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Sprint is jargon and jargon alienates newcomers. One of the goals of this team is to teach the government a new way of working. The article title would be muc

by kzhahou 11y ago

Sprint is jargon and jargon alienates newcomers. One of the goals of this team is to teach the government a new way of working. The article title would be much better as: > "How a two-day cross-functional team moved an agency twenty years forward" I'll go even further and say that Agile terminology should be avoided as much as possible, as we have already seen it corrupted into anti-Agile in the enterprise. Stick to the basics (short work cycles, cross-functional teams, clear explicit goals, quick constant feedback, etc) and a new organization will better maintain the true intent of Agile, rather than mindlessly cargo-culting the structures (sprint, iterations, agile team, scrum board, etc).

sp332 11y ago
It's possible to teach new ideas without using new words, but I don't think it's unreasonable to include new terms to indicate the new ideas.
brudgers 11y ago
"Sprint" and "agile" are googlable. There is a stable body of literature to support a person adopting the terms when communicating about workflow processes...even a person who doesn't agree with their utility has the opportunity to at least know exactly what they are objecting to. "Sprint" connotates a methodology. "Cross functional team" barely describes personnel vaguely.
justinkramp 11y ago
>as we have already seen it corrupted into anti-Agile in the enterprise I've definitely experienced this. A large waterfall development group decides to call themselves Agile. They start proclaiming their mutant fast-waterfall as the One True Agile, adopting terms and structures to appear Agile. Then you get invited to the hour-long "standups" attended by dozens of un-involved people, "stories" that amount to poorly worded system requirements, "grooming sessions" filled with chickens and "sprints" with development/release cycles that look oddly similar to what we had before they started calling themselves Agile. It's just a rapid waterfall. Call it "rapid waterfall," or just keep calling it "waterfall" and increase your velocity. It confuses things when people that have worked in Agile shops come around and try to understand what you're doing. Sidenote - I'd probably title the article "How a ten-person team moved a government agency forward twenty years in two days." The permalink says "spring" so "sprint" is an improvement on the draft title anyhow. :)
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  But despite the piled-on bogosity, it still achieves some measure of incremental development. And because of this, it also achieve some measure of flexibility. Which are two of the main benefits of Agile (the third being efficiency due to process refinement). So as far as enterprisey stuff goes, it's really not that (relatively) bad.
  - justinkramp 11y ago
    You're right, it's not that bad from a delivery perspective. We're getting some stuff faster than before. To some degree my frustration is in the semantics. It does get practical when bringing someone onboard who has worked in a traditional Agile shop and it's like re-learning everything to figure out what we're doing.
spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
Amen! Can i get a witness!

by kzhahou 11y ago

sp332 11y ago

It's possible to teach new ideas without using new words, but I don't think it's unreasonable to include new terms to indicate the new ideas.

brudgers 11y ago

"Sprint" and "agile" are googlable. There is a stable body of literature to support a person adopting the terms when communicating about workflow processes...even a person who doesn't agree with their utility has the opportunity to at least know exactly what they are objecting to. "Sprint" connotates a methodology. "Cross functional team" barely describes personnel vaguely.

justinkramp 11y ago

>as we have already seen it corrupted into anti-Agile in the enterprise I've definitely experienced this. A large waterfall development group decides to call themselves Agile. They start proclaiming their mutant fast-waterfall as the One True Agile, adopting terms and structures to appear Agile. Then you get invited to the hour-long "standups" attended by dozens of un-involved people, "stories" that amount to poorly worded system requirements, "grooming sessions" filled with chickens and "sprints" with development/release cycles that look oddly similar to what we had before they started calling themselves Agile. It's just a rapid waterfall. Call it "rapid waterfall," or just keep calling it "waterfall" and increase your velocity. It confuses things when people that have worked in Agile shops come around and try to understand what you're doing. Sidenote - I'd probably title the article "How a ten-person team moved a government agency forward twenty years in two days." The permalink says "spring" so "sprint" is an improvement on the draft title anyhow. :)

tbrownaw 11y ago
But despite the piled-on bogosity, it still achieves some measure of incremental development. And because of this, it also achieve some measure of flexibility. Which are two of the main benefits of Agile (the third being efficiency due to process refinement). So as far as enterprisey stuff goes, it's really not that (relatively) bad.
- justinkramp 11y ago
  You're right, it's not that bad from a delivery perspective. We're getting some stuff faster than before. To some degree my frustration is in the semantics. It does get practical when bringing someone onboard who has worked in a traditional Agile shop and it's like re-learning everything to figure out what we're doing.

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago

Amen! Can i get a witness!