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The Agile Fluency Model

martinfowler.com

41–50 of 112 posts

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#41

> Delivering teams deliver on the market cadence. "delivering teams deliver" -- got that. "... on the market cadence" -- err... market. cadence?

I think it means the teams deliver what the market wants in agile-pugilist speak (cadence of delivery is in sync with the cadence of changing requirements of market).

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#42
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consultants have taken over "Agile" No, what's happened is that BigCorp has decided to adopt Agile and won't adopt anything without a lot of instruction books and role descriptions. The consultants, at least the ones who know what they're doing, have been trying to fight this all along. It's the industry itself that continues to over-engineer everything it touches, from Javascript frameworks to development proces…

It isn't just a "BigCorp" organizational issue. You touched on it, but gently: developers share some blame here. There's a real anti-engineering bias in this industry. I mean engineering as it's practiced in other contexts. There is a process of design and analysis that is done before build and implementation starts that in this industry is considered wasteful or work to be done by lesser mortals who aren't smart eno…

> There's a real anti-engineering bias in this industry.

What we do is hardly real engineering in most cases. I don't mean medical or transportation systems. In BigCorp, most of us write line of business applications, which will generally speaking not directly kill anyone - unlike designing/engineering bridges, roof systems, etc.

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#43
post #21

I love this. "Is [Huge pile of recently promoted buzzwords] not the silver bullet you expected? We've got the answer: [A new pile of buzzwords]!" "Here are some charts and graphs and vague paragraphs to confuse you and intimidate you into hiring us as expert consultants!" It's sort of like the Nigerian email scam, in that they don't even try to hide the big piles of B.S. Anyone who makes it through this without rolli…

[deleted]

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#45
post #34

The problem with Agile is that it's a thing that only works with adult (of any age) programmers that have enough experience to be let loose and prosper. If you're going to pour Agile over chain gang junior sweatshops you're just doing cargo cult Agile. I think it's important that somebody starts thinking about what the best methodology for mediocre product managers for managing mediocre programmers is - and I say thi…

I was thinking the same thing about Extreme Programming in its day. Developers with the maturity, discipline and experience to employ the methodology don't really need it at all and those who need it don't have the capability to actually make it work. All that remains is cargo cult.

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#46
post #5

The consultants have taken over "Agile" and turned it into a process-heavy set of practices. Over the course of a 2 week sprint I spend more than 8 scheduled hours in various meetings (grooming, planning, scrums,etc.) http://programming-motherfucker.com/

The consultants have taken over "Agile" No, what's happened is that BigCorp has decided to adopt Agile and won't adopt anything without a lot of instruction books and role descriptions. The consultants, at least the ones who know what they're doing, have been trying to fight this all along. It's the industry itself that continues to over-engineer everything it touches, from Javascript frameworks to development proces…

[deleted]

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#47
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think we could draw a parallel between agile software development and the communist movement ?

why/how? Agile is based on decentralized decision making and is not very big on hierarchy - the exact opposite of communism. Not everything that has a manifesto is communist related.

You should look up the original meaning of “soviet”.

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#48
post #40
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just a "BigCorp" organizational issue. You touched on it, but gently: developers share some blame here. There's a real anti-engineering bias in this industry. I mean engineering as it's practiced in other contexts. There is a process of design and analysis that is done before build and implementation starts that in this industry is considered wasteful or work to be done by lesser mortals who aren't smart eno…

I am honestly having trouble parsing through how you simultaneously accuse engineers of being too lazy to use process and then agreeing that there is too much process. I don't engineer as other engineering disciplines do, because my world is not like other engineering disciplines. If architects could push a button and see a skyscraper built in five minutes, then push another button to tear it down and build it with a…

I'm not accusing anyone of being lazy, rather inappropriately arrogant and consequently ignorant. Also, I don't agree there's too much process. I think there's too much bad process that isn't recognized as either bad or process.

I strongly disagree with this: "As the characteristics of software are added to other engineering fields, they start engineering more like us, because that's the right answer." It's the wrong answer, and we get things like these recent Tesla and Uber incidents because of this attitude.

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In agile are you permanently in a sprint? When one sprint ends you start a new one, right? That's insane - you can't sprint all your life.

Which is precisely why there is a break between sprints, for planning and downtime...

That's funny, in all of the places I have worked the sprint ends on a Friday and the next one starts on Monday. I want one of these sprint breaks.

Re: The Agile Fluency Model

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In agile are you permanently in a sprint? When one sprint ends you start a new one, right? That's insane - you can't sprint all your life.

Which is precisely why there is a break between sprints, for planning and downtime...

But isn't that "break" usually just a weekend?
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