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>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
by 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 agoAgile 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 agoExactly 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 agoI love your point. Cut right through the bull.