Live data from Hacker News

Agile isn’t about speed, it’s about direction

tim.mcnamara.nz

1–10 of 66 posts

Re: Agile isn’t about speed, it’s about direction

#6
post #3

I thought agile was an elaborate scheme divised by energy vampires to drain the enthusiasm of developers through the use of rituals.

That's scrum. Scrum uses agile but agile is not scrum.

I think of scrum as a way to get work done under little to no established trust between leadership and ICs.

Isn’t that what the name supposed to evoke? Two groups locked in a push in opposite directions.

Re: Agile isn’t about speed, it’s about direction

#7
I guess the “No True Agile” crowd is as alive and well as they were 10 years ago. When it’s a failure, they always come out of the woodwork to let you know you weren’t doing it according to the orthodoxy. When you point out that it isn’t faster in practice, they gaslight you and claim that was never the point in the first place.

In a way it reminds me of a cult. You do a series arcane rituals that have no scientific evidence behind them, none of the process is data-driven or statistically proven. Frankly, it can’t die soon enough but as we all know some new hype will simply take its place to give busybody managers a reason to exist.

Re: Agile isn’t about speed, it’s about direction

#8
It's about both, it's just that ritualized Big-A Agile isn't about either. It's about the appearance of speed and selling certifications to companies and management that don't know better.

I think "velocity" (from Scrum) actually evoked the correct idea, but most people seem to forget that velocity != speed. Velocity is a pair, speed and direction. Raw speed is useless if you're heading the wrong way (e.g., towards a solution for the wrong problem because you didn't bother validating along the way).

Re: Agile isn’t about speed, it’s about direction

#9
Your semi-annual reminder that the promulgators of XP/Agile all came from the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System which failed miserably: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compens...

Beck, Jeffries, Fowler, Hendrickson, and Wells are examples of Failing Upward(tm) rather than any example of good programming to be emulated.

Re: Agile isn’t about speed, it’s about direction

#10
This quote summarises everything that is wrong with Agile.

>> rarely well implemented.

The Agile Manifesto was published in 2001, over two decades ago. After all this time, and the involvement of a lot of clever people, even Agile advocates are stating it is rarely well implemented. Doesn't that suggest that Agile, as a management technique, has failed?

True Agile is appears to be as elusive as the holy grail.

Post reply on HN