Agile Is a Glass Cannon
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Agile Is a Glass Cannon
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Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#2*shower thought
Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#3Good article.
I think the issue is the often 'higher ups' want 'Agile' as they've heard it is faster and/or cheaper - missing the part that it is faster and cheaper to fail with agile. If you know exactly what you want and are happy to wait, then an agile methodology probably isn't for you.
If you need to test something out or scratch an itch now, then agile might be a good fit (depending on the skills/buy in/experiences/interest of the team(s)). Forcing people to be Agile! does not work.
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I like to point out that very few house builders use agile methodologies to build a home.
But, if there was a storm tonight and you lost your home, then you might use an agile approach of borrowing a tent, then buying a trailer, then getting a static caravan, while you start building a basic toilet block, then adding on a kitchen and building a home iteratively, adding and releasing value early, that way.
The result would cost more than just building a house, but you'd have value sooner in terms of a place to sleep, wash and eat.
Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#4Anyone else notice Agile creeping in where it has no place being?
I’m suffering on an infrastructure transformation project — migrating complex apps to Azure — which insists on being Agile. It’s preposterous. I just started and already I’ve counted up 40 person-hours of time in ‘planning’ sessions.
I spent two hours in a room with an architect and a whiteboard and then one single day myself on Thursday building a schedule gasp for one of these apps that already contains 100x more information than the entirety of their Azure DevOps boards.
They’re shoe-horning infrastructure transformation in to ‘epics’ and ‘features’ and ‘sprints’ and who knows what the fuck they’re doing and next week I think I’m going to actually lose my shit and tell them they’re maniacs.
But hey. Who can be bothered actually planning a thing. Sounds hard! Let’s just make shit up every two weeks.
Agile done wrong is just people sliding Post-It® notes across the table at each other hoping that the thing will get done.
Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#5Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#6Good article. I think the issue is the often 'higher ups' want 'Agile' as they've heard it is faster and/or cheaper - missing the part that it is faster and cheaper to fail with agile. If you know exactly what you want and are happy to wait, then an agile methodology probably isn't for you. If you need to test something out or scratch an itch now , then agile might be a good fit (depending on the skills/buy in/experi…
The comparison to home building is not a good one - houses are things which are repeated, with customizations and slight modifications, and people are deeply familiar with houses. The closest analogy in the software world would be simple websites such as blog or easy shops, where e.g. a WordPress plus some customizations would be enough.
Software is completely different though. Building chatgpt is vastly different from building Google Maps, for instance. And on top of that, most interesting software projects are not mere copies of other projects, so the whole idea of the customer knowing what they want does not apply.
Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#7Anyone else notice Agile creeping in where it has no place being? I’m suffering on an infrastructure transformation project — migrating complex apps to Azure — which insists on being Agile. It’s preposterous. I just started and already I’ve counted up 40 person-hours of time in ‘planning’ sessions. I spent two hours in a room with an architect and a whiteboard and then one single day myself on Thursday building a sch…
>I just started and already I’ve counted up 40 person-hours of time in ‘planning’ sessions.
I mean this is what always bothered me about every implementation of "agile" I've seen. Agility has a definition, planning everything in minute detail is not in any way reconcilable with that definition. Scrum is the worst at this.
If you want to convince me of agile it has to be harmonious with the word definition. E.g. creating PoCs, playing around with actual code, iterating with the customer. As soon as you try planning everything you're not agile. You have a problem with being controlling. Point.
Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#8> success largely depends on the skill and experience of the individuals involved.
Yes. Well sort of. The key insight here is that in software at least, this is a pre-requisite anyhow. If you don't have skilled and/or experienced people, nothing will save you.
So you might as well tailor your process around the expectation of a certain amount of skill, because although you can't use process to save you, you can use process to f-ck up a team that would otherwise perform well.
However, my practical experience with agile includes taking a team of so-called low-performers and turning the team into one of the highest performing teams within the organisation. Using agile. (No fauxgile, no scrum, no standups, etc.)
Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#9Good article. I think the issue is the often 'higher ups' want 'Agile' as they've heard it is faster and/or cheaper - missing the part that it is faster and cheaper to fail with agile. If you know exactly what you want and are happy to wait, then an agile methodology probably isn't for you. If you need to test something out or scratch an itch now , then agile might be a good fit (depending on the skills/buy in/experi…
> I like to point out that very few house builders use agile methodologies to build a home.
Home construction often has milestones that are fairly comparable: 1) competition of the structural components, 2) drying in, 3) utilities, 3) drywall and Paint, and 4) Finishing.
Each of these are phases where they could theoretically stop. There are times in history and places in the present where people live in structures that don’t have windows and doors, or without utilities, etc.
However I would agree that they’re not marketed as viable until they’re close to finished.
Re: Agile Is a Glass Cannon
#10I have a question to non-agile people? How do you work and get things done?