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Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

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Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#51

Post by marcosdumay »

MartinCron wrote: post #48
jarrett wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. I like your metaphor of lead bullets. There's no silver bullet that will win a war, but you sure aren't going to win without putting the lead bullets in the right places.

To torture the armory metaphor further, there are also land mines that you would want to avoid to keep from getting limbs blown off. In that metaphor, traditional waterfall is a land mine filled with plutonium shrapnel and anthrax spores.

Well, unless when it isn't.

Some times you have a clear and well understood problem, and failures are very expensive. You'd be crazy to work on such kinds of environments with anything but waterfall.

Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#53

Post by michaelochurch »

kabdib wrote: post #46
Killah911 wrote: post #10

the notion that developers somehow intuitively know agile and management is ruining it is straight up BS. I know plenty of developers who jump on bandwagon x and then without any understanding proceed to screw the pooch for all of us. The drive to look smart is so important to some(maybe most) people that they'll gladly throw the whole team under the bus so they don't have to appear to not know. Believe it or not, I'…

> the notion that developers somehow intuitively know agile and management is ruining it is straight up BS Not in my experience. If there are a bunch of PMs and managers, you're going to find that they keep right on doing management and PM stuff, no matter what Agile Manifesto they think they latched onto. Management: "This project is going to take you 13 sprints." Right away, you're in trouble. Management: "What's w…

To make it really work, you have to start nuking job positions. And at a big company that is hard.

Bingo. You know the MacLeod Pyramid (Losers, Clueless, and Sociopaths)? Most of "Agile" methodology is Revenge of the Clueless. It's a great way to replace a company with one long meeting that never ends.

Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#54

Post by marcosdumay »

gutnor wrote: post #50
MartinCron wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even agree that Scrum is agile. It's a one-size-fits-all prescriptive methodology with rigidly defined schedules, rituals, and roles. If I had the memory erasing device from the Men In Black movies, I would use it on people who advocate for by-the-book scrum.

Scrum is agile. You are not supposed to implement everything that's in it - even better, you are supposed to pick one stuff at a time if you face the specific problem the new stuff is supposed to solve. Adding/Removing stuff is the whole purpose of the retrospective, the last feedback loop of scrum, feedback on the process itself. That should be the first thing you add and the last thing you remove. "By-the-book" scr…

I hate doing that, but:

RUP is agile. You are not supposed to implement everything that's in it - even better, you are supposed to pick one stuff at a time if you face the specific problem the new stuff is supposed to solve.

Don't you really see a problem on describing a ton of rigid procedures, that only work well in concert, and expect people to "pick just the ones that are usefull, be reasonable"?

Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#55

Post by exelius »

All this Agile purism is great. I'm glad we're having the discussion, because that's how we can breed some understanding. The only problem with "pure" Agile is that it doesn't scale past 10 or so developers. If you're developing a sufficiently complex product, you need process. You need specs that can be distributed to other teams so they can build around the planned changes your team is making to its module.

This can be done in a pseudo-Agile way and coupled with a continuous integration process, which is what most companies call "Agile". Releases get cut every few sprints, so the product guys are happy. Developers hate it because all process that interferes with coding is bad, but it's still better than a traditional 6 month waterfall cycle.

It's not really Agile if you're being a purist, but it's a good compromise that keeps the business happy with the visibility they get while still releasing code on a relatively short cycle. There will always be process in any sufficiently large organization, since we all have different opinions on how to do things but we need to be on the same page.

Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#56

Post by michaelochurch »

I don't care to compare XP vs. Scrum vs. Kanban vs. Lean. That's just an array of banners for MacLeod Clueless, a way for them to form initiatives and conflicts that don't really matter.

The top-down closed-allocation organization cannot hit technical high notes. At that, it is unfixable. The best solution (see: large companies) is to let your best people work in an effectively open-allocation setting (while the peons toil under closed allocation) but, as has been discussed in other threads, that becomes politically difficult.

Rather than trying to fix closed allocation, which we can't, we should be throwing it out. It might work for a hedge fund that can afford to pay $5 million per year to a mediocre trader. It doesn't work for tech. Never did, never will.

Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#57

Post by [deleted] »

michaelochurch wrote: post #53
kabdib wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the notion that developers somehow intuitively know agile and management is ruining it is straight up BS Not in my experience. If there are a bunch of PMs and managers, you're going to find that they keep right on doing management and PM stuff, no matter what Agile Manifesto they think they latched onto. Management: "This project is going to take you 13 sprints." Right away, you're in trouble. Management: "What's w…

To make it really work, you have to start nuking job positions. And at a big company that is hard. Bingo. You know the MacLeod Pyramid (Losers, Clueless, and Sociopaths)? Most of "Agile" methodology is Revenge of the Clueless. It's a great way to replace a company with one long meeting that never ends.

[deleted]

Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#58

Post by Communitivity »

I think it is important to note that the Agile manifesto does not say we don't need the things on the right. Instead it says value the things on the left over the things on the right. For example it doesn't say you only need people, no process - that would be ridiculous. What it does say is that people are more important than process. In other words, make your processes fit your people not your people fit your process. Processes and tools are a good thing...if you use them as aids rather than straightjackets. As a final thought, consider the quote 'Justice, tempered by Mercy'. I hope that we can all agree that all justice, no mercy would be very bad. I hope we can all also agree all mercy, no justice would be very bad. We need both, one tempered by the other, just as we need both sides of the Agile manifesto list -- as long as we value the items on the left more.

Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#59

Post by SnacksOnAPlane »

Stratoscope wrote: post #34
jarrett wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is it that keeps you shipping working code every day? That's not the state of nature, you've clearly made some kind of decision to do that. Good question. If you mean: "Why do you choose to ship code?" then I suppose it's my desire to please my clients and stay employed. If you mean: "How do you manage it?" then it's what I hinted at earlier: Good intuition, experience, a precise and logical mind, and thoughtf…

I thought you must be kidding about the "hammer-centric methodology": Do companies actually say they have a "tool-centric methodology"? Then I remembered one I saw just the other day: > We offer a highly configurable Agile and tools-based software development methodology They also have an "execution-focused leadership team" and "offer a number of flexible outcome-oriented engagement models assuring the success of our…

Oooh, you can work on Web 2.0 AND 3.0. I'm not sure if Web 3.0 is backwards compatible, though.

Re: Agile Is Dead: The Angry Developer Version

#60

Post by pnathan »

mildtrepidation wrote: post #9
pnathan wrote: post #2

I've seen this cycle a few times. Let me handwave how it goes: * Agile Critisism: The snake oil is all over and getting worse! * Agilista: It's not done properly ! * Agile Criticism: No True Scotsman! I think the NTS is where things usually leave the line and end up in a lot of splutters and anecdotes. Sometimes I wonder if the great flamewars and their arguments should be canonized into standard textfiles and passed…

This seems illogically dismissive, unless you're criticizing the lack of actual discourse instead of the critics as a group, which I'm not really clear on. It comes off as "The Other Side has nothing to go on but insults and logical fallacies."

If someone wants to intelligently go after the Agilist community or intelligently defend it, they are my guest. But frankly, both sides throw anecdata, insults, fallacies, and feelgoodisms out there by the truckload.

Further remark: I figured I'd just bypass the otherwise-upcoming NTS yell and just clear the air so we could all go for the random anecdata and general arguments about Waterfall! Bad Agile! Scrum Masters! and how they caused problems.

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