For 20+ years, I’ve watched people reduce Agile debates to Scrum-centric thinking, and now often to SAFe-centric thinking. But the real reference point is the Manifesto, not a framework. The 17 signers in Snowbird agreed on 4 Values and 12 Principles without naming an approach because they were not all coming from the same viewpoint. That matters, because the founding mix was broader than many people remember. By my count, the mix was something like 7 XP, 3 Scrum, 2 Crystal, and the rest from other adjacent frameworks.

Scrum was not the center of the story, only part of it.

This is why it is important to remember that Scrum is Agile, but Agile is not Scrum. Prescriptive Scrum can be a great place to start, but instead of assuming a graduation to SAFe (or some other scaled framework), your path might be better served by Kanban, Lean, XP, Crystal, or some blend of tools across several frameworks.

Your goal should be a fit-for-purpose solution for the environment you’re actually in.

This is one of the reasons I like to periodically revisit the Manifesto, especially when joining a new organization. A weekly lunch with interested Agile peers, working through one Value or Principle at a time, can create space for a deeper 30-minute discussion. What did this line mean when it was drafted, why was it written? What was the context back then? Does it still hold up? Should it evolve? How does it apply to our environment here?

It still surprises me how many people in those groups have never really stopped to ponder these ideas in their raw form.

Before you argue practices, spend some time with the principles.

When was the last time you and your team meditated on the Agile Manifesto?