Agency is the capacity, condition, or state of acting or exerting power. In Agile, Scrum, DevOps, and organisational change, it means the ability to act with autonomy, intentionality, and accountability toward meaningful goals within socio-technical environments.
- Agency is essential for self-management, the foundation of Scrum as a social technology.
- Agency enables Developers to deliver value, Scrum Masters to coach organisational evolution, and Product Owners to maximise product outcomes.
- Without agency, accountability is a lie. You cannot be accountable for what you have no authority to influence.
If you do not cultivate agency, you are not doing Scrum, Agile, or DevOps. You are simply performing rituals, undermining any hope of empirical improvement.
Agentic Agility is the expression of agency, human or AI, within socio-technical environments. It is the ability to take intentional, adaptive action to improve outcomes and align with evolving goals.
It transforms passive responsiveness into purposeful intervention.
Without agency, Agile collapses into hollow ceremony. With it, both people and systems can deliberately shape value delivery.
Two Expressions of Agentic Agility
| Human Agency | AI Agency |
|---|
| Judgement and social contract | Predefined logic and monitored feedback loops |
| Learns by transforming beliefs | Learns by refining models |
| Driven by intent and values | Driven by objectives and thresholds |
Human Agentic Agility
Emerges through intent, accountability, and reflection. It demands practitioners challenge assumptions, adapt priorities, and reshape mental models through double-loop learning.
AI Agentic Agility
Operates through constrained autonomy. AI optimises actions based on data signals, adjusts within predefined parameters, and escalates or recommends based on predictive models.
Humans act with discernment. AI acts within constraints.
Why Agentic Agility Matters
- Humans without agency become compliant executors.
- AI without designed agency becomes uncontrolled or inert.
- Socio-technical environments without embedded agency default to bureaucracy or chaos.
Agentic Agility is the missing lever for adaptive organisations.
It empowers practitioners to evolve not just what they deliver, but how they work, ensuring agility remains a living, resilient capability, not a hollow label.
