When – When is Agile NOT like Zen

Much of Zen is about meditation, contemplation, and mindfulness.

But Agile is mostly focused on immediate action.

For new Agile activities we say “fail-fast, then learn”, “try it before you decide”, “inspect and adopt”, etc.

The Agile approach is to avoid procrastination at all costs by jumping into immediate action, then based on the results of the action (feedback), learning and adjusting the next iteration.

While in Zen, it is paramount to understand the current situation, environment, impacts, and future state, results, outcomes ... all to avoid any possibility of harm.

From this perspective, Agile and Zen are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

DONE.