You agile people sure are a bunch of assholes

A couple of weeks ago I saw this tweet.

"Well they just don't understand the values of #Agile..."

Yeah, because companies are selling this. pic.twitter.com/aEQz4fDi5X

— Melissa Perri (@lissijean) November 30, 2016

I can understand Melissa's sentiment; the model is complicated and overwhelming. And indeed, the industry is full of people who identify themselves with a solution. People can tend to be myopic about their favorite solution and treat it like a panacea.

But that's not what is happening here. I'll explain shortly. First, I want to call out you assholes for what you did.

Melissa's tweet was perhaps sarcastic, but nothing compared to what was tweeted in the hours that followed.  Chris' model was compared to the Pentagon acquisition process.

Cf the Pentagon’s acquisition process @lissijean @harrisj pic.twitter.com/eXoaDHcJXk

— Bradley Peniston (@navybook) December 1, 2016

He was accused of peddling consulting ware that propagate the problem,

@anirudhbb @lissijean If you are not part of the solution there is a good chance you are making money from the problem :)

— Stacy Cashmore (@Stacy_Cash) December 1, 2016

And of course the general sarcasm was strong with the crowd.

@kaimarkaru @lissijean "give me something that looks like a box of crayons were dropped on an out of control spirograph."

— Adam Yuret (@AdamYuret) December 7, 2016

Some moderate voices contributed to the discussion.

@lissijean From what I can tell, the intention was to represent the landscape, though probably too complicated as an introduction

— Jason Yip (@jchyip) December 2, 2016

But at the end of the day the overwhelming tone was of ridicule.

@lissijean @pvm What the fuck is that mess?

— Jason Nellis (@jasonnellis) December 1, 2016

What I saw was people piling on and participating in online bullying. There is a person that created that model. He doesn't deserve the frothy rhetoric you guys threw at him. I know Chris. He is a person just like you and I. Sure, he's resilient and didn't get too upset by what happened online, but not everyone can handle bullying as well as he can.

Stop and think before you jump in next time.

Furthermore, the criticism aimed at Chris seems to be misdirected.  His London Underground model is presented in a blog post that was also shared on the day and in the context it was originally presented in, it makes good sense.

I wonder how many read the original article and saw the key idea giving context to the diagram;

"We like to conceptualise Agile as a highly interconnected landscape of practices transporting ideas across zones to value. There is no perfect starting point, nor an express line or a direct route suiting all conditions."

Essentially Chris agrees with the principles most of you critics threw at him; that each situation needs to be diagnosed and treated as a unique situation. He's just made the unfortunate mistake of highlighting the elaboration and complication of the agile landscape of 2016.

I wonder whether the rain of criticism showered on Chris is because he has in fact revealed the irony of the industry.