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Atleast two signatories if Agile Manifest has stated that the movement has lost its way [1][2]. I think it never had a chance. With the old waterfall model, pr

Atleast two signatories if Agile Manifest has stated that the movement has lost its way [1][2]. I think it never had a chance. With the old waterfall model, projcet managers had some power : they could continuosly interrupt engineers and ask them to do more and more since project went in one trajectory for years. They were justified since the engineers had plenty of 'downtime'. Engineers had some power, the project never changed direction and they could work out the design and implement it carefully, managing technical risk. When Agile came along, the idea was to change direction every two weeks, but within the two weeks the team does not take on any distractions. I suspect this delicate balance of power was created, not out of a sense of fairness, but for efficiency. But when the people in power saw this they said : 'I will take these parts of the methodology that are useful to me and ignore these parts that are not useful'. Cue the 50 point stories, sprint abortions, mid-sprint story additions etc. Question the reasoning and you are labelled anti-agile. I suppose this was the only way it could go. [1] http://blog.toolshed.com/2015/05/the-failure-of-agile.html http://blog.toolshed.com/2015/05/the-failure-of-agile.html [2] https://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill-agile/ https://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill-agile/

dominotw 11y ago
>Atleast two signatories if Agile Manifest has stated that the movement has lost its way [1][2]. At one of the clients I was working at, they bought in Martin Fowler to the site, who was being touted as one of the 'inventors' of agile methodology. Agile was being sold as a silver bullet and thoughtworks the deliverer of the software nirvana. the irony of "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" was not lost on anyone.
parasubvert 11y ago
" Engineers had some power, the project never changed direction and they could work out the design and implement it carefully, managing technical risk." I've seen the opposite more often: Many a waterfall had poor assumptions made up front without a lot of technical risk management afterwards beyond "helicopter parenting" from architects. Most successful agile teams I run into, engineers hold most if not all of the power to design and implement - the product owner wields ultimate power over function and priority. "When Agile came along, the idea was to change direction every two weeks, but within the two weeks the team does not take on any distractions. " That's Scrum's approach. Modern XP Shops I've tended to see adopt iterationless approaches, where there is a retro and planning session every week or so, but not really to recognize "iterations" per se. Features are delivered when they're delivered, deployments and releases are automated so they can happen whenever the product owner wants. Biggest point of success, however is to eliminate project management as we usually know it. There's a product owner, and a product manager and they are usually an empowered customer paired with someone that knows how to build "products", ie. A focus on learning and testing rather than the certainty demanded of most projects. Project managers become at best glue players that protect the team from organizational antibodies.

dominotw 11y ago

>Atleast two signatories if Agile Manifest has stated that the movement has lost its way [1][2]. At one of the clients I was working at, they bought in Martin Fowler to the site, who was being touted as one of the 'inventors' of agile methodology. Agile was being sold as a silver bullet and thoughtworks the deliverer of the software nirvana. the irony of "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" was not lost on anyone.

parasubvert 11y ago

" Engineers had some power, the project never changed direction and they could work out the design and implement it carefully, managing technical risk." I've seen the opposite more often: Many a waterfall had poor assumptions made up front without a lot of technical risk management afterwards beyond "helicopter parenting" from architects. Most successful agile teams I run into, engineers hold most if not all of the power to design and implement - the product owner wields ultimate power over function and priority. "When Agile came along, the idea was to change direction every two weeks, but within the two weeks the team does not take on any distractions. " That's Scrum's approach. Modern XP Shops I've tended to see adopt iterationless approaches, where there is a retro and planning session every week or so, but not really to recognize "iterations" per se. Features are delivered when they're delivered, deployments and releases are automated so they can happen whenever the product owner wants. Biggest point of success, however is to eliminate project management as we usually know it. There's a product owner, and a product manager and they are usually an empowered customer paired with someone that knows how to build "products", ie. A focus on learning and testing rather than the certainty demanded of most projects. Project managers become at best glue players that protect the team from organizational antibodies.