An Agile method is an iterative and collaborative approach, able to take into account the initial needs of the client and those related to evolutions. It characterizes a mode of management of the IT projects favoring the dialogue between all the stakeholders, customers, users, developers and other professionals of the project, the flexibility in progress, the ability to modify the plans and the speed of delivery.

Most of the fastest growing companies on the planet: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Microsoft are recognized as agile in most of their businesses, even if they do not use Agile vocabulary standard. Their business agility is an important reason why they have become the most valuable companies in the world.

However, in view of the conclusion of a recent article in Forbe.com, we would have arrived at the end of the Agile method with its basic principle of proposing a minimal version of the software, then to integrate additional functionalities to this base , by iterative process. “This is not the miracle solution that some claim, and it has become a kind of religion,” says science writer Kurt Cagle.

“Agility does not always fit well.” Integration dependencies are often not tracked, but this is usually one of the most variable aspects of any software development. Enterprise data projects, in particular, do not meet the criteria to be good agile candidates.

In many ways, we are moving out of the age of application development. Applications are thinner, mostly Web-based, where connectivity to enterprise data will be more important than complex client-based features. This is also true for mobile applications: more and more, apps for smartphones and tablets are designed around mobile HTML, a radical change from the time of the launch of Agile.

Contrary to the ideas supported in the Forbes article published by Kurt Cagle, Steve Denning, writer and popular columnist on leadership seems to think quite the opposite. “My own research over the last ten years suggests exactly the opposite: the future of Agile is just beginning.”