IBM Is Going Agile • Hacker News Board

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#31

Post by x0rg » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:34 PM UTC

a1b2c3 wrote: post #24

x0rg wrote: post #20

Enterprise companies are all going agile this year, I bet someone from Gartner is suggesting this shift... and the result is clearly not that effective.

Seriously, who instigates these fads? It's like every year there's some new business model that everyone follows like a bunch of lemmings. Last year (or the year before?) it was everyone working in the office (as opposed to at home) because someone at Yahoo! decreed that was the way to go.

You can just take it this way: if a company follow such stupid trends is a company worth leaving.

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#32

Post by metaphorm » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

if IBM says its "going agile" then its time to start funeral arrangements for agile.

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#33

Post by theandrewbailey » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

CountHackulus wrote: post #17

I worked at IBM for 5 years, and some of the teams I was on used "agile" development methods. In that they used the names, but our "scrums" were an hour long, in a meeting room, with everyone bringing their laptop. Management more than 1 level up expected waterfall-like development, so it all just meshed badly. I really don't hold out much hope that this is going to work out that well without a whole bunch of trainin…

My manager almost set up a regular "scrum" meeting a month ago. The lead programmer and I spoke up, disputed it, and got it changed.

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#34

Post by bcg1 » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:40 PM UTC

konradb wrote: post #10

I'd trust this all more if it was coming from the teams back up, rather than edict going down.

Also keep in mind this article is in the Wall Street Journal... take it with a grain of stock price PR salt... sadly developers and engineers at IBM are going to get the sh* end of that stick.

Anecdotally... we have a lot of IBM stuff here and had a consultant here last week teaching a class... he was an old guard IBMer, about to retire... every day he was here I was treated to at least 1 story about how great it used to be to work at IBM, and how those days are over.

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#35

Post by vonmoltke » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

CountHackulus wrote: post #17

I worked at IBM for 5 years, and some of the teams I was on used "agile" development methods. In that they used the names, but our "scrums" were an hour long, in a meeting room, with everyone bringing their laptop. Management more than 1 level up expected waterfall-like development, so it all just meshed badly. I really don't hold out much hope that this is going to work out that well without a whole bunch of trainin…

That sounds exactly like the DOD's idea of "agile". It's a nightmare, and made me consider agile a swear word by the time I left.

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#36

Post by ebiester » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

CountHackulus wrote: post #17

I worked at IBM for 5 years, and some of the teams I was on used "agile" development methods. In that they used the names, but our "scrums" were an hour long, in a meeting room, with everyone bringing their laptop. Management more than 1 level up expected waterfall-like development, so it all just meshed badly. I really don't hold out much hope that this is going to work out that well without a whole bunch of trainin…

I was a contractor for them in 2007-8 and the project was using the "agile" label back then. It was anything but agile, but I can see why so many people hate agile if their experiences were like that.

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#37

Post by Shivetya » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

tomelders wrote: post #25

Ouch. My heart goes out to all those men and women at IBM who are about to get "Agiled".

I always look at these announcements in the same way as gazing in on the office of some mid level executive where the bookshelf has a book for every business process type and programming language.

It is the old, "we do that" done for appearance sake, execution and actual knowledge rarely come in to play. If anything it is a club to wield to drive out those who management does not like; usually those who do get something done regardless of the the rules to prevent that

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#38

Post by raverbashing » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:50 PM UTC

jhallenworld wrote: post #5

I'm surprised that there is no mention of Rational Team Concert: http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/rtc Used in a big way to implement Agile within IBM and provides a nice coherent system for task management.

I'd rather unclog blocked toilets with my bare hands than touch anything with "Rational" on its name

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#39

Post by grecy » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:56 PM UTC

CountHackulus wrote: post #17

I worked at IBM for 5 years, and some of the teams I was on used "agile" development methods. In that they used the names, but our "scrums" were an hour long, in a meeting room, with everyone bringing their laptop. Management more than 1 level up expected waterfall-like development, so it all just meshed badly. I really don't hold out much hope that this is going to work out that well without a whole bunch of trainin…

I work at a Telco - you just described my daily activities perfectly.

Re: IBM Is Going Agile

#40

Post by davidgerard » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 4:57 PM UTC

chiph wrote: post #23

Pelerin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, just to be clear, the fact that it's being used by a big company, and/or referred to in the WSJ means it's useless?

Agile the concept has worth. I've been successful with it. But the term and phraseology have been co-opted by the PMI wonks to mean waterfall 2.0 -- The writing was on the wall as soon as "Certified Scrummaster" became a job requirement.

There's no good idea that can't be turned into a bad idea if you just do it hard enough.