… 🎬 Act I: The Perfect Ceremonies With Empty Outcomes What’s the biggest sign of Scrum Theater? Flawless execution of rituals that produce no tangible results. Take Sherlock Holmes’s team, often seen as the epitome of logic and reason. They were stumbling through Scrum, treating it like a performance, obsessed with following each ritual perfectly, yet missing the point entirely: Their standups lasted exactly 15 minutes. Their sprint reviews featured polished, rehearsed demos. Their retrospectives followed textbook formats, with colorful sticky notes. And yet: Blockers were mentioned in standups, but they never actually got resolved. The same issues appeared in every retrospective, unchanged. Customer feedback was collected—but never acted upon. Their velocity? Stagnant. Their team morale? Exhausted.😫 👉 The fix? We stopped measuring compliance with Scrum ceremonies and began measuring their actual impact. By tracking whether blockers were resolved and how many improvement actions were implemented after each retrospective, the results were clear. 📈 The result? They cut their ceremonies by 30%—and doubled the number of meaningful improvements delivered. And you: Have you ever found yourself playing a role in Scrum Theater? 🎬 Act II: The Data-Rich, Insight-Poor Information Radiators Some teams confuse metrics with meaning. Take Inspector Lestrade’s team. They had the most impressive Jira dashboards I’d ever seen! Truly a sight to behold: Burndown charts Cumulative flow diagrams Velocity trends and so on… They proudly displayed them on giant monitors! Managers were very impressed about that. Yet when I asked: Good job about your Graphs. Just a question: “What decisions have you made based on these charts in the past month?” 🫥 Silence. All the room went
“Agile Coach” — A role so misunderstood, even Professional Coaches are confused
“You’re an Agile Coach? So basically you just run meetings and stick post-its on walls?” I hear this often. Too often. Even a Professional Coach friend recently asked me what Agile Coaches actually do. Let me be brutally honest: If that’s what you think Agile Coaching is, you’re not just wrong — you’re actively harming your organization’s potential. Think I’m exaggerating? Let me show you what a real Agile Coach does. Not Your Scrum Master 2.0 Yes, we understand Scrum. Yes, we know SAFe. But if you think that’s what defines an Agile Coach, you’ve missed the point entirely. A Scrum Master ensures the process works. 🟣 An Agile Coach transforms how your entire organization thinks and operates. What We Really Do “Salim, what are you doing all day, because sometimes you aren’t in our team, or we haven’t seen you for a while…” One day could be: The Hard Truth ✔ Your certifications? Just a license to learn. ✔ Your processes? Often masks for deeper dysfunction. ✔ Your agile transformation? Possibly a theatre performance. I’ve seen: ✔ Teams with perfect ceremonies but zero value. ✔ Organizations celebrating velocity while losing market share. ✔ Leaders claiming agility while operating in command-and-control. Real Transformation A real Agile Coach doesn’t just make your meetings smoother. We: ✔ Challenge assumptions ✔ Transform mindsets ✔ Realign your organization ✔ Unlock real business value Let me give you a concrete example: An “agile” team came to me proud of their metrics: perfect rituals, high velocity, tool mastery. Problem? They hadn’t delivered anything meaningful in months. 👉 The fix? No new framework. No extra ceremonies. Instead, we: ✔ Confronted the fear of failure that was killing innovation ✔ Exposed the fake harmony hiding real conflict ✔ Reconnected the team with the actual value they were meant to deliver ✔ And more… 🎯 Result? They stopped doing agile. They started being agile. Want to dive deeper into the difference between performing agile and living it? Read my previous article “Scrum Theater: The Dark Side of Agile Performances” here. The Uncomfortable Truth If you think Agile Coaching is about post-its and meetings, you’re not just missing the point — you’re maintaining mediocrity. An Agile Coach is a transformation agent: We challenge, provoke, and shift the way your org works at its very core. Are you ready for real change — or just someone to run your stand-ups? 👇 Share your experience with Agile Coaching in the comments. Hi, I’m Salim — professional & agile coach helping teams break free from misunderstood agile coaching and unlock real organizational transformation.