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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

#51

Post by mattmanser »

hpaavola wrote: post #26

All these late "agile has failed" posts are out of touch with reality. They assume that it is always possible to get the best developers and best managers to work with the problem on hand. I'm a consultant. Officially my title is Senior Test Engineer and usually my job is to go to a company where shit has already hit the fan or will hit in a short time. The reality is that the company has a bunch of developers who ar…

I've read your comments a couple of times and still can't really see what you've added.

You're talking about very abnormal situations. Companies that are so technically incompetent they have to hire you.

And then saying that we should listen because in your abnormal experience of dealing with teams so dysfunctional they can't even ship bad software that agile at least gets them going a little bit.

I suspect almost any change would get them going a little bit as the change itself is the trigger.

EDIT: The more I think about it, the more your comment reminds me of the people defending the other fads of years gone past. Workflow diagrams, OOP-design (as a be-all-and-end-all process), UML, Worflow Engines, RAD tools. Your comment reminds me of the defences of them. These things worked because those desperate teams need a light to guide them, not because of the tool itself.

And with each of those tools, it turned out the tool itself is mainly counter-productive to functional teams. I think we're realising Agile is another of those false prophets.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#52

Post by twic »

mattmanser wrote: post #51
hpaavola wrote: post #26

All these late "agile has failed" posts are out of touch with reality. They assume that it is always possible to get the best developers and best managers to work with the problem on hand. I'm a consultant. Officially my title is Senior Test Engineer and usually my job is to go to a company where shit has already hit the fan or will hit in a short time. The reality is that the company has a bunch of developers who ar…

I've read your comments a couple of times and still can't really see what you've added. You're talking about very abnormal situations. Companies that are so technically incompetent they have to hire you. And then saying that we should listen because in your abnormal experience of dealing with teams so dysfunctional they can't even ship bad software that agile at least gets them going a little bit. I suspect almost an…

The question is whether this is abnormal or not. I suspect that it is not. That is, i suspect that there are many more mediocre-to-poor developers and managers out there than there are good-to-excellent ones.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#54

Post by hpaavola »

twic wrote: post #52
mattmanser wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read your comments a couple of times and still can't really see what you've added. You're talking about very abnormal situations. Companies that are so technically incompetent they have to hire you. And then saying that we should listen because in your abnormal experience of dealing with teams so dysfunctional they can't even ship bad software that agile at least gets them going a little bit. I suspect almost an…

The question is whether this is abnormal or not. I suspect that it is not. That is, i suspect that there are many more mediocre-to-poor developers and managers out there than there are good-to-excellent ones.

Exactly. Then the questions is how we can make most of us to perform better. The answer is not to "be excellent developer". The answer must be in the way we do things.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#55

Post by ctb_mg »

mattmanser wrote: post #51
hpaavola wrote: post #26

All these late "agile has failed" posts are out of touch with reality. They assume that it is always possible to get the best developers and best managers to work with the problem on hand. I'm a consultant. Officially my title is Senior Test Engineer and usually my job is to go to a company where shit has already hit the fan or will hit in a short time. The reality is that the company has a bunch of developers who ar…

I've read your comments a couple of times and still can't really see what you've added. You're talking about very abnormal situations. Companies that are so technically incompetent they have to hire you. And then saying that we should listen because in your abnormal experience of dealing with teams so dysfunctional they can't even ship bad software that agile at least gets them going a little bit. I suspect almost an…

I also disagree with the premise that these situations are very abnormal. Ours is a big field which expands outside of sunny California, where you can't walk a few feet without bumping into a rockstar coder. In the rest of the world where the mediocre is the status quo, Agile gets team members organized and motivated. Of course, if you could find rockstars, you'd hire them, solve many problems, and ship your product. Not everyone has the pleasure of that kind of engineer pool.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#56

Post by zimpenfish »

datawander wrote: post #6

The demotivation poster (we'll ask for estimates, but then treat them as deadlines) really strikes a chord because that is one of my major 'gripes' with the agile planning process. Particularly when a manager is heavily involved in that process. It may be no coincidence that the best projects I have been on are the ones where the manager deliberately stepped out of the room or was not a part of those phases of the pl…

Always double your estimates because management will cut them in half anyway.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#57

Post by hpaavola »

mattmanser wrote: post #51
hpaavola wrote: post #26

All these late "agile has failed" posts are out of touch with reality. They assume that it is always possible to get the best developers and best managers to work with the problem on hand. I'm a consultant. Officially my title is Senior Test Engineer and usually my job is to go to a company where shit has already hit the fan or will hit in a short time. The reality is that the company has a bunch of developers who ar…

I've read your comments a couple of times and still can't really see what you've added. You're talking about very abnormal situations. Companies that are so technically incompetent they have to hire you. And then saying that we should listen because in your abnormal experience of dealing with teams so dysfunctional they can't even ship bad software that agile at least gets them going a little bit. I suspect almost an…

The thing is that following situation is really common:

Company has an average team, maybe even bit worse + 1 good person. The managers are not that great either. Everything is average.

The team has been doing something, nobody really knows what, nobody really knows at what pace. Nobody knows what they should be doing.

Occasionally the company releases something which sells a bit and customers give some feedback. Mostly not that great.

When you tech them a bit of Scrum, help them get builds every night and help managers to try out the product once in a while (remeber, not all software is a website, some are airport weather observation systems). And help the company to get some of their customers to try out the software once in a while even though it is not "ready".

Suddenly the results of the team is visible to interest groups and interest groups needs are visible to developers, managers can get some idea of the velocity and everybody can have a better idea where we are, where we should go and when we might get there. Then iterate and improve.

What we have done here is that we improved the quality of the company with really little cost with our existing talent pool.

Yes, this is really common.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#58

Post by Tloewald »

hpaavola wrote: post #26

All these late "agile has failed" posts are out of touch with reality. They assume that it is always possible to get the best developers and best managers to work with the problem on hand. I'm a consultant. Officially my title is Senior Test Engineer and usually my job is to go to a company where shit has already hit the fan or will hit in a short time. The reality is that the company has a bunch of developers who ar…

If you get people who aren't customer focused, aren't testing, and are wasting huge amounts of time in pointless meetings focus on their customers, do continuous builds, tests, iterative releases, and have fewer meetings I suspect you can and will reap significant benefits.

But that isn't "agile" it's just some good practices with a label du jour. Good software companies were doing nightly builds twenty years ago (when doing such builds was a major technical accomplishment). The agile cargo cult against which the writer is ranting is far larger, more insidious, and counterproductive than that. E.g. Our project is infested with "release train engineers", "coaches", "rally consultants" and other highly paid morons who actively damage the project while claiming credit for any improvements we manage to accomplish behind their backs.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#59

Post by raverbashing »

collyw wrote: post #37
hpaavola wrote: post #26

All these late "agile has failed" posts are out of touch with reality. They assume that it is always possible to get the best developers and best managers to work with the problem on hand. I'm a consultant. Officially my title is Senior Test Engineer and usually my job is to go to a company where shit has already hit the fan or will hit in a short time. The reality is that the company has a bunch of developers who ar…

"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…

Good software is the one that fulfills a need and pays the bills, period.

The Moon Lander software on the Apollo spacecraft probably had several defects, was unmaintainable, but it got the job done several times.

MS-DOS had several defects, was more maintainable than the above software sure, but it transformed MS.

Sure, it is better when the software is maintainable, more flexible, etc, and I don't advocate against it. What I do advocate against is overthinking all of this and not shipping.

Re: Coconut Headphones: Why Agile Has Failed

#60

Post by efsavage »

hpaavola wrote: post #26

All these late "agile has failed" posts are out of touch with reality. They assume that it is always possible to get the best developers and best managers to work with the problem on hand. I'm a consultant. Officially my title is Senior Test Engineer and usually my job is to go to a company where shit has already hit the fan or will hit in a short time. The reality is that the company has a bunch of developers who ar…

Agree. "Agile" methologies are a great way for:

1. Good managers to manage new or mediocre engineers. 2. Good engineers to control new or mediocre managers.

No system will completely mitigate bad managers or bad engineers, and if they're both good the right system will manifest itself.

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