Why Europeans Reject Their Own Tech Innovations But Worship Americans’A British Pioneer’s 30-Year Journey Through the European Inferiority Complex

The current wave of anti-American sentiment—really anti-Trump sentiment—feels familiar to me. After 53 years in software development, I’ve watched this pattern repeat itself for decades. It’s become such old hat. What makes this ironic is how it contrasts with Europeans’ continued looking up to American influence in technology, including my own experience with what would later be called Agile software development.

Seven Years Before Snowbird

Back in 1994, seven years before the infamous gathering at Snowbird ski resort resulted in the Agile Manifesto, I was developing my own approach. It was a Briish version of what would later be called Scrum. We called it Jerid (now Javelin), developed independently of any American work—or even the original Japanese ideas from Takeuchi and Nonaka’s 1986 ‘The New New Product Development Game’.

The foundational concepts of ‘Snowbird Agile’ weren’t American at all—they came from Japanese manufacturing insights about rugby-style team approaches. Yet here I was, a Brit, independently developing similar collaborative methods. Americans would later brand and package what had Japanese origins and European development.

Whilst managers on both sides of the Atlantic were still forcing waterfall methods and heavy processes on their development teams, we were pioneering collaborative approaches that emphasised attending to real human needs.

The Support That Never Came

Did I get support from my fellow Europeans for this early work? Not on your nelly. Although, to be fair, I was operating under the radar until around 2000. I preferred to be doing the work, at the coalface, rather than talk and write about it.

When I did start sharing around 2000—still a year before Snowbird—the response was scepticism, indifference, and institutional resistance. European software companies were comfortable with their (lame) established processes. The idea that we needed to rethink how we approached software development was met with the same enthusiasm typically reserved for a bath in dog sick.

The very principles I had been advocating were being dismissed as ‘too informal’, ‘lacking rigour’, or simply ‘not how we do things here’.

The Psychology of European Tech Looking-Up-To-America

Here’s an extraordinary case study in how European thinking works when it comes to American influence in computing.

1986: Japanese scholars Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka publish ‘The New New Product Development Game’. This introduces novel concepts about rugby-style team collaboration, later to influence Scrum (Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber).

European response: Ignored.

1994: I independently develop Jerid (now Javelin), using these same collaborative principles.

European response: Rejected. ‘Not how we do things here.’

2001: Americans gather at Snowbird and package these globally-sourced concepts into the ‘Agile Manifesto’.

European response: Immediate, enthusiastic developer adoption. ‘We must implement American Agile practices!’

The same Europeans that had spent fifteen years ignoring Japanese innovation and rejecting the new British approach suddenly discovered these ideas were brilliant—the moment they carried American branding.

This isn’t just ‘not invented here’ syndrome. This is specifically ‘not invented by Americans’ syndrome. Europeans showed they would rather ignore breakthrough thinking from Japan (much the same as with Lean) and reject British innovation than risk appearing presumptuous about trailblazing in technology.

The message was clear: Only Americans have the authority to say what computing methods are good. Even when the ideas originated in Japan. Even when Europeans developed them independently. Even when the evidence was right in front of them for years.

Why Europeans Need American Permission

Thomas Kuhn’s work explains what happened. European institutions couldn’t recognise a big change when it emerged from within their own context. They needed outside approval from what they saw as the top authority—American software development culture.

Europeans have a massive feeling of being inferior to Americans, especially when it comes to computers.

Beyond Even the Original Innovation

I wouldn’t even use Javelin today. I learned much with its help, but I’ve moved beyond it. I’ve developed elements of a more people-oriented approach – such as: the Antimatter Principle, FlowChain, Prodgnosis / FlowGnosis, and Quintessence. These build on Javelin’s fundamental principles whilst addressing the people orientation that Agile’s industrialisation completely abandoned.

European organisations are still implementing corrupted versions of 30-year-old thinking that they initially rejected. Actual innovation has moved decades beyond where they’re trying to catch up. They’re not just behind where I was in 1994—they’re still catching up to where I was in 1994.

The European feeling of being inferior cost them the opportunity to participate in the entire evolution of human-centred development approaches. Whilst they were waiting for American approval of ideas they’d already rejected, the real work continued elsewhere.

The American Brand, European Complicity

Anti-Trump sentiment won’t solve this europeans looking-up-to-America problem. Political feelings about America are separate from Europeans’ need to follow Americans’ lead in software development. European organisations implemented American Agile processes just as enthusiastically as anyone else, not because of American political influence, but because of their ingrained belief that Americans know better when it comes to technology.

Today’s anti-Trump sentiment makes this even more ironic. Europeans can maintain strong political criticisms of American leadership whilst simultaneously following American leadership for software development methods. And given the anti-human direction of Trump’s America, this becomes yet more ironic, and disturbing. Europeans continue seeking validation from an american tech culture increasingly moving away from human-centred values.

The real enemy isn’t American political influence. It’s Europeans’ collective willingness to mistake American tech branding for being inherently superior.

What This Means

As someone who lived through the birth of Agile methods from a European perspective—whilst working independently of both Japanese origins and American development—I know that the value of an idea isn’t determined by its passport. Neither is it determined by its popularity or market success. Despite what rent-seeking consulting companies might opine

The Agile principles we developed in 1994 were sound because they connected technical work with human purpose. Agile became corrupted not because Americans touched it, but because we all allowed market forces to transform human-centred practices into consultant-centred industries. This happened regardless of whether those practices had Japanese, European, or American origins.

The current anti-Trump sentimentt reveals how Europeans can dislike American politics whilst still thinking Americans know best about technology. They still wait for American leadership before embracing new ideas.

The implications are worth considering. When institutions consistently dismiss local innovation whilst embracing identical ideas with foreign branding, what does that say about their ability to recognise value? When political independence coexists with technological subservience, what opportunities are being missed? When developers wanted to make a difference through software but got redirected into process optimisation, what problems remain unsolved?

Further Reading

Beck, K., Beedle, M., van Bennekum, A., Cockburn, A., Cunningham, W., Fowler, M., Grenning, J., Highsmith, J., Hunt, A., Jeffries, R., Kern, J., Marick, B., Martin, R. C., Mellor, S., Schwaber, K., Sutherland, J., & Thomas, D. (2001). Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Agile Alliance. https://agilemanifesto.org/

Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press.

Takeuchi, H., & Nonaka, I. (1986). The new new product development game. Harvard Business Review, 64(1), 137-146.

The author has 53 years of software development experience and in 1994 created Jerid (now Javelin), a version of what 7 years later became known as the Agile approach to software development. He continues to write about the disconnection between technical work and human purpose, albeit to little avail, but persists.