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Flow Manifest(o)

flowmanifest.org

21–30 of 36 posts

Re: Flow Manifest(o)

#21
post #5

I enjoy these parodies very much, but on a deeper level, we need a good analysis of why this keeps happening. We've had many movements that have aimed for simplicity and commonsense and ended up a bureaucratic nightmare. Is there a way to actually achieve simplicity and commonsense?

The agile movement is alive and well, and has not become a bureaucratic nightmare.

The Agile movement is a movement which read the agile manifesto, said "Well I can't sell that, but I can sell something else and call it that", but it has little in common with the agile movement except name.

Some of the original agile signatories have moved over to the Agile movement.

Re: Flow Manifest(o)

#23
post #20
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, optimizing to a metric leads to problems, but it's better than optimizing to nothing. And those problems can be mitigated Citation needed. Elsewhere I've seen it claimed that actually, most people want to do a good job, and so any metric ends up doing more harm than good. And half of the suggestions in that twitter thread (keeping the metric private, changing it over time) seem to point in the direction of act…

> Elsewhere I've seen it claimed that actually, most people want to do a good job, and so any metric ends up doing more harm than good. Indeed. This is Goodhart’s Law.

Goodhart's Law is that the metric becomes an invalid measure. What I find interesting is the stronger claim, that performance on the thing you were actually trying to encourage will go down.

Re: Flow Manifest(o)

#24
post #19

A good companion for the flow manifest is eXtreme Go Horse: https://medium.com/@dekaah/22-axioms-of-the-extreme-go-horse... Axiom 8 is the most important.

jeez, too real. Also the horrors about Tesla

Re: Flow Manifest(o)

#25
post #15

Every company I’ve ever worked at talked about how new hires should be familiar with agile and scrum, and then proceeded to completely ignore either. Then hire coaches to try and make it happen and it didn’t. It not a knowledge problem, it’s a culture problem.

Culture eats processes for lunch. It is incredibly frustrating to join a new team, point out the very obvious misalignment between agile and what they are doing... and then become assimilated and just march on becoming part of that same culture.

> Culture eats processes for lunch.

Damn, that's a good way of putting it.

Re: Flow Manifest(o)

#27
post #5

I enjoy these parodies very much, but on a deeper level, we need a good analysis of why this keeps happening. We've had many movements that have aimed for simplicity and commonsense and ended up a bureaucratic nightmare. Is there a way to actually achieve simplicity and commonsense?

It doesn’t really offer solutions you’re after, but I keep coming back to this: https://www.atlasofplaces.com/essays/on-the-phenomenon-of-bu...

Re: Flow Manifest(o)

#28
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture eats processes for lunch. It is incredibly frustrating to join a new team, point out the very obvious misalignment between agile and what they are doing... and then become assimilated and just march on becoming part of that same culture.

> Culture eats processes for lunch. Damn, that's a good way of putting it.

It’s a well known quote by Peter drucker, of management book fame, though I think he disputes its origin slightly. It feels very close to “attitude is everything”.

Re: Flow Manifest(o)

#29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture eats processes for lunch. It is incredibly frustrating to join a new team, point out the very obvious misalignment between agile and what they are doing... and then become assimilated and just march on becoming part of that same culture.

> and then become assimilated and just march on becoming part of that same culture. haha this is so true. It basically always happens unless you walk away

Walking away is certainly a powerful tool, but it shouldn't be your only tool.

The old maxim is that every human problem has at least two answers: Voice and Exit. Exit is leaving - and you should never take that off the table. But Voice (speaking up, changing the culture around you) is incredibly powerful. Getting good at voice is to get good at leadership.

Strong leaders - at any level in an organisation - can change the culture around them, to a certain extent. For good or ill. Not all culture comes from outside of us. Some, we get to create.

Re: Flow Manifest(o)

#30
post #15

Every company I’ve ever worked at talked about how new hires should be familiar with agile and scrum, and then proceeded to completely ignore either. Then hire coaches to try and make it happen and it didn’t. It not a knowledge problem, it’s a culture problem.

Culture eats processes for lunch. It is incredibly frustrating to join a new team, point out the very obvious misalignment between agile and what they are doing... and then become assimilated and just march on becoming part of that same culture.

Unless you've been hired specifically to address a culture problem and been given the resources and powers with which to do so, don't be that guy. All the people who are in your immediate vicinity already know about the problems and they don't have the power to change it either.
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