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I absolutely disagree. There is no "True Scotsman" argument against Agile, IMO because there is no such thing as "true Agile". The best description I've heard

by exelius 11y ago

I absolutely disagree. There is no "True Scotsman" argument against Agile, IMO because there is no such thing as "true Agile". The best description I've heard of Agile is that it is the bare minimum amount of project management you can do on a project and still be successful. Beyond that, it's all about what works for each team. The entire f-ing point of Agile is that it's a generic framework you can adapt to many different business contexts. But there are still common reasons Agile methodologies fail. I don't know how many of these are really failures of "Agile" or just common mistakes that new teams in general make. But it doesn't really matter, because the two situations are often inextricable from each other.

Glide 11y ago
I concur wholeheartedly. I've had people claim that they do agile. No retrospectives or any kind of feedback loop in their processes. No modification of work tracking either. All of that customization was from the top. Basically breaking several core tenets right there... But I digress. We really need to accept that delivering is difficult to do. Creating new teams is a _hard_ thing to do. Delivering a project on time when the team wasn't formed at the beginning and had no input into the timeline is difficult. No matter what methodology you use there are things that can kill the project.
noarchy 11y ago
>There is no "True Scotsman" argument against Agile, IMO because there is no such thing as "true Agile". If Agile is so nebulous as a concept that it can't be defined (only vaguely described, at best), then perhaps it cannot fail. But it also cannot succeed, as it apparently doesn't exist. There may be teams for whom these management methodologies work, and good for them. I am genuinely curious about how much the success or failure of these methods have been studied.
- exelius 11y ago
  Agile can be defined, but at its core, Agile is a set of best practices that by definition can be ignored. It's a collection of optional components that can produce a functional process when cobbled together in the right way. But figuring out what works for a team is often a lot of trial and error, so a skilled "Agile practitioner" can help you look at what has worked for you, what hasn't, and suggest things to try. And you're right; when defined this way, Agile cannot fail. Agile isn't a magic bullet for your development team - at its core, Agile is a method by which dev teams can more or less self-organize around a set of generally agreed-upon processes. But it's up to each Agile team to develop those processes themselves. I have yet to see an Agile team fail because their Agile process failed. I have seen Agile teams fail because the team was too inexperienced to provide their own direction. I have seen Agile teams fail because the dev lead wanted to play dictator. I've seen Agile teams fail because their business counterparts kept changing the requirements and demanding impossible things of the dev team. I've never seen an Agile team fail because they couldn't figure out how to assign user stories or because they had no concept of release management. Sure, those things might be a disaster, but usually (after enough times going through some painful manual process) some developer steps up and says "Hey, I think I know a better way we can do this..." And those problems almost never endanger releases because Agile teams are by their very nature empowered to solve problems. Sure, the solution may have been inefficient and non-repeatable, but it worked.
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    >Agile can be defined I tend to find that if you line up 4 developers and ask them what agile is you'll get a minimum of 5 definitions.
    - exelius 11y ago
      Exactly my point, and why there is no such thing as "true Agile" or a true Scotsman argument to be made. And yes, I agree that the term Agile is largely meaningless at this point. Partly because nobody knows what it means, and partly because it's so ubiquitous there's no point calling it out on its own anymore.
- RUG3Y 11y ago
  I love your point. Cut right through the bull.
err4nt 11y ago
There's a difference between what an ideology is at its core, and how it is practiced by humans. In theory, christianity is a simple religion that strongly values charity, sacrifice for others, and selflessness. Yet when you look at people practicing christianity you see practices that go against these values. How can that be? Agile sounds great on paper, the tough part is actually acting in a way that's truly agile, without acting in an 'agile way'.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  The analogy between Christianity and Agile is actually quite apt in a fairly significant way: both were fairly explicitly founded in reaction against an excess focus on formalized, one-size-fits-all process over consideration of individuals in context, and both are realized in a wide variety of nominal implementation, many -- and perhaps the majority in each case -- of which have come back to an excessive focus on formalized, one-size-fits-all process over consideration of individuals in context.

by exelius 11y ago

Glide 11y ago

I concur wholeheartedly. I've had people claim that they do agile. No retrospectives or any kind of feedback loop in their processes. No modification of work tracking either. All of that customization was from the top. Basically breaking several core tenets right there... But I digress. We really need to accept that delivering is difficult to do. Creating new teams is a _hard_ thing to do. Delivering a project on time when the team wasn't formed at the beginning and had no input into the timeline is difficult. No matter what methodology you use there are things that can kill the project.

noarchy 11y ago

>There is no "True Scotsman" argument against Agile, IMO because there is no such thing as "true Agile". If Agile is so nebulous as a concept that it can't be defined (only vaguely described, at best), then perhaps it cannot fail. But it also cannot succeed, as it apparently doesn't exist. There may be teams for whom these management methodologies work, and good for them. I am genuinely curious about how much the success or failure of these methods have been studied.

exelius 11y ago
Agile can be defined, but at its core, Agile is a set of best practices that by definition can be ignored. It's a collection of optional components that can produce a functional process when cobbled together in the right way. But figuring out what works for a team is often a lot of trial and error, so a skilled "Agile practitioner" can help you look at what has worked for you, what hasn't, and suggest things to try. And you're right; when defined this way, Agile cannot fail. Agile isn't a magic bullet for your development team - at its core, Agile is a method by which dev teams can more or less self-organize around a set of generally agreed-upon processes. But it's up to each Agile team to develop those processes themselves. I have yet to see an Agile team fail because their Agile process failed. I have seen Agile teams fail because the team was too inexperienced to provide their own direction. I have seen Agile teams fail because the dev lead wanted to play dictator. I've seen Agile teams fail because their business counterparts kept changing the requirements and demanding impossible things of the dev team. I've never seen an Agile team fail because they couldn't figure out how to assign user stories or because they had no concept of release management. Sure, those things might be a disaster, but usually (after enough times going through some painful manual process) some developer steps up and says "Hey, I think I know a better way we can do this..." And those problems almost never endanger releases because Agile teams are by their very nature empowered to solve problems. Sure, the solution may have been inefficient and non-repeatable, but it worked.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >Agile can be defined I tend to find that if you line up 4 developers and ask them what agile is you'll get a minimum of 5 definitions.
  - exelius 11y ago
    Exactly my point, and why there is no such thing as "true Agile" or a true Scotsman argument to be made. And yes, I agree that the term Agile is largely meaningless at this point. Partly because nobody knows what it means, and partly because it's so ubiquitous there's no point calling it out on its own anymore.
RUG3Y 11y ago
I love your point. Cut right through the bull.

err4nt 11y ago

There's a difference between what an ideology is at its core, and how it is practiced by humans. In theory, christianity is a simple religion that strongly values charity, sacrifice for others, and selflessness. Yet when you look at people practicing christianity you see practices that go against these values. How can that be? Agile sounds great on paper, the tough part is actually acting in a way that's truly agile, without acting in an 'agile way'.

dragonwriter 11y ago
The analogy between Christianity and Agile is actually quite apt in a fairly significant way: both were fairly explicitly founded in reaction against an excess focus on formalized, one-size-fits-all process over consideration of individuals in context, and both are realized in a wide variety of nominal implementation, many -- and perhaps the majority in each case -- of which have come back to an excessive focus on formalized, one-size-fits-all process over consideration of individuals in context.