Tailoring Agile to the Real World: Any Tool Can Be a Hammer

In the world of Agile, one size hardly ever fits all, and honestly, it shouldn’t.

I have long believed (and I am sure I picked this up from someone smarter than me) that Agile is more a mindset than a methodology. It is not a religion or a rigid framework; it is a way of thinking. A toolkit. And like any good toolkit, you don’t need to use every tool for every job.

When you’re fixing a car or building a cabinet, you grab the tools that match the task. The same goes for Agile. You don't reach for Scrum just because it’s trendy. You use it if sprint planning and time-boxed cadences make sense for your goals. If you're in a regulatory-heavy space like cannabis, pharma, or aerospace, maybe Kanban, or better yet, a hybrid model tailored to testing cycles, review boards, and compliance checkpoints, is what works.

That doesn’t mean you're "less Agile." It means you are becoming more effective.

I used to work in oil and gas, and I remember seeing a guy use a Crescent wrench as a hammer. When I asked him why, he shrugged and said, “Any tool is a hammer if you hit hard enough.” It was funny and kind of true, but also a cautionary tale. Just because you can force a tool to work doesn’t mean it’s the best way to get the job done.

So why do so many organizations treat Agile frameworks like gospel?

Teams often adopt Scrum or SAFe because it is popular among the big players or because they read about it in a book. However, they are often surprised when standups feel performative, backlogs become stale, and the burndown charts never really "burn."

That is not an Agile failure. That is a tailoring failure.

Agile should serve you, not the other way around.

What actually works in the real world?

• In cannabis and CPG? Tie your cadence to product review boards, marketing launches, and seasonal shelf resets.

• In healthcare? Sync with clinical trial timelines, stakeholder check-ins, and risk-based compliance gates.

• In tech? Optimize for learning cycles, pilot feedback, and customer adoption velocity, not just sprint velocity.

It’s all about context. As PMI’s own Disciplined Agile puts it: “Choose your WoW (Way of Working).” That’s not just a tagline. It’s a license to build what works for you and evolve it over time.

Agile isn’t just about sprints or stories; it’s about adaptability.

We have a responsibility to create ways of working that truly reflect the environment and conditions our teams face daily. Instead of trying to impose a one-size-fits-all model that may have been successful for a startup unicorn in Silicon Valley, we should develop flexible, adaptable approaches tailored to our specific context. This ensures our teams are empowered and supported in a way that aligns with their real-world experiences and challenges.

So yes, any tool can be a hammer. But great leaders know when to swing and when to grab the socket wrench instead.