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Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

mikehadlow.blogspot.co.uk

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Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#41

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

hpaavola wrote: post #36
briantakita wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agile is the new RUP. The main audience is shifting toward the shitties. It's the circle of life for cultural movements. Nothing wrong with Agile. It's just not my thing anymore.

By definition most companies, most teams and most individuals are average. There are very few really good developers and managers. What suits those few does not really matter. They will do great things not matter what. Agile works for most better than the alternatives.

Unless you have a very oddly skewed set of people, by the definition of average most people are average (or close to it)...

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#42

Post by briantakita »

hpaavola wrote: post #36
briantakita wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agile is the new RUP. The main audience is shifting toward the shitties. It's the circle of life for cultural movements. Nothing wrong with Agile. It's just not my thing anymore.

By definition most companies, most teams and most individuals are average. There are very few really good developers and managers. What suits those few does not really matter. They will do great things not matter what. Agile works for most better than the alternatives.

I agree.

As an engineer who aspires to be on the leading edge of the practice, I've become more picky with who I work with. Luckily, "those few" tend to also be picky and seek each other out.

When I first started out, I sought people who were entrepreneurial and innovative.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#43

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

jdlshore wrote: post #18
wpietri wrote: post #7

As somebody who has been involved in the Agile movement since before the term existed (I was using Extreme Programming in 2000 or 2001), I agree 100% with this. I definitely think the consultants get a good chunk of the blame. But as I explain in detail elsewhere [1], I think that happened because executives, the consultants' customers, were mainly interested in buying BS. Not consciously, but when they were offered…

This. So much this. I got involved with Extreme Programming in 2000. Loved it. Best thing since sliced bread, yadda yadda. I was completely spoiled for other kinds of work. So when that contract ended, I went looking for other opportunities to do XP. But guess what? In 2001, there weren't any. So I started teaching people how to do it. Bam! I'm a consultant. Several lean years later (I don't mean Lean, I mean ramen),…

"Believe it or not, things haven't really gotten worse since then. Actually, they've gotten a bit better. See, 2-5 years is about how long a not-really-Agile Agile team can survive before before things shudder to a complete halt. But not-quite-Agile was Actually. So. Much. Better. (I know! Who could believe it?) than what these terribly dysfunctional organizations were doing before that they're interested in making Agile work."

This.

Speaking as a manager struggling to get agile implemented properly I think this is key. Pseudo agile isn't great but it is way better than the pseudo waterfall (or just hacking - in the pejorative sense) that was in place before.

Organisational change is really hard. When the consequences of that change go against everything that's happened before and when they reach a long way from the place trying to make that change (including outside the organsiation to customers in many cases), it's even harder, but it is slowly happening.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#44

Post by vanderZwan »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #41
hpaavola wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition most companies, most teams and most individuals are average. There are very few really good developers and managers. What suits those few does not really matter. They will do great things not matter what. Agile works for most better than the alternatives.

Unless you have a very oddly skewed set of people, by the definition of average most people are average (or close to it)...

I think you missed the part where he implied that what programming culture considers "good" software is nothing short of a near-perfect to perfect technical implementation. In other words: what the other guy called "shitty" is actually the average.

See also the odd thing that most people consider themselves better than average, which by definition cannot be true.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#45

Post by alien3d »

I don't believe in agile. Agile come from inexperience project manager who tough programmer is cheap .The most problem this type of manager is,wanted to prove,if not from him company will gain zero income and income come from his negotiation and paperwork . Security,quality code all is abandon.It's about if the customer love it do it by hook or crook and wanted 110% quality .. In the end,customer is tired because changing of idea and implementation delay because didn't take counter measurement analysis on each request agile and time. both loose.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#47

Post by usea »

hpaavola wrote: post #38
collyw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No. Good software comes from understanding the needs of your customers and meetings those needs. Shitty developers have and will create awesome products just because they know what the users want and need." Depends what you class as "good software". My colleague left some code which "worked" and "met the needs" (at the time). I made a small change to the database it interacted with and it fell over. I had to go in a…

Of course technically better implementation is better if the only thing that changes is the technical quality of the implementation. But it does not follow that doing good software is a technical challenge. It does not matter how fast your algorithm is if nobody wants the results that it spits out. Defining good software is really hard task, but in general what I mean by it is that good software increases the well-be…

What happens when the needs of the customers or users change? What happens when your understanding of their needs was imperfect and needs to be updated? Is the software that met the old needs still good? Was it ever good?

What happens when the software could only ever meet the old needs, but is impossible to update to meet the new needs? Was it ever good?

Needs change. The ability for software to be altered to meet evolving needs is not simply a "technical quality of the implementation." It doesn't just have a faster algorithm. It's better software.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#48

Post by hpaavola »

usea wrote: post #47
hpaavola wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course technically better implementation is better if the only thing that changes is the technical quality of the implementation. But it does not follow that doing good software is a technical challenge. It does not matter how fast your algorithm is if nobody wants the results that it spits out. Defining good software is really hard task, but in general what I mean by it is that good software increases the well-be…

What happens when the needs of the customers or users change? What happens when your understanding of their needs was imperfect and needs to be updated? Is the software that met the old needs still good? Was it ever good? What happens when the software could only ever meet the old needs, but is impossible to update to meet the new needs? Was it ever good? Needs change. The ability for software to be altered to meet e…

I'm not sure what part we disagree here. Yes, technical quality matters. But it matters way less than delivering something that users need. And yes, better technical quality ceteris paribus equals better software.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#49

Post by usea »

hpaavola wrote: post #48
usea wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when the needs of the customers or users change? What happens when your understanding of their needs was imperfect and needs to be updated? Is the software that met the old needs still good? Was it ever good? What happens when the software could only ever meet the old needs, but is impossible to update to meet the new needs? Was it ever good? Needs change. The ability for software to be altered to meet e…

I'm not sure what part we disagree here. Yes, technical quality matters. But it matters way less than delivering something that users need. And yes, better technical quality ceteris paribus equals better software.

We disagree whether meeting the needs of your users is a technical challenge. The ability for software to meet changing needs is a technical quality of the software.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#50

Post by hpaavola »

usea wrote: post #49
hpaavola wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what part we disagree here. Yes, technical quality matters. But it matters way less than delivering something that users need. And yes, better technical quality ceteris paribus equals better software.

We disagree whether meeting the needs of your users is a technical challenge. The ability for software to meet changing needs is a technical quality of the software.

The ability for software to meet the needs is mostly a technical problem. After all, it is a feature of the implementation. But that is not the bigger problem. The bigger problem is to figure out the needs and that is not a tecnical problem.
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