Game Theory, Machiavelli, and the Great Agile Civil War of 2025

Robust Theme

Take our Quiz and determine your training path!
"

Game Theory, Machiavelli, and the Great Agile Civil War of 2025

The Journey Beyond "Transformation"

By: Kumar Dattatreyan

The agile community is in an uproar. The Agile Alliance has joined forces with PMI (Project Management Institute), and you'd think someone just announced that Scrum now requires filling out TPS reports in triplicate. But before we grab our pitchforks or start passive-aggressively updating our Jira statuses, let's examine this through some fascinating lenses: game theory, Machiavellian strategy, and the nature of building adaptive capabilities.

How Politics Entered the Chat

It started in a seemingly innocent workplace chat thread. Someone dropped what felt like a philosophical bomb:

"Assumptions: Achieving a state of agility, or maybe better yet a state of flow, is personal. Assumption: the personal is political Thus: agility is political"

As someone who's spent years helping organizations evolve, this struck a chord. The connection to feminist theory's "the personal is political" was particularly intriguing. It reminded me of my work with Peter Merel on XSCALE, where we often discussed the Prisoner's Dilemma in the context of organizational change. And as the chat thread evolved (as they often do), someone mentioned Machiavelli, and suddenly the pieces started falling into place.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized these frameworks - game theory, Machiavellian strategy, feminist theory - might offer fresh insights into why building adaptive capabilities is so challenging, and why this PMI-Agile Alliance merger has everyone talking.

First, let's address the elephant in the room. We need to move past the notion of "Agile Transformation" - it's a term that suggests a finite change with a clear endpoint. Organizations aren't caterpillars waiting to become butterflies; they're complex adaptive systems that need to continuously evolve their capabilities to respond to change. Building adaptive capabilities is a journey, not a destination.

The Prisoner's Dilemma of Building Adaptive Capabilities

Picture this: Two coaches are locked in separate rooms (or more realistically, separate Zoom breakout rooms). Each has a choice: stick to "pure" agile principles or adapt to incorporate diverse approaches to building organizational adaptivity. If they both stay "pure," they maintain their ideological integrity but limit their impact. If they both adapt, they can influence a broader audience but risk diluting their message. If one adapts while the other remains pure, the adapter gains widespread influence while the purist becomes increasingly isolated.

Sound familiar? It's the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, but instead of prison sentences, we're dealing with how organizations learn to adapt and thrive.

Machiavelli's Guide to Building Adaptive Capabilities

Let's channel our inner Machiavelli. In "The Prince," he wasn't writing a manual for tyranny - he was providing a brutally realistic playbook for leading through turbulent times. For those helping organizations build adaptive capabilities, his insights are surprisingly relevant and refreshingly honest.

The Prince's Tool Kit for Building Adaptive Capabilities

Modern leaders can learn from Machiavelli's strategic wisdom:

Build Your Fortune ("Fortuna")

  • Create opportunities by identifying organizational pain points
  • Time major changes to align with business cycles and organizational readiness
  • Use small wins to build momentum for larger changes

Develop Your Virtue ("Virtù")

  • Master both agile principles and organizational dynamics
  • Build coalitions across different organizational factions
  • Know when to be flexible and when to stand firm

Manage Your Image

  • Demonstrate competence through consistent delivery
  • Be visible and engaged, especially during difficult transitions
  • Own failures openly while sharing success widely

The Art of Strategic Compromise

Machiavelli understood that effective leaders must sometimes make strategic compromises without compromising their core principles. In building adaptive capabilities, this means:

  • Adapting practices to organizational constraints while preserving values
  • Finding ways to demonstrate value within existing organizational metrics
  • Building bridges between different approaches rather than forcing false choices

On Leading Through Uncertainty

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." This could be the motto of every leader building adaptive capabilities. The key is to:

  • Maintain strategic clarity while being tactically flexible
  • Build resilient support networks across the organization
  • Stay focused on outcomes rather than methodological purity

On Power and Influence

When Machiavelli wrote, "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both," he was making a subtle point that modern leaders should understand: respect and competence outweigh popularity. In building adaptive capabilities, this means:

  • Making difficult choices that serve long-term adaptability over short-term comfort
  • Maintaining consistent principles while being flexible in approach
  • Building respect through results rather than seeking universal approval

On Managing Evolution

"The innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new." This perfectly describes the challenge of organizational evolution:

  • Those comfortable with current practices may resist building new capabilities
  • Potential beneficiaries often remain skeptical until they experience the benefits
  • Even supporters may hedge their bets, waiting to see if the changes will stick

A Modest Proposal for the Agile Civil War

So, PMI and Agile Alliance are joining forces. Is this agile's "dark side" moment, or is it more like when the Avengers teamed up with former enemies to face a bigger threat? (Technical debt, I'm looking at you.)

Here's what makes this merger fascinating: while we've been debating methodology purity, most organizations have already been living in a hybrid world. PMI brings decades of experience in organizational change and governance, while the Agile Alliance brings deep expertise in adaptive planning and iterative delivery. Together, they might actually crack the code of building sustainable adaptive capabilities.

Sure, there are risks. Cultural clashes are inevitable when you mix PMI's structured certification world with Agile Alliance's community-driven approach. It's like your straight-laced cousin marrying a free-spirited artist – could be beautiful, could be chaos, probably both. And yes, there's legitimate concern about bureaucracy impeding adaptivity.

But here's the thing: mindset transcends methodology. The best leaders I know focus on building their organization's capacity to adapt and learn, regardless of which framework they use. Maybe this merger isn't a threat to agility, but rather an opportunity to evolve our own understanding of how organizations can become more adaptive.

The Politics of Flow

Here's where it gets interesting. Flow states - those magical moments of peak productivity - are deeply personal. But as the feminist movement taught us, "the personal is political." Your ability to achieve flow in an organization is inextricably linked to power structures, company culture, and, yes, methodology frameworks.

The Game Theory of Coexistence

Remember our two coaches in their Zoom breakout rooms? The real solution isn't about choosing between purity and adaptation - it's about finding ways to create new game dynamics altogether. Instead of a zero-sum game, what if we treated this as an opportunity to expand the playing field?

Moving Forward: The Politics of Possibility

The real opportunity isn't about choosing between agile purity and project management pragmatism. It's about understanding that building adaptive capabilities has always been a political act - in the best sense of the word. It's about coalition-building, influence, and yes, occasionally making strategic compromises to achieve greater goals.

The Bottom Line

Whether you're an agile purist, a PMI devotee, or somewhere in between, the key is to remember that frameworks are just tools. The mindset - of continuous learning, of meeting reality where it is, of building the capacity for change - that's what really matters.

Besides, if we're truly focused on adaptivity, shouldn't we be willing to evolve our own approach to helping organizations thrive?

Your turn: How are you approaching the journey of building adaptive capabilities in your organization? Are you seeing the PMI-Agile Alliance merger as a threat or an opportunity? Share your thoughts in the comments below, or schedule some time with me; let's talk!

 

Subscribe To Newsletter