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Seven Things I Hate About Agile

blog.assembla.com

21–30 of 124 posts

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#21
post #5

I cant decide if this article is sarcasm or not. It makes me think about how there is no methodology that is the savior of developers everywhere. You may be able to find some operational efficiency choosing one methodology over another, but at the end of the day you either have developers that can write the code, or not.

It's not sarcasm. It's a chance for me to unload the real doubts I have had about using the word "agile". I'll be more positive from here on.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#22
So who the hell are Assembla and why should anybody care what they have to say? All I'm seeing here is a lot of misinformed ranting. Sure, there's a kernel or two of truth hidden away in there, but most good rants have that. I don't see that TFA makes any sort of interesting point or arrives at any real conclusion that's helping anybody make a decision though.

Oh wait, I'm almost 40, so I guess I'm too busy decaying into compost to know anything about this stuff. Never mind me..

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#23
post #17

The thing that doesn't work for me in Agile: being treated like a baby and spoon fed little bits of work with little room for responsibility, initiative, creativity and a personal touch. Agile is great if you are a mediocre manager and you want to run a place full of replaceable cogs, but not so great if you want a place that pushes the boundaries and consistently goes the extra mile

The thing that doesn't work for me in Agile: being treated like a baby and spoon fed little bits of work with little room for responsibility, initiative, creativity and a personal touch.

Agile doesn't prevent any of those things. Actually, "agile" doesn't "do" anything, since "agile" is just an adjective that describes a set of values that a number of development methodologies have in common.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#24
What do [Scrum Masters] do?

I'm sorry, but if you don't know the answer to this question, you're not familiar enough with agile to write intelligently about it. If you're going to write about a technique, you should at least know the basic concepts, whether you agree with them or not. And pretending ignorance for effect doesn't add much to the discussion.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#25
I totally agree about the scrum master role. I have never understood the need for a scrum master when there are product managers and tech leads. Scrum masters usually don't have technical or product experience. I think some product managers just hire scrum masters to do their grunt work.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#26
post #5

I cant decide if this article is sarcasm or not. It makes me think about how there is no methodology that is the savior of developers everywhere. You may be able to find some operational efficiency choosing one methodology over another, but at the end of the day you either have developers that can write the code, or not.

It's not sarcasm. It's a chance for me to unload the real doubts I have had about using the word "agile". I'll be more positive from here on.

That is really great to hear, it would be awesome to really read some real stuff besides analogies. By real stuff I mean situations, so all people can learn from them.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#27

So who the hell are Assembla and why should anybody care what they have to say? All I'm seeing here is a lot of misinformed ranting. Sure, there's a kernel or two of truth hidden away in there, but most good rants have that. I don't see that TFA makes any sort of interesting point or arrives at any real conclusion that's helping anybody make a decision though. Oh wait, I'm almost 40, so I guess I'm too busy decaying…

Note the last line: 'If you are interested in new solutions to some of the issues listed above, please follow this blog over the next few weeks.'

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#28

So who the hell are Assembla and why should anybody care what they have to say? All I'm seeing here is a lot of misinformed ranting. Sure, there's a kernel or two of truth hidden away in there, but most good rants have that. I don't see that TFA makes any sort of interesting point or arrives at any real conclusion that's helping anybody make a decision though. Oh wait, I'm almost 40, so I guess I'm too busy decaying…

Yeah, I stopped reading at "Old People", and I am not even in that demographic. Wholesale discounting all wisdom in an entire segment of people with lots of experience in the very field you work in is rarely a good idea. I mean what's up with Knuth being so old? Some young guy should finish out TAoCP and show him how its done.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here - I can make an observation about old people because I myself am 49 years old. I'm not making a value judgement about older people. That would be ageism. I'm observing that the attendees "agile" events tend to be older than most programmers, and even most IT staff. That's just demographics. Why is that? That affects a lot of things.

I can make an observation about old people because I myself am 49 years old That doesn't make any logical sense. All that suggests is that you have n=1 experience with people over the age of forty. As for observing that agile events in your neck of the woods are full of older people, there are many, many possible explanations for this and your blog post advances one without providing evidence that it is anything othe…

I don't make a conjecture about the reason that agile events skew to an older crowd because I really, really don't know why it is true. I do know that it changes the whole perception of the effort. So, I have to be careful when I use the word "agile". It's got a demographic implication that isn't positive, isn't "us" for many younger people. You can argue about the wisdom of my saying it this way, but the word has a real demographic and emotional association. This article is a chance to express my doubts about the word "agile". It's done. I'll be more positive from here on out.

CMM and PMP are basically anti-agile. They are useful, but useful for projects that just shouldn't be agile. The fact that agile events attract a similar demographic isn't a positive, in my opinion.

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