Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 420 posts

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#51

Post by nosianu »

tootie wrote: post #47
nosianu wrote: post #33

"Thou shalt not be negative" (HN) - well I'm sorry. Just some example text: > both Agile and Waterfall are focused on building. Design is about validating. or > So…what’s the way out? It’s a smart focus on clear outcomes, not output, with roadmapped outcomes replacing planned milestones, with trusted product teams, not project teams, empowered to vet assumptions and discover the minimal path to value. Satire? Enough…

Honestly that statement is the nail on the head for me. There's a huge distinction between an output and an outcome and a huge distinction between a project plan and a road map.

> between an output and an outcome and a huge distinction between a project plan and a road map.

I mention neither of those.

I'm not complaining about your reply, I think it shows how those texts are (to be?) used: Just like art. You project your own experiences into it, it's more about getting you to think. So naturally different people are going to react differently and read different things into the same text. That's perfectly alright - you get something out of it (only) if you put something in. If there is nothing to begin with, which may just be lack of experience (new programmer), you'll get less out of it. If you have two decades large project experience in various companies and teams you'll get a lot out of it. Let's attempt to make the best out of it then, out of any text, if we are presented with that opportunity and the headline got us to click on it :-)

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#52

Post by duchenne »

commandlinefan wrote: post #10

You don’t hear the name Joel Spolsky much any more, but he was pretty influential in software process thinking in the 90’s - not really for being particularly insightful or original, but more because he was one of the first people who thought of writing a blog about software design. One of his early “observations” about software project management was that “you wouldn’t buy a pair of jeans without knowing how much th…

As a consumer, I can buy an already manufactured pair of jeans or an already programmed Adobe Photoshop for a fixed price.

As a producter, the cost of building a jeans factory does not seem to be inherently more predictable than the budget of a software development project.

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#53

Post by xfitm3 »

quadcore wrote: post #13

Agile never gave organizations a holistic, viable alternative to Waterfall. Because there’s a difference between theory and practice. Product work is more about practice. When we complain about “AINO” (Agile In Name Only), we’re not being honest with ourselves. I agree with most of the article. Specially the keep-learning part. All Agile did was put software development teams unfairly under a microscope. I believe Ag…

I was interested in comp sci precisely because I didn't have to talk to people, an area where every interaction is a performance. I want to be alone - what's so wrong with that?

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#55

Post by ghostpepper »

duchenne wrote: post #52
commandlinefan wrote: post #10

You don’t hear the name Joel Spolsky much any more, but he was pretty influential in software process thinking in the 90’s - not really for being particularly insightful or original, but more because he was one of the first people who thought of writing a blog about software design. One of his early “observations” about software project management was that “you wouldn’t buy a pair of jeans without knowing how much th…

As a consumer, I can buy an already manufactured pair of jeans or an already programmed Adobe Photoshop for a fixed price. As a producter, the cost of building a jeans factory does not seem to be inherently more predictable than the budget of a software development project.

I think, to take this analogy a step further, you need to make sure your manager realizes the factory is not built yet.

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#56

Post by 0815test »

quadcore wrote: post #13

Agile never gave organizations a holistic, viable alternative to Waterfall. Because there’s a difference between theory and practice. Product work is more about practice. When we complain about “AINO” (Agile In Name Only), we’re not being honest with ourselves. I agree with most of the article. Specially the keep-learning part. All Agile did was put software development teams unfairly under a microscope. I believe Ag…

> > All Agile did was put software development teams unfairly under a microscope.

Most managers crave control over their teams; this is not something that Agile introduced. If anything, Agile let them use the sort of control they were already demanding towards more useful and productive goals, by introducing bazaar-like practices to centralized software development (release early, release often; shorten feedback loops as much as possible; make extensive use of refactoring, software testing and XP principles); while at the same time not being altogether incompatible with self-organizing development teams (these were mentioned in the original Agile manifesto, after all).

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#57

Post by couchand »

One of the most useful segments of the article:

> So find a good booklist. Follow some good blogs. Here’s a start: If you haven’t read Sense & Respond, Lean Enterprise, A Seat at the Table, and Everyone Is a Change Agent, I suggest you do so pronto. Your leaders too.

I'd add Peopleware to that list.

> Start reading posts by John Cutler, Melissa Perri, Bob Marshall, Allen Holub, Laura Klein, Erika Hall, Neil Killick, and branch out from there.

Anyone care to add their own handful of books and bloggers to these recommendations?

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#58

Post by kjsbfkjbf »

xfitm3 wrote: post #53
quadcore wrote: post #13

Agile never gave organizations a holistic, viable alternative to Waterfall. Because there’s a difference between theory and practice. Product work is more about practice. When we complain about “AINO” (Agile In Name Only), we’re not being honest with ourselves. I agree with most of the article. Specially the keep-learning part. All Agile did was put software development teams unfairly under a microscope. I believe Ag…

I was interested in comp sci precisely because I didn't have to talk to people, an area where every interaction is a performance. I want to be alone - what's so wrong with that?

There is nothing wrong with that, but careers under capitalism are about _signaling value_. I hope you find a place (or have found a place) where you're appreciated. :)

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#59

Post by andyroid »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #49
quadcore wrote: post #13

Agile never gave organizations a holistic, viable alternative to Waterfall. Because there’s a difference between theory and practice. Product work is more about practice. When we complain about “AINO” (Agile In Name Only), we’re not being honest with ourselves. I agree with most of the article. Specially the keep-learning part. All Agile did was put software development teams unfairly under a microscope. I believe Ag…

> You have to realise that before Agile, a fair portion of the software development projects that were started would simply bust and never get shipped. The code is a complete monster or the budget is nuked. This still happens, all the time?

The difference is that of ivory tower planning and the following phases of development, testing and a “big bang” release (waterfall) vs working with an MVP with the purpose of releasing as soon as possible and then work in iterations based off of actual feedback and demand (agile). If you manage to nuke your budget or create a monster of a code base already at the MVP stage no methodology is going to save you.

Re: Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)

#60

Post by [deleted] »

mcv wrote: post #48
emiliobumachar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subtler point is that if the developer won't make an estimate for how much time a feature will take, than the manager will . And the manager's estimate will tend to be even worse than the developer's, so we should all prefer that the developer makes the estimate even though it will be a bad estimate in an absolute scale. Note that the manager's estimate may be implicit or explicit, conscious or unconscious, but t…

The problem is that if the developer gives an estimate, the manager might hold him accountable to it. If the developer can't even meet his own estimate, that proves to the manager that he's a bad developer. (He's not; he's just bad at estimating development time, as is everybody else.) And that's what Scrum and story points are for: to help you make long term estimates once part of the work has been done . You use th…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN