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Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

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Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#81

Post by ternaryoperator »

gnaritas wrote: post #70
andrewbinstock wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure waterfall as it's depicted by Agile consultants was never a thing. Think about it, how could you possibly code an entire app and only then debug it? However, there was a waterfall-like process that was widely used. After getting the reqs and design in place, you started coding and you mostly coded. You would compile as you went along and made sure that your code worked on the handful of tests you put together as…

> Pure waterfall as it's depicted by Agile consultants was never a thing. Yes it was. > Think about it, how could you possibly code an entire app and only then debug it? Which is why programmers hate waterfall so much, but you're absolutely wrong to think this isn't exactly what was being attempted. Time and time again, management in an attempt to cut the cost of programming time, thought the way to do it was to firs…

"Pure waterfall as it's depitected by Agile consultants was never a thing."

This is correct.

The first paper to describe a stepwise model was by Royce in 1970 [1]. The model he is describing is hypothetical and does not use the term Waterfall.

The first use of the word "waterfall" (including the quotation marks) is from 1976 [2] and specifically refers to [1], the hypothetical model. In [2], the writers specifically state that "so few" projects fit this scheme.

If you were programming in the 80s and early 90s, you would know that no one in programming ever referred to a "waterfall" model.

Even Kent Beck's seminal book on XP, written in 2000, describes many failures of software development in those days, but he does not once use the word Waterfall.

So, in summary: the paper that supposedly describes it describes a hypothetical system; the paper that first uses the term mentions how little the model is used; the term wasn't used by people during the era it was supposedly most popular; and the folks who initiated the new generation of software dev don't refer to the model.

I think it's safe to say that it was not a thing. Or, to be more accurate, if it was a thing, it was never the thing it became until the Agile consultants used is as a strawman.

[1] http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/wate...

[2] https://goo.gl/eYLBN7

Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#82

Post by terryf »

jheriko wrote: post #48
jcrites wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The agile manifesto has plenty of problems that should be obvious with some thinking. Some of the statements are outright ludicrous and naive as much as others are valuable insights Are we talking about the same document? What are the problems and harmful aspects that you're referring to? (Please quote the relevant part) This comment feels either a bit like a content-free middlebrow dismissal, or we're referring to…

http://agilemanifesto.org/ http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html From the very first. > Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Have you seen this in practice and experienced how people work day-to-day? Leave them to their own devices and it varies a lot by personality. Some people need micro-management for instance... there is also thing that process is very important, and this point is self contra…

> ... and it varies a lot by personality ...

But that is the point of the sentence. A process does not care about individual variation. What the manifesto is saying is exactly what you are saying.

Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#83

Post by ktRolster »

barrkel wrote: post #56
voodootrucker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that in dynamic environments, the discipline necessary to properly practice scrum isn't really possible. It takes longer to define the requirements than it does to code, and once coded they change mid-sprint. The trouble with waterfall is that it tries to predict beyond the scope of a sprint, which just isn't valid. Project estimates are asymmetrical curves (likely poisson?) and you can't add them up a…

The trouble with waterfall is that it tries to predict beyond the scope of a sprint, which just isn't valid. This assertion is nonsense. There's nothing magical about a couple of weeks such that it forms a boundary outwith lie impossible predictions. The validity of predictions depend entirely on the understanding of the problem domain and the complexity of the solution space. The single biggest benefit from agile in…

And when agile is used in this way, not only can it be demoralizing

You can say that again.

Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#84

Post by ktRolster »

optforfon wrote: post #71
lostcolony wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the way I have always handled it - Product owners create stories. These are titled things like "As a (type of user), I want to be able to X". The point of the title is to determine who this actually benefits. Then, they attempt to define it with acceptance criteria. These are a list of "what does it mean to solve this need". Ideally, it implies a set of tasks, and gives a decent starting point for QA to start test…

Thanks for the explanation - that really clarified things for me. The breakdown between story, task, sprint and milestone is very interesting and well thought out. Good estimate generation is the holy grail

Good estimate generation is the holy grail

If estimating is what you want to learn, James Shore has some good posts on the topic:

http://www.jamesshore.com/Blog/Agile-and-Predictability.html

http://www.jamesshore.com/Agile-Book/estimating.html

Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#85

Post by terryf »

Clearly the article is just a thinly veiled advertisement, but leaving that aside:

Apparently the author hasn't really read the agile manifesto, because nowhere does it talk about scrum or sprints or xp or any of those things.

The agile manifesto is essentially a few sentences, that very eloquently say

"Don't be a dick and understand that the product people or customers don't really know what it's supposed to do either."

Much like the bible took Jesus's essential point "Don't be a dick." and wrapped a terrible mess of a system around it, the various agile methodologies have done the same, but the essential point of the manifesto is as relevant today as it was when it was invented.

(Note: I'm not actually religious, the Jesus thing was just a comparison)

Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#87

Post by x5n1 »

lsc wrote: post #76
coldtea wrote: post #44

"Continuous Delivery", huh? Yeah, let's replace one consulting fad (the 4 or 5th I've seen in my career, I entered when "Waterfall" was still in vogue, then XP, then Agile, some variations of each too) with another. How about this methodology: http://programming-motherfucker.com/

"Extreme Programming" always made me giggle. I mean, during that era, I was rarely seen without a can of mountain dew by my desk, but still.

Kent Beck who created much of XP, is quite sarcastic in what he writes at times. I think it's meant to be sort of sarcastic tongue and cheek sort of title so giggling at it is probably the right response. XP is not extreme at all, in fact it's quite reasonable.

Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#88

Post by dimino »

This declares Agile dead without explaining specifically why. From what I gather, Agile is "dead" because no one actually does Agile, and only takes the "grab bag" of Agile terms without going fully Agile.

If no one's doing Agile, how could it be dead, since it was never alive? Maybe we should start trying to actually "do" Agile, to see if it might work, since no one's ever tried it yet, according to this blog.

Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#89

Post by Bombthecat »

fleitz wrote: post #68
lostcolony wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It takes longer to define the requirements than it does to code, and once coded they change mid-sprint" I've experienced one -or- the other of those, rarely both. The only times I've experienced both were due to product owners who wanted to be managers, to bring 'leadership', and so insisted on wasting my time with meetings that didn't actually lead to well defined stories. If I've had a product owner who wasn't a w…

Yeah most user stories should actually read like this: As a product manager who hasn't spoken to any actual users, I'd like the following features to impress my boss. As a product manager who overheard a Sr Manager muttering something...

Holy smokes, that sounds all to familiar..

We recently lost two or three bigger costumers because of stuff like this.. No one talked to the actual users.. The program was full of functions, workflows and solving problems no user wanted to get solved.

They just never used the programs only for situations like : we have (another new useless feature, please test)

Re: Agile Is Dead, Long Live Continuous Delivery

#90

Post by WWKong »

There will be many comments pointing, "agile works great when implements the right way". While that might be true I'm willing to bet good money that agile has turned out to be really bad for 90%+ of the teams. I tried hard to save my org from agile and failed. Everything crashed and burned soon after.
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