Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in • Hacker News Board

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#141

Post by ivanbakel » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

boffinAudio wrote: post #101

ivanbakel wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This just indicates a failure to perform a proper Analysis/Specification/Requirements phase, with relevant qualifications steps. It doesn't matter if you're a Manager or a lowly Developer - if you can't adequately qualify the requirements and specifications, the analysis is simply not complete. But that view of requirements is not borne out by the reality for most projects. You're presuming that it's possible to gat…

If you can't formulate actionable requirements, you're either not the domain expert, or not communicating properly with the domain expert. What your service looks like now and what it looks like in five years are obviously two different questions, but a proper analysis will divide the issue between now and 5 years from now and come up with requirements that fill the gaps. This doesn't mean things get set in stone and…

>but a proper analysis will divide the issue between now and 5 years from now and come up with requirements that fill the gaps

The issue with the Waterfall model is that this approach doesn't work. Aiming for "now" means you come out with an outdated product in the future. Aiming for "5 years from now" means speculating on what users will eventually want, which is very error-prone. Trying to adjust course midway through is a nightmare - and completely defeats the point of trying to get requirements "right" the first time.

>You can of course empirically interact, by wearing the user hat.

This is not empirical: it does not involve observation or measurement of the real world. Speculating about user behaviour is no substitute for concrete data about how users actually behave.

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#142

Post by lupire » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 1:47 PM UTC

boffinAudio wrote: post #72

frant-hartm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a natural process that every issue goes through: Analysis, Specifications, Requirement, Design .. then the Developer takes in the materials of each of these steps, does an Implementation and Testing phase .. then the issue has to be validated/verified with a Qualification step, and then it gets released to the end user/product owner, who sign off on it. If you do this feature by feature than you have descr…

I've worked on all kinds of projects, and every single time the project failed, the tooling and methodology were blamed, not the individuals. This is the #1 cause of failed software projects - the inability for individuals to take responsibility for parts of the workflow, for which they are incompetent , and not subsequently working on improving that competence at an individual level. But true, breaking larger proble…

> Adherence to a cargo-cult is a function of laziness, not competence.

Why doesn't this claim apply to Waterfall?

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#143

Post by lupire » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

kinbiko wrote: post #50

xondono wrote: post #9

To this day I still don’t understand how one can read the agile manifesto and somehow get to scrum. The whole thing is about processes, and tools (jira)… the complete opposite. The reason everyone ends up doing waterfall is that it’s not the devs who you need to convince when selling agility, is the chain of command. Being agile means having no long term plan. If the C-suite can’t handle that, you’ll never be agile.

> To this day I still don’t understand how one can read the agile manifesto and somehow get to scrum. It's almost like scrum pre-dates the agile manifesto. (Which it does)

Scrune advocates contributed to the Agile Manifesto, though. They are aligned.

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#144

Post by CraigJPerry » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

boffinAudio wrote: post #65

CraigJPerry wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Royce argued that only in small software systems can you do a little bit of analysis then a little bit of coding then be done with the project. He proposed waterfall as a way to build larger software systems. He argued that these 2 steps were the only direct value steps in developing software - figure out what the problem is then write a little code to solve it - he acknowledged this was the perfect ideal since the t…

Agile has failed the industry precisely because the other steps are NOT BS. Unfortunately, de-programming Agile-adherents is more work than actually just doing those natural, proper steps.

The problem is even more fundamental than that. The point of these extra steps in Royce's eyes is to ensure the developers deliver exactly what the customer ordered. Page 335 - "Step 5: Involve the Customer" - Royce wants to push design risk to the customer by committing the customer to sign off specific requirements along the way.

This leaves the project open to delivering the wrong thing. It doesn't matter that the customer specified the wrong thing and everyone else implemented exactly what was asked for, because in the end you all failed to meet the original goal - to solve a specific business problem through the introduction of a software system.

Agile recognises that no one knows exactly what's needed ahead of time - Royce kind of recognises this but only for the software developers with his idea to build then throw away the first system then deliver the second ground up re-write to the customer.

Agile says we'll all learn together as we build, we'll minimise risk at every step by only taking such small steps each iteration that we're completely happy to throw the iteration in the bin if we got it wrong.

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#145

Post by OneTimePetes » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

boffinAudio wrote: post #10

I've never quite understood, over 30 years of experience in software development, what problems Waterfall presented that warranted a complete refactor of software development processes such that things are now very much in cult-/cargo-cult territory. There is a natural process that every issue goes through: Analysis, Specifications, Requirement, Design .. then the Developer takes in the materials of each of these ste…

Its the symbolism- returning to a earlier stage of planing. Take building a house- the moment you have to redraw the plans, the previous work is usually a tear-down.

Often enough - that is the case in the real world. Berlin Airport, was a waterfall project, were several times additions were added, late in production.

Now that image carries only halfway into the software world, as alot of the other abstractions (classes, modules, interfaces) will survive, even a replanning and rewrite in waterfall.

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#146

Post by g051051 » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

sornaensis wrote: post #40

In my few years working as a dev, I am absolutely convinced that scrum and agile are the worst possible development practices you can have from the perspective of a developer, even though they are sold as 'developer centric' or that seems to be the impression a lot of people have at least. It makes no sense at all to me to constantly have work interrupted with customer meetings that produce NO concrete specifications…

> In my few years working as a dev, I am absolutely convinced that scrum and agile are the worst possible development practices you can have from the perspective of a developer, even though they are sold as 'developer centric' or that seems to be the impression a lot of people have at least.

33 years for me, and Agile is by far the worst thing to happen to software development (and developers) that I've seen. That, and open-plan offices.

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#147

Post by g051051 » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

lbriner wrote: post #116

sornaensis wrote: post #40

In my few years working as a dev, I am absolutely convinced that scrum and agile are the worst possible development practices you can have from the perspective of a developer, even though they are sold as 'developer centric' or that seems to be the impression a lot of people have at least. It makes no sense at all to me to constantly have work interrupted with customer meetings that produce NO concrete specifications…

It makes a lot of sense, which is why a lot of people follow it. Your comment is implying that somehow 1000s of people around the world don't realise they are doing something stupid. You are portraying a poorly run implementation of agile as the only way and then destroying it. We call it a straw-man. * My development team are rarely interuppted with customer meetings * The meetings we have will always have outcomes,…

> Your comment is implying that somehow 1000s of people around the world don't realise they are doing something stupid.

Agile and scrum have now been around long enough that large numbers of devs have never known anything else. So yes, they don't realize they're doing something stupid.

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#148

Post by ochronus » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

Yup, when people (semi-blindly?) adopt a process but not the principles, this happens. There are a tons of fallacies in product development on multiple sides... also trenches too deep between disciplines sometimes. These are hard to fix.

I've written a short one about some typical fallacies: https://leadership.garden/product-development-fallacies/

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#149

Post by mtVessel » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

drran wrote: post #126

lelanthran wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agile (if the culture incentivises honestly) does have the benefit of feedback. Doesn't Waterfall incorporate feedback? In my memory and experience, it does. My memory of learning Waterfall back in the early 90s is a bit hazy, but I distinctly remember that one of the advantages touted was that mistakes earlier in the process of developing software are cheaper to fix than mistakes later in the process (no matter wh…

> Doesn't Waterfall incorporate feedback? In my memory and experience, it does. No, by definition. Do you see a stream of water back to the beginning of waterfall in any waterfall on the planet? Nope.

Read the original paper [1]. By definition, treating the steps as iterative is a recommended practice.

[1] http://www-scf.usc.edu/~csci201/lectures/Lecture11/royce1970...

Re: Even with Agile and Scrum waterfall will sneak in

#150

Post by ryathal » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

boffinAudio wrote: post #106

pjc50 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are properly isolating your work into an "Analysis" phase, you will properly flesh out the issues and the subsequent specifications and requirements will be complete - sufficient to the task of formulating a development/implementation plan. But if you don't take care to complete a proper analysis - then no, you won't formulate specs or req's properly, either. But what if that doesn't happen? (This seems to p…

>Australian dollars Perhaps Waterfall (and its cousins) needs an addendum: Check for and Remove Corruption.

Honestly it's mostly incompetence that is the problem and waterfall magnifies incompetence.